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As a tourist born in the states, can I apply for a regular visa to a Schengen country instead of getting a Schengen visa? I am wondering if I can stay in each country for 90 days without having to leave the Schengen zone, maybe if I get standard visas and not a Schengen visa?

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    A Schengen visa grants the same options as the visa-free entry on the US passport, so it just makes no sense. There's no "each country for 90 days" limit, the 90/180 rule is for all of Schengen. There's no "regular" or "standard" visa for "each country". All the Schengen countries grant the exact same type of visa for tourism.
    – littleadv
    Commented Jul 15 at 3:34
  • Why do you want to be able to do this? Work? Extended holiday? Retire? There are 27 countries in the EU, do you really want to spend 90 days in each one by turn?
    – Traveller
    Commented Jul 15 at 7:18

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You should get a visa in this case. However, as mentioned in the comments a regular tourist visa (or even multiple ones) won't make a difference because the 90/180 day rule will apply for the whole Schengen area in the same manner as the visa-free entry.
In this case you should apply for a visa that allows a stay longer than 90 days, such as a working holiday visa or a digital nomad visa. This page has some info about it (is really poorly written, but it has a lot of information), every country has its own rules, but most likely you can travel around the whole Schengen area with a single visa.
In some cases you can also enter the country without a visa and apply for an extension later.

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    "digital nomad" visas, where exist, are national visas and do not apply to any other country. They don't allow circumventing the 90/180 rule outside of the country of residency (the one that issued the long stay visa).
    – littleadv
    Commented Jul 15 at 7:53
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    You are technically correct on paper, but the real world is different, you can check this answer and the comments for more info: travel.stackexchange.com/a/11119/138206
    – André
    Commented Jul 15 at 11:23
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    @André The fact that the rules are rarely enforced via systematic border checks does not mean they are not enforced at all or that it is legal. In many situations, it can actually be very easy to find out someone has gone over the 90/180 limit even without stamps.
    – jcaron
    Commented Jul 15 at 11:27
  • @jcaron I've been living in the Schengen area for three years. The number of times I've had to identify myself aside from at an external border crossing (where a national visa or residence permit will be enough) has been exactly zero. I doubt that many people will have much probability of being caught unless they're living permanently in a country other than the one they have permission to live in and are furthermore doing something else that causes them to come to the attention of the police.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 15 at 14:53
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    @André " The OP is not spending over 90 days in a single place" But they would be spending more than 90 days outside of the country issuing the visa, and that would be a violation of the 90/180 rule. The rule applies to the whole Schengen area outside the country that issued the visa. So it would be very easy to violate the rules in this case.
    – Dr. Snoopy
    Commented Jul 16 at 7:17

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