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I'm an Indian student, with a Type D Multi Entry Visa to Spain. I'm in Spain and have applied for my Residence Permit but haven't received it yet.

Can I travel to Croatia and back with just this visa? The visa is valid for travel dates.

Edit: Thanks, but I'm confident that I will be allowed into Croatia. My fears are about being allowed back into the Schengen territory with ONLY a VALID visa. (To repeat, it's a Multiple entry visa). I don't yet have my 'residence card'. A friend was recently rejected on similiar (but not the same) grounds so I guess I'm being over anxious.

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  • since 1 July 2013 Croatia is in shengen zone. You definetly may travel there.
    – MikkaRin
    Commented Oct 13, 2014 at 15:01
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    @MikkaRin: That is wrong. Croatia is not part of the Schengen Area.
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Commented Oct 13, 2014 at 15:27
  • @WeasleyWaali: There are already many questions and answers on this site describing in detail which Schengen visa entitle you to enter Croatia. Is there anything special about your circumstances, which makes you believe that the available answers do not apply to your situation?
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Commented Oct 13, 2014 at 16:17
  • While not quite directly asking the same question it does provide the answer to yours:travel.stackexchange.com/questions/30736/…
    – Karlson
    Commented Oct 13, 2014 at 16:26
  • I was just a little worried about re-entering the Shengen territory without a 'residence card'.
    – WeasleyWaali
    Commented Oct 13, 2014 at 22:40

2 Answers 2

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We have a lot of related questions but I don't think we have one covering this particular situation. Basically, your type D visa is equivalent to a residence permit in the Schengen area.

It can also be used to visit Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia. From the Croatian Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs:

Aliens who are holders of:

[…] long-stay visa (D) for stays exceeding three months, issued by one of the Schengen Area Member State; […]

do not require a visa for transit or intended stays in the territory of Croatia not exceeding 90 days in any 180-day period.

See also Visiting Romania with a type D visa for Germany

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  • Just to clarify: A type D visa is only equivalent to a residence permit within the Schengen area. If other countries choose to allow entry for holders of any of these documents, they may of course just accept one of them and not necessarily deem both documents to be of equivalent value or significance.
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Commented Oct 13, 2014 at 17:33
  • @Tor-EinarJarnbjo It's a purely academic distinction in this case and I wrote “in the Schengen area […] also be used” to side-step the issue but in fact I am not sure your interpretation is correct with respect to Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, and Croatia. See eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/… and in particular article 2(3).
    – Relaxed
    Commented Oct 13, 2014 at 17:40
  • Note that even though Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus and Croatia are not yet fully part of the Schengen area, my understanding is that they are bound by most of the law about it (Schengen acquis), which might be why it was deemed necessary to issue a decision to explicitly allow them to do something non-EU states can obviously do on their own whenever and however they want.
    – Relaxed
    Commented Oct 13, 2014 at 18:17
  • I interpreted "a residence permit in the Schengen area" as "a residence permit from a Schengen country", since without specifying from which country the residence permit is, your sentence does not make much sense. The situation with Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia is more or less a unilateral implementation of parts of the Schengen agreement. As a step towards joining the Schengen area as full members, the countries momentarily accept travellers with visa from other Schengen countries without expecting that other Schengen countries must accept travellers with e.g. a Croatian national visa.
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Commented Oct 13, 2014 at 19:13
  • @Tor-EinarJarnbjo The country is Spain, it's in the question and my sentence should make sense in its context (to the extent that it needs to be clarified, it's not clear to me how substituting the word “within” for “in” would achieve that…). Regarding the rest, it's a “more-or-less” unilateral implementation… but not quite given the rather peculiar decision I quoted. As I said, it's all academic but certainly not obvious one way or the other so I don't think discussing that in the answer would be helpful.
    – Relaxed
    Commented Oct 13, 2014 at 19:27
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To answer this question explicitly - yes you can. I successfully did the same thing but for Italy -> Romania (as opposed to Spain -> Croatia).

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