Schengen agreement question – Staying more than 3 months in Europe
You know, I had never even heard of the Schengen agreement until this post. Amazing what you find out about how to border crossings…
A question on the BootBoards:
Staying more than 3 months in Europe (Schengen agreement question)
What is this thing? In essence it’s an agreement between some (not yet all) EU-member countries that has removed internal border checks at airports. Travelers are passport-checked at an external border — say, flying from New York to Paris — but don’t have to go through border checks from, say, Paris to Berlin. You’d still present your passport for ID/ticket check at the checkin counter for your flight, but you would not have to go through lots of immigration rigmarole, is my understanding.
Looks like you are good to go about the Schengen-member countries for 90 days, then if you’re staying longer you may need to leave and re-enter (say nip to Prague or Hungary for a few days or something). There’s some great discussion on that in the above post.
Participating countries currently include:
The UK and Ireland aren’t part of this yet, but can join if they want (that’s a little simplified, but if you want details there’s a link below).
You can find more details on the Schengen agreement via the European Union website:
Schengen acquis and its integration into the Union