Calculation of short-term stay

In my juridical practice, I often encounter situations where foreigners arriving in Poland under visa-free movement are unable to correctly calculate the duration of their stay, leading to their inadvertent violation of immigration laws. Therefore, I am sharing a very beneficial and useful resource on calculating the days of stay under visa-free movement.

What is a “visa’free movement” – it is a period of stay in Poland not exceeding 90 days in any 180-day. That means:

• continuous stay or,
• several successive stays;
• the total duration of which does not exceed 90 days in any 180-day period.

To calculate the period of permitted stay, take into account the preceding 180-day period for each day of the planned stay. This means that the stay of a foreigner entitled to a 90-day period of stay is legal, provided that during the previous 180 days, their stay did not exceed 90 days.

In practice, the control of days of permissible stay based on the C/Visa-free movement involves stepping back by 180 days (from the day of the control) and calculating, for example, based on the imprints of border control stamps, the number of days that the foreigner has already used in this 180-day period.

On the website of the Directorate-General for Internal Affairs, the European Commission has posted a special calculator for self-calculating short stays.

Schengen calculator address: https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/content/visa-calculator_en

Source of information: www.strazgraniczna.pl