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My husband and I are going to Italy for a 15 day vacation from USA. We are NOT citizens of the states, but we work and live here. Our return flight is from Venice, Italy to Chicago, USA with a layover in Madrid, Spain. We are applying for a Schengen Visa with the Italian Embassy. Will we need a transit visa for our layover in Spain, if we already have an approved Schengen Visa?

Since Italy and Spain are both Schengen countries, we assumed that we would not need a transit visa, but we are getting confused reading online blogs.

Mikael Dúi Bolinder
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Megha
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1 Answers1

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As @phoog already wrote, you do not need a transit visa.

Note that all the info you might have read about transit visas apply to people who come from outside the Schengen area and leave it immediately (for example India-Madrid-US). Transit rules are quite complicated, see Do I need a visa to transit (or layover) in the Schengen area?

But in your case, the flight between Venice and Madrid is an internal Schengen flight. When you arrive in Madrid, you are still in the Schengen area, just as if you drove there and the rules for transit do not apply at all. For some people, that's actually a problem as they need a full Schengen visa but you already have one of those. Therefore, you will simply go through the exit passport check and get a stamp in Madrid (and not in Venice).

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