Residency
App of the Day
from the creators of 
murmur
Layered
The rule fits in one line: no more than 90 days in the Schengen area within any 180-day period. The counting is where people go wrong, because the 180 days are a moving window.
This guide explains how the count works, with the official source for every figure. Rules change and your own circumstances matter, so check the source and take decisions to an adviser.
The rule, in the Commission's words
The European Commission puts it this way: you must count back 180 days from each day of your stay and make sure the total does not pass 90.
So there is no reset date. Every day you are inside has its own window, and each one has to hold.
How to count by hand
- Write down every trip with the day you entered and the day you left. Both of those days count as days inside.
- Pick the day you want to check. For a planned trip, that is its last day.
- Count back 180 days from that day, including it.
- Add up all the days inside the Schengen area that fall in that window.
- If the total is 90 or less, that day is fine. Check the other days of the trip the same way.
Two examples
One long stay. You enter on 1 March and leave on 29 May. That is 90 days. On 30 May you must be outside, and you cannot come back until days start dropping out of the window, which begins 180 days after 1 March.
Several short trips. You spent 30 days in January, 30 in March and 20 in May. On the last day of the May trip the window still holds all three trips: 80 days. A fourth trip in June can run 10 days before the total reaches 90, even though each trip was short.
Where it goes wrong
- Treating it as 90 days a half-year. The window rolls. A stay in December still counts in May.
- Forgetting travel days. The day you land and the day you fly out are both days inside.
- Not checking the visa. If you hold a short-stay visa, the period printed on it can be shorter than 90 days.
In Residency
Residency recounts the window for every date and warns you before a trip would cross the line. It can rebuild past trips from your photo library, so the count starts from where you have been.
Updated 11 November 2026.
Questions
How do I count my Schengen days?
For each day of your stay, look back 180 days and count every day you spent in the Schengen area in that window. The total must not be more than 90.
Does the 180-day period reset when I leave?
No. The window is rolling. It moves forward one day at a time, and old days drop out of it only when they are more than 180 days in the past.
Does my visa change the count?
It can shorten it. The European Commission says to check the period of authorised stay printed on a short-stay visa, which may be less than 90 days.