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My kid started a university program in Hungary in fall of 2015. There were some issues with paperwork regarding his student visa and he was issued a temporary visa so that he could finish the term and exit the EU.

When he exited his passport was NOT stamped leaving the EU or upon reentering the US. However the only entry stamp was from last August.

The issue is his student visa can only be mailed to his Hungarian address, so he's not going to have it until he returns to Hungary.

Any thoughts on the possibility of him being caught on entering the EU?

What entry points would minimize this issue?

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    If his passport wasn't stamped he could still show his departure with a boarding pass or any evidence that he was in a different country. – phoog Jan 28 '16 at 2:01
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    Whatever it is they're mailing to him, it's not a visa. A visa is a sticker in a passport. Perhaps he should go to the consulate and get a sticker in his passport, if he's worried about being able to enter the country. – phoog Jan 28 '16 at 13:37
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    @phoog he will have already stayed more than 90 days in a six month period (although that stay was permitted via the temporary visa/residency permit which is now expired) so I believe that if he tries to enter under Schengen he would technically be in violation of those guidelines. I am essentially risking an entire semester's worth of tuition, apartment rent, and international airfare if he does get held up. – Wakko Jan 28 '16 at 15:13
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    @Wakko time spent in Schengen under a residence permit does not count towards the 90/180 limit. He should be able to get in by showing the expired residence permit so as to remove those days from the calculation. – phoog Jan 28 '16 at 15:18
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    Argh.....it appears that Hungary issued the temporary residency permit on the 89th day of his stay and that permit was for 30 days (which he exited on the last day of its validity). So if I read the reference document you linked to correctly that the days stayed under the residency permit would not count against Schengen. So essentially he has one day to legally enter. This is not a problem if the residency permit is sitting there for him to pick up. Could be an issue if not. – Wakko Jan 28 '16 at 15:54
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Contact the Hungarian Embassy in Washington DC

The ONLY solution to this is to gather facts regarding border entry and governance of borders. Contacting the Hungarian Embassy will allow you to share your story and the difficulty, you can sprinkle in some tears if you think it will be effective.

You will want to find out

  • Length of time to return

  • Audit trails they require

  • Secondary methods

  • Temporary visa's

If that doesn't work, you can call any European Embassy to gather more information and see if there is some assistance you can get from them. Hungary needs USD and my suspicion is that you will get assistance and this will be a matter for the dust bin poste haste.

Do it correctly. Reduce Risk.

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  • More directly... Would raising the question of needing USD to a consular official of an EU mission in the USA have any deleterious side-effects the OP should be aware of? – Gayot Fow Jan 28 '16 at 6:42
  • @Citizen I did call the consulate general in NYC (their office covers our region) and managed to talk with someone there. This is just a mess and extremely difficult to navigate. None of the Hungarian facilities in the US have access to the visa documentation in Hungary. It sounds like they have to manually call over and ask someone to query the system there. The issue still remains that the visa can only be mailed to a Hungarian address. The comment that I received was "he should never have exited Hungary without having this resolved". – Wakko Jan 28 '16 at 15:04
  • @Wakko to which you might have responded, okay, he shouldn't have, but he did, and we're very sorry, and what should he do now? – phoog Jan 28 '16 at 15:11
  • @phoog yes. I hold a Master's degree from a Budapest University, so I do have connections over there that are also trying to help. We did get feedback today from the immigration office that they have 'made a decision' regarding the residency permit, though that person could not tell us what the decision is, and that something had been mailed to his Hungarian address. The person in charge of his case is not picking up their phone. So, assuming that the residency permit was issued, we're trying to figure out how best to get into the EU so that he can collect the permit. – Wakko Jan 28 '16 at 15:20
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    @Citizen, if you follow current EU politics, you'll notice that Hungary is currently taking a firm stance against undocumented refugees. They don't mean people like the OP's son, but he might be caught in the mess. – o.m. Jan 29 '16 at 6:20

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