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Assume that a person (not me, I only hold a single citizenship :) has a double citizenship in countries such as the US, Singapore, Australia, Japan, etc, which are eligible for 90/180 visa-free stays in the Schengen area. Could they officially remain in the Schengen area indefinitely by taking a trip to (say) the UK every 89 days?

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    If it was possible, you would also probably need to be a citizen of three countries or stay overnight in the UK, otherwise there would be a day missing after the first two 90-day periods ;-) It is completely legal to leave on the 90th day however.
    – Relaxed
    Feb 10, 2014 at 10:36
  • possible duplicate of About Schengen 90/180 rule
    – Flimzy
    Feb 11, 2014 at 20:46

3 Answers 3

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No, the logic is quite clear, the rule applies to a person. Having several short-stay visas from the same or from different countries in the area would not help either, the visa conditions (including whether you need one or not) and the duration of stay are two separate things.

Formally, it would however seem possible to alternate between three months in the UK and three months in Schengen area indefinitely, even with only one citizenship and multiple entry visas for each country. But border guards in either the Schengen area or the UK could still become suspicious about the real purpose of your stays.

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  • But such alternation would require two places to live, two jobs, etc. Being able to stay in a single place with only the occasional 'passport run' would be far preferable. Feb 10, 2014 at 12:27
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    @jpatokal I don't think either are actually possible, I am just detailing the meaning of that rule (which is not the only relevant one, incidentally). Using this to work would be forbidden in any case. If you don't care about doing things legally (which was the question), then staying in one place is obviously easier…
    – Relaxed
    Feb 10, 2014 at 12:54
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    @jpatokal The rules are specifically designed to prevent living in the area with "only the occasional passport run". Jul 3, 2014 at 17:46
  • Sure. It's just quite hard to prevent that when the person in question has two completely valid yet different passports. Jul 3, 2014 at 22:33
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    If you "stay in a single place," someone there would probably figure it out, even if you could fool the border people by switching passports. And suppose you present passport A for an exit stamp, stay out for a day, then come back, only to find that you are asking the same official to stamp passport B—and he/she recognizes you! I'm staying in Spain for a year (unless my visa is denied) and my passport number and my address are known to a bank and two cellular providers.
    – WGroleau
    Feb 15, 2017 at 22:58
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Legally, no, the rules are for a single person.

Practically speaking, you could probably get away with it though, because visas and databases assume that passport equals person -- although if anybody ever does get suspicious, it wouldn't take long for them to figure out that there's a clone with the same birth date and biometrics.

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  • Don't quite understand your logic. Also, I have no inside knowledge of these databases but this does not correspond to what I know about them. I am not aware of a global database logging all entrances and exits in the Schengen area and the only one that is supposed to contain biometrics is the VIS (i.e. it's for people who require visas, not other third-country nationals). I also believe the SIS is typically searched by name/alias, not passport number. Do you know anything about all that?
    – Relaxed
    Feb 10, 2014 at 10:12
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    The person in question is eligible for visa-free entry according to the 90/180 days rule. Even if traveling on two passports clearly violates the rules, I am pretty sure that there is no way to detect violations. There is e.g. currently no centralized Schengen register for visa-free entry/exit records for individuals. Feb 10, 2014 at 10:16
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    Many Schengen countries have their own national databases of entries and exits, which presumably allow searches. ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/doc_centre/borders/docs/… Feb 11, 2014 at 10:35
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    If they were entering via different Schengen countries every time, they can't. But somebody using this in real life would presumably be doing it to return to the same country repeatedly, and that country might be able to catch them. Feb 11, 2014 at 21:38
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    @coldfused Of course EU countries can store biometric data. What do you imagine the EU countries do with the biometric data submitted by visa applicants? "10 fingerprints and a digital photograph are collected from persons applying for a visa. These biometric data, along with data provided in the visa application form, are recorded in a secure central database." Source: ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/…
    – phoog
    Jul 15, 2016 at 2:07
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It is possible; I have been doing this for over a year. I'm holding two passports and in most of the borders they don't check your dates, even in Denmark or Sweden. I had some questions in Portugal and I finally got caught in Poland crossing from Kaliningrad, but they let me go because I'm not doing anything illegal. Since I have been out of the Schengen area after 90 days with my passports and doing visa runs. I was in the immigration office waiting for over an hour while they were arguing about my situation, but I didn't get any paper or report about it and they came with me to the bus.

The only advice that I can give is if you are travelling you need to do this: imagine if you need to do a visa run after 90 days, you need to go to a country where you have a visa with the other passport. So you go out of the Schengen area, stamp the first passport, then go to the next country and get the stamp with the second passport, enter and exit, then go back to the Schengen area. It is not suspicious because you are coming from a country that you already have a stamp. But if it happens like me, where I went to Kaliningrad, I had to stamp my first passport because I didn't have a visa with my second passport, so the exit from Poland was okay, and entry and exit to Russia the same, but when I tried to get back into Poland they realized that I didn't have the stamp from Russia and in that border is the only country that you can come from, so they asked me for my other passport and they saw all the time that I was coming and going from the Schengen area. But as I said, I didn't have any major problem and now I'm in the Schengen area again.

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  • When the EES goes on line you will however be discovered. What you do is illegal, and that you got away with it so far does not change that. Feb 26, 2023 at 16:22

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