B1: Student Escapes Schengen

Student escapes Schengen 90/180-day rule by a whisker but gives his company a headache

David is a student who loves travelling. He has spent months in South America and the Far East but his plans to visit Europe in 2020 had to be put on hold because of the Coronavirus outbreak. He decides that he will go in 2021 and starts planning. Nobody has mentioned the Schengen 90/180-day rule and it is not the sort of thing students talk about. By April 2021 he has travel plans to visit Eastern Europe for 15 weeks and then go to Italy. He receives an offer for his first job after university. The company likes his travelling experience and agrees to defer his start date so that he can take this final extended trip.

David enters Belgium and travels south and then east. In Greece, he is offered a lift to Istanbul with fellow travellers so decides to go there instead of Italy. He leaves Greece on Day 87. He has a great time but is running out of money so he changes his plans. His parents pay for a cheap flight home. He is blissfully unaware of Schengen rules.

David starts work and things are going well. One day, his boss suggests David attends a meeting in Germany on the following Tuesday. He has friends nearby so David asks his boss if he can fly out early and his boss agrees. He takes a flight on the Friday which is Day 87 of his Schengen count. On arrival in Frankfurt, Border Control ask about his plans and point out that if he stays until Tuesday he will exceed the 90 day limit. They explain that they come across this quite regularly with British businessmen and brief him about the Schengen 90/180-day rule. They advise him that if he goes back to the UK that same day then he can come back out on the Monday and return to the UK on the Wednesday which is Day 90. They give him a stern warning not to go over 90 days because of the difficulties he might encounter on future visits. David books a flight back to the UK for that evening and another flight to go back to Germany on the Tuesday for his meeting. These flights cost him £280 but it could have been worse - at least the Wednesday flight should be OK.

He goes into work on the Monday and his boss is surprised to see him. David explains the situation. His boss knows about Schengen 90/180 rule but had not realised that business trips and tourist trips both count towards the 90 days**. David's trip goes well and he is pleased when his Wednesday flight is not delayed.

His boss is shocked at this close shave so asks the HR department to investigate. They find that 30% of their student intake have used up more than sixty days of their individual Schengen allowance. As staff go regularly on short trips to Europe, they realise that Schengen 90/180 rules could cause lots of problems in the future. They anticipate a conflict of interests if employees are asked to make several short business trips close to a long holiday. The company concludes that it will need to pay for specialist advice to help them come up protocols on how to deal with this in the future.

Win-win 180/360 travel arrangements would avoid the need for businesses to plan for these conflicts.