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Travelling within the EU / Schengen

The Schengen zone is a joint territory of countries that do not carry out border controls on people crossing their common borders. Closing the border posts is compensated for by enhanced cooperation and joint rules for protecting the external borders, police and judicial cooperation, protecting personal data, issuing visas and data sharing within the Schengen information system.

The Schengen zone is made up of these countries:

Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lichtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Other EU or EEA Member States - Bulgaria, Croatia, Ireland, Cyprus, Romania and Great Britain - are not members of the Schengen zone.

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EU citizen

Every citizen of an EU Member State can invoke the right to stay in another EU Member State (free movement of persons), that being on the basis of Article 21 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, stating that "Every citizen of the Union shall have the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States".

The right to reside can only be restricted in cases justified by public order, public safety or health protection.

An EU citizen can travel within the EU on the basis of a valid passport or identity card. The documents should be valid at least for the period of the planned stay outside of the territory of their native state or the state in which they reside.

In the event of losing a travel document, it is necessary to announce this to the nearest consular office of the country that issued the travel document and which will issue a replacement travel document in order to return. This document only serves for a single journey to the country that issued the document.

An EU citizen does not need permission to reside in other EU Member States, nevertheless, every member State has set rules concerning the reporting requirement / registration of an EU citizen after arriving in its territory, which must be verified at the given state’s consular office if you intend to temporarily reside in its territory.

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Family member of an EU citizen – non-EU citizen

You can travel to other Schengen/EU states with a valid passport. If you are subject to visa requirements due to your nationality, you will also require a visa for your journey, which can be substituted by one of the following documents during your stay in the Czech Republic:

If you are the holder of a valid residence permit for a family member of an EU citizen or a valid residence card for a family member of an EU citizen issued in the CR and a valid travel document, you can travel:

• to other Schengen zone countries and spend up to in their territory up to 90 days in any 180-day period. It is not necessary to accompany or follow an EU Citizen.

• to EU countries outside of the Schengen zone and spend in their territory up to 90 days in any 180-day period under the condition that you accompany or follow an EU citizen. If you are travelling alone and are subject to visa requirements, you will need a visa.

If you are the holder of a valid permanent residence permit issued in the CR and a valid travel document, you can travel to other Schengen zone countries and reside in their territories for up to 90 days in any 180-day period.

If you do not hold any of the abovementioned documents and you do not accompany or follow an EU citizen on your travels to EU countries outside of the Schengen zone, the concessions for persons enjoying the Community rights to free movement do not relate to you and your stay in the EU / Schengen territory is governed by the general visa rules for your country of origin.

The rule, which allows short-term stay for a maximum of 90 days in any 180-day period replaced the so called “3/6 rule”, which was based on the principle of the date of first entry. The new “90 days in any 180-day period rule” does not use the principle of the date of first entry and works with a rolling 180-day period instead. The date of entry shall be considered as the first day of stay and the day of exit shall be considered as the last day of stay. The 180 days represent a rolling referential period, which is thus always determined e.g. at the moment of entry check, when it is reviewed, whether the traveller during 180 days immediately preceding the date of entry did not already exhaust the allowed 90 days in the 180-day period.

Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic would like to draw your attention to the practice of the administrative bodies of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, who allow entry to family members of EU citizens only on the condition that they hold the so called EEA Residence Permit, that being the case even if the family member of an EU citizen holds a residence card. MOI CR recommends to contact the Embassy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in order to verify the conditions of entry for family members of EU citizens, holders of residence card.

In case you applied for temporary  or permanent residence permit  as family member of EU citizen and you were issued the confirmation of your permission to stay on the territory in the form of long term visa sticker (affixed in you travel passport) you are allowed not only to stay on the territory of the Czech republic  but also to travel during its validity to other states  of Schengen space. Validitiy of this long term visa sticker however ceases as soon as  the decision on the application for  temporary or permanent residence permit becomes final.

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Travelling of children

Generally, the basic rule of requiring your own travel document to travel (passport or identity card) is also valid for children (minors).

Some states allow children to travel without their own document on condition that they travel with a parent who has them entered in their travel document (in principle with a passport, some states also allow them to be entered into the identity card).  We recommend verifying this fact, however, at the consular office of the state that your are planning to travel to. The option of children (nationals of one of the Schengen states) being able to travel on the travel document of one of their parents ends on 26 June 2012 at latest. It will then be necessary for every child who is travelling to identify him/herself with a valid passport.

As concerns free movement in the EU/Schengen, if a child is both a family member of an EU citizen and a non-EU citizen, the possibilities for moving in the EU / Schengen are the same as those for an adult.