I'm on what was supposed to be a 6 months tour of the UK and Europe but I've just discovered that as I'm not from an EU country (Australia - I think the same would apply for people from North America and the UK), I can only stay in Europe without a visa for 90 days in a 180 day period. 90 days will not be enough to do what I want to do in Europe so I'm wondering how easy it would be to get a visa for one of the EU countries and extend my stay.
Has anyone managed to do this and what is the best way to go about it? It wouldn't be a problem for me to return to the UK for a month or so after my 90 days in Europe are up, and perhaps that would be enough time for a visa application to be processed.

There's no problem spending longer than 90 days in Europe, however you must not spend more than 90 days at a time in the Schengen zone. Lots of people juggle their travel to meet this restriction - in and out of Schengen to stay within the rules.

According to what I have read its 90 days in a 180 day period, so once your 90 days is up you need to wait until 180 days from when you first entered Europe have expired before you can return.

I think Alanymarce is pointing up the distinction between Europe and the Schengen zone. Or maybe it's Europe and the EU. Pretty sure it's not Europe vs. NATO (<--joke). Depending on your interests, it's perfectly possible to spend a month in Morocco, another in Turkey, maybe a third in the Balkans.... England, Ireland, and unless I'm hopelessly out of date Bulgaria and Romania are also outside the Schengen zone.

I'll admit that I ignored the issue entirely when my bike was in Europe. It certainly spent more than 90 consecutive days inside the Schengen zone on multiple occasions, including while I was back in the US earning the funds to continue riding. I don't know how that works these days.

Hope that's helpful.

This is correct - however, it is 90 days total, not a single period that starts when you enter Schengen.

So you can spend e.g. 30 days in Schengen, then go to Morocco and spend 30 days there (60 total); come back, spend 30 days in Schengen (90 total) and go to Turkey and Georgia; spend 30 days there (120 total), come back for another 30 days in Schengen (150 total); go to the UK for 30 days, and you've reached 180 days since you first entered Schengen, and your counter resets to zero.

They are out of Schengen, but in the EU - so worth checking if that affects your 90 days. It might still count. For me, as an EU citizen, going to Romania or Bulgaria means going through a border check, but I can still do it with just my national ID card, I have free EU-wide roaming there, my home health insurance is valid there, etc.

Yup, the vehicle TVIP is separate from your personal days within Schengen. It may be different from country to country, but when I asked the Estonian authorities about a non-resident's foreign-plated vehicle, they said it was good for a year before they start caring.

Ok, that makes sense. Unfortunately it doesn't help me though. I have a total of 180 days available and I want to spend at least 150 within Schengen.

I'm going to try the visa route and see how it pans out. If it doesn't I'll have to cut my trip short.

I suspect that the visa route will be pretty straightforward - they want youyr money and as long as you have around funds of 50 euros a day for your stay then there should be no issue according to this website

Good luck and enjoy your tour

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I am not sure this is right.
Allowed are 90 days IN ANY 180 DAYS PERIOD.
So the counter doesn´t reset when someone reach 180 days from first entering Schengen. It reset after having being out of Schengen for 180 days.
You are right someone can stay for example 30 days in Schengen and go out for another 30 and do this 3 times, then when he leaves Schengen he has been 90 days in Schengen and then has to wait for 150 days. Then he has been 90 days in a 180 day period. Because of the last 30 days in Schengen he only has to wait for 150 days and then can start a new 180 day period but the last 30 days from the previous period count in that period so he can then stay only 60 days.

Not exactly. According to https://schengenvisainfo.eu/90-180-day-rule/

...so yes, on the day when you exit Schengen, they will look at the most recent 180 days and calculate how many of those you spent inside Schengen. But the next time you come back to Schengen, they will count *180 days back from the day you are trying to re-enter*, not 180 days from the time you last exited! So if you stagger it 30 in / 30 out, then you ought to always have days available, because for every 30 days in, there is a period starting 180 days ago when you spent 30 days out.

If it was as you said - 180 day lock-out period from your last date of exit - then this would mean the waiver is effectively for *90 days in every 360* at maximum!

Specifically https://schengenvisainfo.eu/90-180-d.../#scenario-two (Scenatio Two at the bottom of the page) talks about what I mean here.

It's a 'Rolling' 180 days. So, at day 181, his first day in the Schengen zone is removed and 'applied' to day 181. Essentially, his 'start day', is his day #2.

@AnTyx has the correct explanation.

For a very simple example, if you have two periods of visits that together total more than 90 days, then you need a 90 day gap between the two visits.

My visits are more complex, so I keep a very basic spreadsheet where I track my days already spent within Schengen amd plan for the future. I've uploaded it below if anyone wants to have a play with it.

Column 1 is the date. For each day in Schengen I place a red '1' in column 2. Column 3 then sums the last 180 days. If you scroll down to row 741 (9 October 2024) you can see that at the moment I am up to 64 days in Schengen out of the last 180. I'm going to Spain shortly for 23 days which will take me to 87.

And then on 9 Jan 2025 the count starts to decrease as the days fall off the beginning of the 180, however I then fly in to collect my bike for Morocco and the decrease stops whilst I am in Spain. But when I exit Spain to Morocco, the decrease starts again. And so on. I have my future Schengen visits currently pencilled in as far as December 2025.

Another point, Bulgaria and Romania are in Schengen. UK and Ireland are not.

This site has a full list of non-Schengen European countries and also details of Schengen countries with with Australia has a visa waiver arrangement.

Attached Files

schengen.xlsx (39.9 KB, 12 views)

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Were you able to get a Visa? If so, which country and how long did it take?