The Schengen 90/180 rule explained, with worked examples

Ninety days in any 180 sounds simple until you have three trips in six months and a fourth to book. Here is exactly how the count works, and three examples to check your own against.

Written by the developer of Rollbook · Published 25 October 2026

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What “90 days in any 180” actually says

The rule is in the Schengen Borders Code, Regulation (EU) 2016/399, Article 6(1). It allows stays of “no more than 90 days in any 180-day period”, and it says how to read that: by considering the 180-day period preceding each day of stay. There is no fixed half-year that starts on 1 January or on your first entry. The window is attached to the day you are asking about, and it moves forward one day at a time.

Three things follow from that wording, and most counting mistakes break one of them:

• The 90 days are shared by every Schengen country. A week in France and a week in Spain is two weeks of one allowance, not one week of each.
• Days are calendar days, not nights. A day you arrive and a day you leave are both days in the area, whatever time the flight lands or leaves. A day trip from outside counts as one day.
• Nothing resets. Each day you spent counts for 180 days and then drops out on its own. Leaving does not clear the count, and the 180 days are not a waiting period.

Which countries count

Days count in the 29 Schengen states: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Bulgaria and Romania count only from 31 March 2024, the day they joined. Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City have open borders with the area and can only be reached through it, so Rollbook counts days there too. Ireland and Cyprus are in the EU but not in Schengen: days there do not count. French overseas departments such as Réunion or French Guiana are outside the area as well.

Worked example 1: one trip, then back

You spend 1 to 30 June 2026 in Italy. That is 30 days, because both the 1st and the 30th count. You come back on 1 August 2026.

All 30 June days are inside the window, so 60 remain, and the 1 August arrival day is the first of them. You can stay 60 days, until 29 September 2026. The June days start dropping out on 28 November 2026, 180 days after 1 June, one a day.

Worked example 2: a weekend and a day trip

A Friday-to-Sunday weekend in Amsterdam, 13 to 15 March 2026, uses 3 days, not 2 nights. A day trip across a land border, in and out on 14 March, uses 1. Each of those days comes back 180 days later: the weekend’s three days on 9, 10 and 11 September 2026.

Worked example 3: three trips in a year

This is the example on Rollbook’s home page, counted on 24 October 2026 for a UK traveller with three trips that year:

Every trip falls inside the window that ends on 24 October, so 73 days are used and 17 are left. That does not mean the next trip can only be 17 days long. Arrive on 20 November 2026 and the stay can run until 4 January 2027, 46 days, because the 29 May days drop out of the window while the traveller is there. How to work out dates like that is in when can I return to Schengen.

Mistakes that make a count wrong

• Counting nights. Hotels count nights; the rule counts days. A seven-night stay is eight days.
• Counting per country. The allowance is for the whole area. Owning a home in one country gives it no separate allowance, which matters a great deal for second-home owners.
• Using fixed half-years. January to June and July to December is not the rule. A stay that straddles 1 July is counted as one stay.
• Checking only on the day you arrive. The test applies to every day of the stay. A count that is fine on arrival can go over the limit in week three, as old days stop dropping out.
• Assuming the border keeps track for you. Since April 2026 the EU’s Entry/Exit System records each crossing; what EES means for the 90-day rule is its own question, but the responsibility to stay within it is still yours.

How to check your own count

The European Commission publishes a free short-stay calculator on its website, and checking a count in two places is a good habit when an overstay is at stake. Rollbook does the same count on your phone and keeps the trips, so the number is there tomorrow without typing them in again. It also shows its working: the trips in the current window, the days each one adds, and the date each will drop out.

This guide explains how days are counted. It is not legal advice. People with a long-stay visa, a residence permit or an EU-citizen family member can have different rules; check with the consulate of the country concerned.

Rollbook: a Schengen calculator that shows how it counted

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