Schengen 90/180 rule: how to count your days in Europe

A visitor to Europe without a long-stay visa can stay in the Schengen area for up to 90 days in any 180-day period. The rule sounds simple, but the way days are counted trips up many travellers: the 180 days are not a fixed half-year, they are a window that moves with you.

The short answer: for each day of your stay, count 180 days back and add up the days you spent inside the Schengen area. That total must not exceed 90. The European Commission describes the method in exactly those terms: count back 180 days from each day of your stay and make sure the total does not exceed 90.

What the Schengen area covers

According to the European Commission, the Schengen area has 29 countries: 25 EU member states plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Cyprus and Ireland are not part of it. The 90 days apply to the area as a whole, not to each country: ten days in France and twenty in Italy add up to thirty.

That matters for anyone who leaves and comes back. A week in the United Kingdom or Ireland, for example, does not “reset” the count. The earlier days keep counting for as long as they sit inside the 180-day window.

How the 180-day window works

Picture yourself looking back from today and counting roughly six months of days, 180 of them. Inside that window you add up the days you were in the Schengen area. Tomorrow the window moves one day: the oldest day drops out and today comes in.

Two practical consequences:

• There is no “new year” and no “reset by leaving”. Leaving the area and coming back the next day does not give days back.
• Old days come back on their own. As the window moves, old days drop out of the count and you regain room.

The examples below count the day of entry and the day of exit as days of stay, as calculators usually do. The Commission’s page does not spell this out, so always confirm in the official calculator.

Two worked examples

Coming back soon

A traveller spends 60 days, from 1 March to 29 April 2026, and returns on 1 June. In the 180-day window ending on 1 June, they have already used 60 days. That leaves 30. They can stay until 30 June 2026, and the next day would put them over the limit.

Coming back later

The same traveller, after 60 days in March and April, returns only on 1 September. Now the window starts on 6 March: the first days of the earlier trip have already dropped out, and 55 are used. But as each new day comes in, an old one drops out. By my calculation they could stay 90 days in a row, until 29 November 2026.

The example shows the good side of the rule: waiting a few months gives days back. Both calculations are mine, made with the Commission’s rule, to illustrate it. For your own case, use the calculator.

The official calculator

The European Commission keeps a short-stay calculator with two modes, according to its official page:

• Check mode: calculates past or ongoing stays and shows whether you complied with the rule on the day of the check.
• Planning mode: calculates the maximum stay allowed from a future entry date.

Dates are typed as dd/mm/yy. There is also a “passport stamps” mode in which entries take a plus sign and exits a minus sign. The calculator answers “no overstay” and tells you how long you can stay, or warns of a possible overstay and by how many days.

The page also carries two warnings. Do not enter periods when you held an EU residence permit or a long-stay (type D) visa, because those are not subject to the 90/180 rule. And do not use the calculator if your short-stay visa authorises fewer than 90 days.

Who checks, and what changed in 2026

Until recently the count depended on a border officer reading the stamps in your passport. Since April 2026 the Entry/Exit System (EES) records travellers’ faces and fingerprints and does the sum automatically, as we explain in the piece on the end of passport stamps. The rule is the same. What changes is that exceeding the limit without being noticed has become much harder.

What happens if I go over 90 days

The Czech government’s page on the rule says that anyone who reaches 90 days must leave the Schengen area. Going beyond the limit is an overstay. The consequences vary from country to country, and I give no amounts here because I found no single official source. If you are at risk of overstaying, contact the consulate of the country you are in before the deadline.

In practice

• Write down entry and exit dates for every trip. Stamps may no longer exist, but the EES will record your dates.
• Plan with the official calculator before you buy tickets for a long trip or for a second itinerary in the same year.
• Remember that all the countries count together. A week in Switzerland or Norway also goes into the sum.
• For longer stays, apply for the visa or permit of the country where you plan to stay, before you travel.

For other travel paperwork, see the six-month passport validity rule, ETIAS and how to find the official site for a travel authorisation.

Frequently asked questions

Do the 90 days apply per country or to the whole Schengen area?

To the whole Schengen area, added together. Ten days in France and twenty in Italy make thirty days.

Does leaving the Schengen area reset the count?

No. Earlier days keep counting for as long as they are inside the 180-day window.

Did the rule change with the EES?

No. The stay is still up to 90 days in any 180-day period. The system just does the sum automatically.

Do Cyprus and Ireland count?

No. According to the European Commission, neither is part of the Schengen area.

Sources

• Short-stay calculator, European Commission: the method of counting 180 days back, the calculator’s two modes, the date format, the exclusions and the list of 29 countries.
• 90/180 Rule, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic: the 90-in-180 limit, the duty to leave the Schengen area and the exceptions.
• Entry/Exit System (EES) is fully operational, European Commission, 10 April 2026: the start of full EES operation.