So I am going to leave the good old USA for 6 months to while my days away in France. If I duck out of the country before the 90 day limit only to return the next day for a second set of 90 days, will le prefecture be none the wiser? (Not that they would know of my presence in the first place: last time I was in France I somehow managed to miss the passport stamp both in and out of the country.)<BR>How long have you stayed in France without a visa?

Have you ever been inside a French jail? Not too nice I have been told.

My question was about the legality of a 6 month stay without a long sejour visa: After 90 days in France, a non-EU citizen must leave. But after 180 days in France, however many times one leaves or returns, you must then leave the country for (?) amount of time.<BR>So - does this leave room for leaving for just one day during that first 90 days and then staying on until the total 180 days is up?

Ok, question. Why the heck would you want to willfully disregard Visa and residency laws of any country? Duh? How hard is it to apply for a long stay visa? Unless you are planning on working illegally. If you plan on staying for a great length of time and working, there are ways to legitimately get workers permits etc. I wouldn't mess with violating anyones entry laws to do so is asking for trouble.

I am going to respond to Buyer first... The reason Rachel would want to willfully disregard the visa requirements is that in France, it is next to impossible to get a long stay visa UNLESS you are applying for a student visa, or have a work permit, or some other really, really good reason for being there. Just because you want to go is not reason enough, even if you can show you have the funds to do it. I know, I tried. <BR><BR>So Rachel, your only other option is to just do it (quite honestly I wouldn't even bother trying to apply, but you can). My passport almost never gets stamped or scanned going in or out of France, and if yours is treated the same, you are correct, the prefecture will be none the wiser. Many people play the 90 day game, and some don't even bother with that as the passport control is so loose in France, and this is since 9/11 as well. Go and have a great time!

Rachel,<BR><BR>I forgot to add that as I understand it, the 90 days out of 180 limit is a revolving time frame. In any given window of 180 days, you can legally spend 90 of those in France (actually in the EU). So as I understand it, your idea about leaving and returning after a day does not really cut it, since if you start counting the window of 180 days somewhere in the middle (or wherever) of your first stay, and add the new time from the second day you will have gone over.<BR><BR>I am not at all trying to discourage you, I stand by my original post that there is very little chance of the officials even finding out.

Okay -- math isn't my forte here -- but 180 divided by 6 equals 30 days -- hence almost 6 months -- her problem is???

Lets say Rachel started her stay Jan 1. She stays for 90 days, (all of Jan, Feb, March) and April 1 she goes to Turkey. April 2 she comes back to France and stays the rest of April, May and June. <BR><BR>So if you can only stay a max 90 days out of any consecutive 180, she has gone over. Start the window Feb 1-Aug 1, she has stayed out of that time, all of Feb, March, all but 1 day in April, May and June, almost 5 months (way more than 90 days). <BR><BR>It's highly likely I am not explaining this well, but I also don't understand what the last poster is trying to do by dividing by 6...