Is it possible to 'extend' stay beyond 90 days?

Is it true that Americans and some other nationals can ‘extend’ their stay in Schengen beyond 90 days without a visa?

Yes, and recent figures showed that Americans are the biggest beneficiaries of ‘extended’ stays in the EU.

Usually, if you are not an EU/EEA or Swiss citizen, travel into the Schengen area must be under the EU's 90/180 days (monitored by the EES) or a visa.

However there are exceptions where someone may be permitted to stay on longer in France even if they have used up their Schengen '90 days'.

An example would be if a local prefecture grants an autorisation provisoire de séjour in a medical emergency or family crisis. If you believe your circumstances warrant this you must get in touch with the prefecture using details from its website. There is a main one for every department of France.

This can be granted for up to an extra six months, on French territory only.

Another reason for extension is rights under old pre-Schengen Agreement bilateral deals.

The 1985 Schengen agreement confirms that its rules do not affect countries’ rights to extend people’s stays on their territory in exceptional circumstances or due to existing bilateral deals made before it came into force.

In past years, The Connexion was told by lawyers and a relocation expert working with Americans that this rule was not commonly used by Americans and was likely to be little understood by border guards.

However, with the start of EES, its use has been clarified.

The US, for example, has an agreement with France dating from April 1, 1949, allowing US citizens to spend 90 days in mainland France and Corsica without a visa, regardless of previous stays in the Schengen area.

How it works

Americans can use up their 90/180 days in Schengen - including France - then start to use an ‘extension’ of up to 90 days in France.

It is intended to work this way round; for example, a US citizen should not stay a full 90 days in France then another 90 days in Spain or Italy.

It is unclear how border officials would distinguish between these if the traveller ultimately left from France to return home, as there are generally no internal Schengen area border controls. However, a person risking doing this 'the wrong way around' could also find themselves in difficulty if subject to police checks while overstaying in another Schengen state.

US citizens wanting to use this process should state to a border guard their wish to invoke the bilateral agreement when they cross the border into France from outside Schengen. The French Embassy in Washington confirmed to The Connexion that this should be done at the point of arriving in France. 

The guard can update their EES file to ensure the agreement is applied to their stay.

While this process is confirmed by sources including the French Embassy in the US, we do not know if all French border guards will be familiar with these rules 

Several other countries have similar agreements also for an extra 90 days.

These include: Canada (agreement from 1/5/1950) and New Zealand (1/12/1947), as well as South Korea, Israel, Japan and Singapore. There is no such deal with the UK.