As you know, you need a special visa to visit the countries of the Schengen area. For its registration it is necessary to file documents with the consulate of the country whose visit will take the most part of the trip. If you comply with all the rules of filing and careful preparation of documents, obtaining a Schengen visa is not very difficult. But since October 18, 2013, new visa rules for visiting Schengen began to operate, which became an unpleasant surprise for many who planned to spend Christmas holidays in the Schengen area . About what innovations there is a speech, you can learn from our article.
New rules for entering the Schengen area
What new rules have appeared in obtaining a Schengen visa? First of all, the changes touched upon the period, which is allowed to enter the countries related to the Schengen zone. As before, the traveler has the right to stay in the Schengen zone for no more than 90 days for six months. But if earlier half of the year was counted, starting from the moment of the first entry into the countries of the Schengen agreement on a valid multiple entry visa, now these six months are counted back, starting from the moment of each new trip. And if the traveler for the previous six months has already spent a limit of 90 days, then entry into the Schengen zone for him becomes temporarily impossible. Even the opening of a new visa will not be a solution, since the new rules sum up all the days spent in the Schengen countries in the last six months. Thus, the validity of the visa already has little effect on the possibility of entry into the Schengen area. On an example we will paint, how it works. Let's take an active traveler, who often happens in Europe and plans a new trip from December 20 on a multiple Schengen visa. In order to comply with the new rules for entering the Schengen area, he must count 180 days from this date and summarize how many days of these 180 he spent in the Schengen countries. For example, it turned out that all his trips in the amount took 40 days. Consequently, in a new journey across Europe, he can spend no more than 50 days (90 days allowed-40 days already used). If it turns out that all the allowed 90 days have already been used, even the presence of a freshly issued annual or multi-visa will not allow him to cross the border. What to do? There are two possible outputs:
- Wait until one of the trips falls out of the previous six-month period, so that some free days are formed.
- Wait 90 days, through which the new rules for the Schengen visa, "burn up" all accumulated trips and start a new countdown.
In order to help travelers count free and used days, a special calculator is placed on the website of the European Commission. But, unfortunately, not everyone can use it. This can only be done by a person who is fluent in English. Firstly, it is not enough simply to insert into the calculator
Unfortunately, until now many tour operators and even visa centers have not yet fully understood all the subtleties of the new rules for obtaining a Schengen visa, which is fraught with possible unpleasant surprises at the border crossing. Therefore, when planning a trip, one should take your passport once again and carefully recount all the days spent in the Schengen countries.