Non EU spouse travelling with EU spouse in Schengen area time restrictions?

Question

Can a non-EU spouse of an EU citizen travel freely with their spouse in EU Schengen area beyond the 90/180 day usual limit?

Answer 1

According to the Schengen Handbook for Border Guards, yes. A link to the most recent version should be available at https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/schengen-borders-and-visa/border-crossing_en. It says:

In the case of third-country nationals who are family members of EU, EEA and CH citizens, they have the right of residence in a Member State for a period of up to three months if they are in possession of a valid passport and are accompanying or joining the EU, EEA or CH citizen, without any limitation to 90 days in a 180-day period.

To be noted that third-country nationals who are family members of EU, EEA and CH citizens are entitled to accompany or join the EU, EEA or CH citizen for consecutive periods of up to three months per Schengen State without any conditions or formalities (except the need to have a visa for third-country nationals from a country subject to a visa requirement where the person is not in possession of a valid residence card or a residence permit as further explained in point 2.8 of this Section).

When the family member travels on his/her own and does not hold a valid residence card or a residence permit (see point 2.8 of this Section), the normal regime concerning the length of the short stay will (re)start to apply, as the conditions for benefiting from the facilitations concerning the free movement of the EU, EEA and CH citizens and their families are not met anymore.

The previous stays performed in the area without internal border controls accompanying or joining the EU, EEA or CH citizen should not be taken into account for the sake of the calculation of the compliance with the 90/180-day rule which is applicable to the short stay only.

*Examples (in all these examples, the third country national is not in possession of a valid residence card or a residence permit as further explained in point 2.8 of this Section):

An Indian national married to a French citizen may accompany his French spouse to Germany for three months, Spain for two months and Italy for three months, thus staying in the area without internal border controls for a total consecutive period of eight months.

A Japanese citizen is married with an Estonian citizen and has never come to the EU before. The Japanese citizen accompanies his Estonian spouse to Italy for one month. Just after that month, the Estonian spouse leaves Italy and returns to Japan to work. The Japanese citizen can remain alone for another 90 days (the limit of 90 days in any 180-day applies).

A Chinese citizen married to a Swedish citizen spends alone, for business purposes, 15 days in Austria. The Swedish citizen then joins him and they spend one month in Portugal. Just after that month, the Swedish spouse leaves the EU. The Chinese citizen can remain alone for the remaining 75 days in the 180-day period (the limit of 90 days in any 180-day period applies, but the stay performed together with the EU citizen should not be counted (in this example, the one month period) when assessing the respect of the limit of 90 days in any 180-day period).

(Emphasis added)

If you wish to spend more than three months in any one country, you'll need to see whether the country requires you to register, as it may under the terms of the regulation (I believe the deadline in the Netherlands is 4 months instead of 3 but as far as I'm aware every other country uses the shortest allowable deadline, which is three months).