schengen zone - help with dates
 

Hello all, great to have found this forum.

I'll make it short and sweet - Im aware of the Schengen Zone rules - you are allowed 90 days within a 180 period, but my situation is a little weird and some clarification would be wonderful.

I first arrived in the Schengen Zone In Budapest on March 21st and left the Schengen zone on March 25th (to Turkey). My total stay was 5 days.

I now returned to Budapest on Sept 7th and am currently still here and am trying to figure out the date I have to leave the zone before my time is up.

From March 21 - Sept 7 - is within the 6 month time frame - so this is where my math gets screwed up re: the 180 day periods.

Do I subtract the 5 days from my current stay?
Or am I in a new block of 180 days?

I hope I was clear enough, and I thank you all for your time:)

Hathory

The March stay is more than 180 days ago and is irrelevant to your current situation.

Maybe I am not understanding but where were you from Mar 25 - Sept 7?

Mar 21 - Mar 25 Budapest
Mar 25 - Mar 30(?) Turkey
Mar 30 - Sept 7 ???
Sept 7 - Oct 18 Budapest

Out of a rolling 180 days you can be in Schengen for 90 days. The 180 days dont restart if you leave for 5 days for example.

You re-entered the Schengen zone within your 180 days - at 170 days from the time you first entered Schengen - so you have 85 days from the time you re-entered.

The 180 days is a rolling period, so go back 180 days from today's date and then count how many days you have in the Schengen zone since then. My math says 180 days ago was 4/21/2011, so counting today, you have been in the Schengen zone for 42 days of the last 180 days. That means you have 48 more days or until 12/6/2011 to depart.

Double check my math, of course, but I think that is right.

I believe hetismij2 is correct in her calculations.

You have to subtract the 5 days from your total of 90 days.

hetismij2 on Oct 18, 11 at 2:51pm
You re-entered the Schengen zone within your 180 days - at 170 days from the time you first entered Schengen - so you have 85 days from the time you re-entered.


>>> Thank you all for your help :)

hetismij2, This is what I thought first too The thing is, the 180 day time elapsed as I am still here, so that makes me question - have I started a new block of 180 days?

First block commenced: March 21st. I only spent 5 days within the Zone and left completely - so I only have 5 days spent TOTAL the first visit I was here.

Where it gets strange - I returned on September 7 (which seems to falls into the first 180 block) - however - I am still here and the FIRST 180 block ends on Sept 16 (give or take a few days for error in my counting). So that would mean for the first 6 month block I used up from March 21 - 25 and then from Sept 7-16, equaling a total of 15 days.

Have I now entered a new 6 month block starting on Sept 16 for another 90 days? How do they see your length of stay if it lies on the crux of the 6 month blocks?

I hope im making sense, the last thing I want to do is confuse my situation and get an unnecessary ban for a misunderstanding.

It doesnt end and get refeshed to another 180 days (i.e. if you straddle 2 180 periods you cant spend 180 out of 360 in). You can be in the schengen for 90 out of 180 days rolling. So you should have 90 days from Sept 7 because when you came in you had 85 days left out of 180 when you include the march time in the 180 rolling days. Then as of Sept 16 you had used 75 days left, but then the March dates fall out of the rolling total. So they dont count. So then you need to look at the rolling 180 days that will count which will begin on Sept 7 - giving you 90 days from Sept 7.

jamikins: that doesn't appear to be what this source seems to say:

<b>"you may not leave the Schengen Visa area for a day and return to restart the 90 day clock."</b>

http://goeurope.about.com/od/europea...engen_stay.htm

Think about it. If you could leave and restart the clock on the 90 days, you could conceivably stay perpetually in Europe simply by leaving before the 90 days are up and then returning and restarting the clock over and over and over again.

That is exactly what I said - you cannot start the clock over. Its a ROLLING 180 day period. So within ANY 180 day period you can only be in the schengen zone for 90 days.

I didnt mean it started over, but the March dates fall out of a rolling 180 days while he is there, so its not that the 180 days 'starts' over...but he wasnt there in the middle of it for 165 days.

So from 21 Mar - 16 Sept he was out 165 and in 15.

From 22 Mar - 17 Sept he was out 165 and in 15

From 23 Mar - 18 Sept he was out 165 and in 15

From 24 Mar - 19 Sept he was out 165 and in 15

From 25 Mar - 20 Sept he was out 165 and in 15

From 26 Mar - 21 Sept he was out 165 and in 15

Its confusing and I may be mistaken but my take on it is that if you have to be out 90 days out of 180 then he does still have 90 days left because the March dates will fall off. 9 June - 6 Sept is 90 days out, so he still has 90 days in in that 180 day period. He is within the rules for the 180 day period above as he was out for 165 and in for 15, and then the 180 day period from 9 June - 5 Dec he is out 90 and in 90.

The way I read it - and many others do too is that the 90-180 period is from the date of first entry into Schengen, and is not a rolling period. It is any 90 days in 180 day period starting on the first day of arrival in Schengen.

EIther way in OPs case for the sake of five days I wouldn't risk an overstay.

hetismij2 - interesting, you very well could be right and for 5 days I agree.

Its probably best not to rely on a bunch of stranger who can interpret things differently (and wrongly, including myself). Why dont you call your consolute and ask?

Just found a reference to it in the COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 539/2001 article 1 section 2 says:

► Nationals of third countries on the list in Annex II shall be
exempt from the requirement set out in paragraph 1 for stays of no more than three months in all. ◄

Which would imply 90 days from the first date of entry. I'm sure someone could find the accurate info if they felt like ploughing through all the EU legalise available online, but I'm off to make chicken soup now.;)

Its very strange because I feel (after going around in circles in my own mind, and after reading all responses) I can be lumped into a few different scenarios, I so happened to have come and returned at a unique time.

Thank you all again for your cognitive input! I will be calling my embassy again (I called twice before I posted on here, once told to call back and once on hold for too long) so thanks for providing some more insight in the meantime.

I will update here once I know the answer - why does it feel more like a MENSA question than a Schengen one? :)

Cheers.