Schengen 90/180: how to count your days

I built a day counter for this rule after getting it wrong in a spreadsheet. Here is how the count works, with the cases that trip people up.

The rule in one sentence

If you are not an EU, EEA or Swiss citizen and you don't hold a residence permit or a long-stay visa, you can spend at most 90 days in the Schengen area in any 180-day period.

How a day is counted

• The window moves every day. For any day you are in Schengen, look back at that day and the 179 days before it. If you were in the area more than 90 of those days, you are over.
• Arrival and departure days both count as full days. Fly in on Monday evening and out on Tuesday morning, that is 2 days.
• All 29 countries share one counter. A week in Spain and a week in Croatia is 14 days, not two separate 7s. Bulgaria and Romania are full members since 1 January 2025.
• Ireland and Cyprus are not in Schengen. Days there don't count, and neither do days in the UK. They don't reset anything either: they just let the window slide.
• Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City have no border check with France or Italy, so in practice those days count as Schengen days.

A worked example

Say you spent 1 June to 29 August 2024 in Schengen: that is 90 days, arrival and departure included. On 29 August the window runs from 3 March to 29 August, you have used 90, so 29 August is your last legal day. If you leave and come back on 15 October, the window on that day starts 19 April: your June to August days are still inside it, so you have 0 days left. A full 90 days only opens again once you have been out for 90 days in a row.

This is the part people get wrong: leaving for a month does not give you a month back. Each day you were inside only drops out of the count 180 days later.

What changed in 2025 and 2026

• No more passport stamps. The EU's Entry/Exit System (EES) started on 12 October 2025 and has run at every external Schengen border since 10 April 2026. It records every entry and exit with your passport, face and fingerprints, and it counts your 90/180 automatically.
• Overstays are now visible. With stamps, a border officer had to count by hand. With EES the system flags the overstay at exit. A fine, a refusal of entry or a ban of several years are possible, and the amounts vary by country.
• ETIAS is not a day counter. It is a travel authorisation (EUR 20) planned for after EES. It does not change the 90/180 limit, and as of November 2026 there is no confirmed launch date.

The official tool, and its limits

The European Commission runs a free checker on the Travel to Europe website: you enter your passport and your dates and it tells you if a stay is fine. It is the reference for a single trip. What it does not do, as far as I could see: keep your history, test several future trips at once, or count days per country for tax.

Mistakes I see most

1. Counting nights instead of days. The rule counts days, arrival and departure included.
2. Thinking a trip to the UK or Ireland "resets" the count.
3. Planning the next trip from today's number. What matters is the number on every day of the next trip, since old days keep dropping out while new ones come in.
4. Owning a home in Spain or France. It gives no extra days.
5. Holding a residence permit in one country and assuming the 90/180 is gone everywhere. The permit covers its own country; trips to other Schengen countries follow their own rules, check with the authority.

Second-home owners and winter stays

A winter from November to March is about 150 days, more than any 90/180 allows. The legal routes are a long-stay visa from the country you stay in (Spain's non-lucrative visa, for example), or splitting the winter with weeks outside the area. Some nationalities (Australians, New Zealanders, Americans in a few countries) have old bilateral agreements that add time in one country: check the agreement with that country's embassy before relying on it.

Count it on your phone

I made Stayline for this: you add your trips or check in once a day, it shows your days left, your last legal day, and whether a planned trip would put you over. The Schengen calculator is free, with no account, and your trips stay on your iPhone. Tax residency limits (183 days, the UK and US tests) are in the paid version.

Download on the App Store

Not legal advice: rules have exceptions (residence permits, family of EU citizens, bilateral agreements). For a decision that matters, check with the border authority or a lawyer.