Travel trade organisation Abta said enforcement of the limit of 90 days in a 180-day period has previously been widely ignored.<\/p>\n
It warned that this will change with the EU\u2019s Entry Exit System (EES) \u2013 which launches on Sunday \u2013 as it will automatically alert border officials when someone has overstayed.<\/p>\n
Currently, a case would generally only come to light following an inspection of each stamp inside an individual\u2019s passport.<\/p>\n
Fines for overstaying vary by country, but can reach the equivalent of thousands of pounds.<\/p>\n
The length of stay requirement covers the Schengen area, which consists of most of the EU and some other European nations.<\/p>\n
Speaking at Abta\u2019s annual convention in Calvia on the Spanish island of Mallorca \u2013 the organisation\u2019s director of public affairs Luke Petherbridge said UK nationals with second homes in the Schengen area \u201cneed to be aware of the rules\u201d.<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cThose who are breaching the 90\/180-day rule, it will be automatically detected.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that hasn\u2019t really been happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cA number of countries haven\u2019t really been doing that check particularly closely.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost, if I\u2019m honest about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Petherbridge said automatic detections will happen from April 10 2026 when EES is fully rolled out following a phased implementation.<\/p>\n
He went on: \u201cThe advice for those who own a second home, I guess, will be to go down the residency route in those countries and ensure, therefore, you are exempt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spain is a popular destination for UK citizens to own second homes, but it is tough for them to obtain residency rights because of financial and documentation requirements.<\/p>\n
A recent survey of 2,001 UK adults commissioned by Abta indicated that just 61% of those planning to travel to Europe over the next year are aware of EES.<\/p>\n
Completing EES will involve passengers having their fingerprints registered and photograph taken to enter the EU.<\/p>\n
All children must register, though under-12s will be exempt from fingerprinting.<\/p>\n
For most UK travellers this will be done on arrival at foreign airports.<\/p>\n
But those boarding international services from St Pancras railway station, the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel\u2019s Folkestone terminal will complete their checks in the UK.<\/p>\n
Mr Petherbridge said travellers should be \u201cprepared for the possibility of longer queues\u201d.<\/p>\n
He went on: \u201cI think it\u2019s inevitable when this comes in that there will be teething problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have some incidents in some destinations, so travellers should be prepared for waiting slightly longer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Travel trade organisation Abta said enforcement of the limit of 90 days in a 180-day period has previously…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-480425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115332974237379298","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}