3

I'm a US citizen traveling visa-free in Europe. It used to be the case that you could go to Croatia to bypass the Schengen Area "3 consecutive month" requirement. (That is, stay 3 months in Europe, then 3 months in Croatia, then back to Europe.) However, according to Wikipedia:

With Croatia's accession to the EU on 1 July 2013, it is also legally bound to eventually join the Schengen Area, and is working to do so within 2 years. On 16 May 2014, the Prime Minister of Croatia stated that Croatia will apply for Schengen entry on 1 July 2015.

What does this mean in practice? As of 2014, does Croatia still have its own visa-free visitation period separate from the Schengen one, or is Croatia now included in Schengen's month count? I'd rather not get into an uncomfortable situation at border control with no more Schengen days left!

Archagon
  • 1,075
  • 1
  • 9
  • 17

1 Answers1

5

Croatia is still not part of the Schengen area. The border between Croatia and, say, Slovenia or Hungary is treated as an external border and you should get an exit stamp, which also means the time spent in Croatia will not count towards the 90-day maximum stay in the Schengen area. Same thing if you take a flight out of a Schengen country to Croatia. Just like flights to the UK, they leave from the non-Schengen part of the airport.

In practice, the fact that Croatia is bound to join the Schengen area means it has to implement similar rules and show it can perform border controls up to a certain standard. But even if it is ready next year, there will be some time before it actually becomes part of the Schengen area (“fully implements the Schengen acquis” in the lingo).

Note that Romania and Bulgaria were supposed to join at the beginning of 2014 and were deemed ready by the European Commission but their entry was still blocked by other member states so it's not clear what will happen after Croatia officially applies.

Relaxed
  • 117,712
  • 10
  • 249
  • 436