Overstaying visa in Europe

I have had my passport / residency permit checked on a bus entering germany from austria before. A true check where they phoned in my resident number, not simply a glance-at-photo ID check.

The question is what do you stand to lose? Do you plan on returning to europe? Living here? Or simply finishing your studies and returning home. The worst that would happen if you are caught overstaying is a pretty big fine and a 5 year ban from the entire Schengen zone. That is absolute worst-case. If you aren't planning to come back anyway, then the stakes are pretty low.

Thousands of people do exactly what you are doing and get by just fine. But it only takes one immigration official in a bad mood. Odds of getting caught are low, but not zero, even in Czech.

You cannot get an extension on your visa unless something seriously gnarly happens like you end up in a coma. You cannot get an extension on a spanish visa in germany. You cannot extend a student visa without proof that you are studying. Contacting the american embassy would do nothing, as the USA does not issue visas for foreign countries. The embassy is there to represent the government of the usa, not to help individual citizens.

What you could do is exit the Schengen zone when your studies are finished, go to Tangier for a day or something, and as your visa will be already expired you will re-enter the EU as an ordinary american tourist. This gives you 90 days perfectly legal. Unfortunately you must leave and re-enter to have this work. You do not get an automatic 90 days of tourist status as soon as your student visa expires.

France is pretty lax on passport checks when entering / exiting also, at least for US passports. The strictest are the dutch, germans, swiss, and scandinavians. The immigration pricks at amsterdam are in my experience the worst.

Just do the exit-and-reenter plan and you'll be totally legal for 90 more days.

How I know all of this? I have spent a little over three years weaselling my way around and through these entry / exit immigration and residency laws in germany and now in spain. It makes me sick that the world has come to this.

Wow, thanks a lot for that. I actually would like to go to morocco, so going to tangier for a few days and then flying back across into the EU would be cool. I will definitely look into that option.

undesired alien wrote:

you will re-enter the EU as an ordinary american tourist. This gives you 90 days perfectly legal. Unfortunately you must leave and re-enter to have this work. You do not get an automatic 90 days of tourist status as soon as your student visa expires.

And are you 100% sure about me being considered a "tourist" when I re-enter?

Also, I do no plan on re entering Europe for a while, nor do I plan to work there. In January I'm starting my masters program and will do that for 2-3 years or so. I'm more worried about excessive fines or going to jail (I've heard it's possible).

When I would fly back in after spending a few days in morocc, do you think it would be a better idea to fly morocco-Czech Republic instead of directly to Germany? And then bus over to Germany? I've just heard the german officials are very strict and I don't want to encounter them at all, even if I'm legal on a rare technicality. I'd rather just avoid it altogether.

Thanks a bunch.

The only way I think you would be less than 100% legal is if they looked in your passport at the entry/exit stamps and compared your entry into Morocco against the expiry date of your spanish student visa and noticed the 4 day discrepancy. If you have a lot of stamps in your passport you understand how unlikely this is. But I suppose if you wanted to be entirely 100% legal you could go to Morocco the day your spanish study visa runs out. Probably problematic though since your classes won't be over yet. How did you even get a study visa that expires before your class is finished?

You would 100% be on a tourist pass when you re-enter because the USA participates in the visa-waiver program. All this means is that with many countries all you need is a passport to get in. They stamp you when you enter, that is your tourist "visa," the stamp that says the date of entry. If you have some other visa, like your current study visa, it will say on it what dates you can stay and what you can do with it (work, etc.). If you are an american passport carrier entering europe and you've no special permits active in your passport, by default you enter as a tourist. They stamp your passport and from that day you are allowed 90 days in the schengen zone. After that, you are supposed to leave for 90 days before you can come back in.

I think unless you have an actual interest to see Prague you are making more work for yourself than is necessary by trying to fly in and out of Czech Republic. I've never been to Prague but I know firsthand that France is incredibly lax on checking US passports. The immigrations people at Paris DeGaulle are some of the least interested I've ever encountered anywhere on earth. And almost certainly you'd be able to find cheaper flights into and out of Paris than Prague.

I think with no previous criminal activity, being caught overstaying a visa in europe is not so huge a deal. So many people overstay by weeks, months, years it is ridiculous. If you were pakistani or iranian or senegalese you'd have some problems. But a kid with an american passport and no record, you'd have to encounter a truely bad-mood official to lay the full hammer down onto you. I think most likely case, they say don't do it again and let you get on your plane out. Next most likely is maybe a stern talking-to, a back-room question session and then they let you go. Next most likely maybe a year's ban. I am completely speculating here though. To garner the max fine, max ban, and jail time you'd have to have drugs or guns in your luggage or maybe try to assault one of the immigration officials. Jail time requires serious offence here. The reason there is an end-date on your visa is so you don't get in dutch and become a drag on social welfare. So it makes no sense for them to hold you as a necessary ward of the state for the crime of staying longer than you were supposed to.

If you cross a border you will get you passport checked and they will notice your visa end date.

You'll probably then get taken off the bus and put in jail nd perhaps have to pay a fine.

German authorities are strict, you won't get away with anything there.

The schengen agreement ended passport checks at intra-EU borders. You can fly / drive / travel between most EU nations now exactly the same as between US states. While it is possible your passport may be checked at a frontier, it is by no means normal. Over years of much travelling it has only happened to me once, on a bus entering Germany at Garmisch. And never while flying between countries.

Just mention you know David Hasselhoff. Germany loves The Hoff.

SW_London_runner wrote:

If you cross a border you will get you passport checked and they will notice your visa end date.

You'll probably then get taken off the bus and put in jail nd perhaps have to pay a fine.

German authorities are strict, you won't get away with anything there.

The part about getting my passport checked is most likely untrue. I have been on my Spanish study visa since may 20th. I have since travelled to France, Germany, and the Czech Republic and no one has looked at my passport at the borders or stamped it at any airport since I arrived in Madrid in late May.

As for how I got a visa that expires before the end of my classes, it's kind of complicated, but I'll explain because I've got nothing better to do now.

Basically, I am taking the dele Spanish exam November 22. I wanted to have at least 3.5 months to prepare for it, so that is why I am now attending a Spanish language school here in Spain. But, I also wanted to go to Germany for some time before my time in Spain because I wanted to learn some german and live with a family there for a few months.

I could have applied for a 180days or more visa for Spain, but the requirements for that would have taken longer to get done: they wanted me to have an FBI criminal background check done in order to apply for it. My Spanish language program didn't start until august, and I was having to get all of this work done in March/April, because I wanted to leave by late May. You can't apply for a visa more than 3 months in advance. Visas can take 4-6 weeks to be processed (varies greatly). FBI background checks themselves take 4-6 weeks, basically there wasn't enough time to overcome all the ridiculous hurdles.

So I talked to my Spanish language program director (who I knew because I went to the same language school last summer) and had her forge the dates that I would be at the language school. She put down I'd be there for 5.5 months instead of the 3.5 I would actually be here for. This enabled me to apply for the visa more than 3 months in advance.

I put on my visa application that my last day of school would be November 25th or something like that. So I have a visa valid for 179 days or less here, but figured that since Spain was very lax on immigration policy that it would be easier to stay past a few days illegally than to legally get the 180 day+ visa. When I received my visa in the mail, it said it was valid for any 180 day or less period within May 20th and November 30th, but not from those dates (since that is more than 180 days.) I entered the EU on May 21st, hence my visa is only technically valid to November 17.

It is/was an incredibly complicated situation and a lot of emails and phone calls went into trying to set it up in order to get around the ridiculous beaurocracy. But I am an innocent 23 year old white guy who has no convictions of any kind, and have also previously been faithful to my long stay visa for France when I studied abroad for a year as a sophomore in college, so I think I should be ok but there are so many small rules and technicalities that it's just ridiculous.

When I was I Germany last month, I saw with my own eyes a bunch of illegals from Central African countries and Syria that the government lets in. And then they do nothing about it. Yet here I am, wanting to play by the rules, and I have to go through all this. Crazy.

I like how you can still go somewhere with no background check but can stay longer if you have one.

You are American and presumably white. Schengen officials do not care about you. I lived in Barcelona for four years and crossed international borders dozens of times without a problem.

options wrote:

You are American and presumably white. Schengen officials do not care about you. I lived in Barcelona for four years and crossed international borders dozens of times without a problem.

This is probably the nut of the matter. Educated-looking caucasians carrying an american passport are on about the bottom of the list. Treble the rule-relaxation if you are a girl, and x10 it if you are a pretty girl.

I know an israeli girl who has lived in Berlin for ten years, but only had legal residence for half that. A musician, she was constantly travelling all over the world. She came in and out of europe / germany countless times without ever a single hassle. That is another tip. If you are a jew you can basically do whatever you want in germany now.

I wholly agree with the OP about the absurdity which has become the disease of immigration bureaucracy. One has every wish to follow the rules, but they make this very nearly impossible to do. The misery of having to constantly fight for the right to simply exist on the grounds has almost, for me, started to trump the misery that is to live in the usa. Almost, but not quite.

Hello! This is my first time posting on a message board, so here goes nothing. Firstly, I really appreciate this forum. I have been searching and reading for months about overstaying visas, and still confused and unsure. I am basically another stress-case with a year long overstayed visa. I'm an American who has been living in the Czech republic for 11 months. I came here to teach English but ended up working as a nanny under the table, and am now in a serious relationship with a Czech. I desperately want to go home in a few months to visit family. I have pondered over every possible option of how to go about this, and am still unsure. I think I've decided to risk it and fly out of here, Spain, or France. Which is the best option? Once I get back to the states, I will "lose" my passport, get a new one, and return to CZ to finally get a legal 6 month visa.

Which airport would be my best bet?

In neeeeeed. Thanks.

Hello,

I studied in Italy for year under a STUDENT VISA as I was completing my masters in fashion marketing.

My student visa expired last month as did my "Permit to Stay" or 'PERMESSO DI SOGGIORNO' which was mandatory to apply for at the Italian Immigration Office upon arrival. However, I immediately applied to extend/renew my Permit to Stay because I will be doing my internship in Italy for 6 months and have a letter from my school requesting this renewal. I have turned in the requested documentation and followup and am just waiting for a date to pick up my permit, but in the meantime I am legally still allowed to be here as a "Student"?

Once or until I have my renewed Permit to Stay does that mean my Student Visa will also be extended? Or is this a separate procedure?

I have my ticket to go home in exactly 1 month but for the time being, would you recommend I exit the Schengen area and re-enter (from UK) as a tourist?

Ask Reddit. You'd get better answers on there ( smarter people ).

if you don't want to take a bus, look into blablacar (long distance ridesharing with). I'm not sure about spain, but i've used in plenty in France, belgium, germany area. It's easy and you won't have officials looking for your passport.

I traveled to Germany/Belgium for a week from France and didn't even bring my passport on accident.

Woow! You have an amazing story of your immigration experience. I think that nowadays it's completely different and you can get a qualified support with any kind of documents so your immigration process will go smothly and fast! For instance, I had some problems with the https://usimmigrationforms.com/form-i-134-affidavit-of-support/ form. But guys from USImmigrationforms helped me and now I'm living and working in the US! Amazing! Good luck!