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The 90/180 rule, explained

If you don’t need a visa for the Schengen area, or you travel on a short-stay Schengen visa, you can stay up to 90 days in any 180-day period. The rule sounds simple, but it is a rolling count, not a calendar allowance.

The rule in one sentence

On any day you are in the Schengen area, the days you have spent there in the 180 days ending on that day (that day included) must not be more than 90.

Three details follow from that sentence:

  • The window moves. It is not January–June and July–December. Every day has its own 180-day window: the day itself plus the 179 days before it.
  • Partial days are full days. The day you enter and the day you leave both count, whatever the time.
  • One counter for the whole area. Days in France, Spain, Germany and every other Schengen country are added together.

Which countries count

The Schengen area has 29 countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Days in Ireland and Cyprus don’t count towards the Schengen total. Both are in the EU but not in the Schengen area, and Cyprus applies its own rules. Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican have no regular border checks with their neighbours, and how days spent there are treated in practice is pending verification.

Worked examples

Each example below comes from our automated tests. The first, second and fourth outcomes also match the European Commission’s calculator.

1. Exactly 90 days is fine, 91 is not. You enter on 1 January 2026 and leave on 31 March 2026: that is 90 days (31 + 28 + 31), so you are within the limit. Leave on 1 April instead and 1 April is day 91, an overstay.

2. When can you come back after a full 90 days? After that 1 January – 31 March stay, the window of 29 June still reaches back to 1 January, so 29 June would be day 91. 30 June is the first possible entry. From then on one old day drops out for every new day you add, and you can stay a full 90 days again, until 27 September.

3. Leaving doesn’t reset the counter. You spend 60 days in the area (1 January – 1 March), go home and come back on 1 April for 45 days. On 1 May you reach 60 + 31 = 91 days: the second trip has to end on 30 April at the latest.

4. A partly used allowance. 45 days used (1 January – 14 February). Entering on 1 March you can stay until 14 April (45 more days). Wanting 46 days, the first possible entry is 16 May, when enough old days have left the window.

The most common mistakes

“My 90 days restart when I leave.” No. Leaving only stops new days from being added. Old days leave the window one by one, 180 days after each of them.

“It’s 90 days per country.” No. There is a single counter for all 29 countries.

“I get 90 days in the first half of the year and 90 in the second.” No. Someone who stays 1 March – 29 May (90 days) and returns on 1 July is already over the limit on 1 July: the window of 1 July still contains all 90 earlier days.

“90 days means three months.” No. Count days, not months. Three calendar months are often 91 or 92 days.

“If I have days left, I can stay that many days.” Not necessarily. “Days left” describes today’s window. As you stay, new days are added, but old days may also drop out, so the real answer can be more or fewer days. Use the “until when can I stay?” tool instead of subtracting.

“A visa sticker valid for 90 days lets me stay 90 more days.” A visa’s validity and the number of days it allows are separate. The 90/180 limit still applies to the sum of all your short stays.

Days that don’t count

Time covered by a national long-stay visa (type D) or a residence permit issued by a Schengen country is not a short stay, so it doesn’t count. In the calculator, mark those trips as exempt. If a period with a permit and a period as a visitor share a day (for example, the day the permit expires), the calculator treats that day as covered by the permit pending verification.

Some Schengen countries can still apply old bilateral visa-waiver agreements with certain countries (for example Canada, New Zealand or the US) that were signed before they joined Schengen. Under Article 20(2) of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement, they may let those nationals stay extra time in their territory only, generally on top of the 90 days. Applying them is optional for each country. Neither this calculator nor the European Commission’s can take them into account, so ask the embassy of the country concerned.

Special case: Brazilian passports

For holders of ordinary Brazilian passports, the EU–Brazil visa waiver agreement keeps the old definition: 3 months during a 6-month period following the date of first entry. The European Commission doesn’t recommend its calculator for them, and the same goes for ours.

What happens if you go over

Overstaying is an irregular stay. Since the Entry/Exit System records every entry and exit electronically, overstays are detected automatically. See that page for the possible consequences, including return decisions and entry bans.