90 day residence rule

My wife has a UK passport. I've both an Irish and a UK one. Like me, she wishes to spend more than 90 days here in the summer.

Does anyone know a way this can be done, please?

This has been discussed many times before by Brit residents trying to get around the rules by travelling on an Irish passport.

However, even with an Irish passport you are not supposed to spend more than 90 days in another Schengen country unless you register as a foreign EU citizen residing in Spain. As EU passports aren't checked or stamped, this is totally ignored by the authorities. Only if you go over 183 days in one year would it alter things.

Your wife can visit for the same time as you as long as you are accompanying her or she is travelling to stay with you. The first bit would be easy and by showing the Irish passport hers will not be stamped. The second may be a bit more difficult if travelling alone, even to meet you, as proving it could be difficult.

But if travelling together the passports aren't stamped so no records. Just make sure you point this out at border control.

Marcliff, are you correct in saying that the UK passport would not be stamped if the Irish passport was shown? My understanding is that the UK passport still gets stamped.

UK passports are usually stamped but meaningless if travelling with a spouse holding EU passport. This only gets a little awkward when the UK passport holder wishes to travel on their own.

In order to legally stay longer than 90 days the O/P needs to register as a Spanish resident. This would allow the UK passport holder (spouse) to register as a dependent without having to jump through the hoops required for a 3rd country visa.

Lockey57 wrote:Marcliff, are you correct in saying that the UK passport would not be stamped if the Irish passport was shown? My understanding is that the UK passport still gets stamped.

Not according to previous posts which say they aren't. Still, depends on the guy at border control I guess.

I have an Irish passport and my wife a U.K. one, every time when we get to the gate we are split up and sent to different gates me the EU one and my wife to the other one. I pointed out we were together but it made no difference.

marcliff wrote:This has been discussed many times before by Brit residents trying to get around the rules by travelling on an Irish passport.

However, even with an Irish passport you are not supposed to spend more than 90 days in another Schengen country unless you register as a foreign EU citizen residing in Spain. As EU passports aren't checked or stamped, this is totally ignored by the authorities. Only if you go over 183 days in one year would it alter things.

Your wife can visit for the same time as you as long as you are accompanying her or she is travelling to stay with you. The first bit would be easy and by showing the Irish passport hers will not be stamped. The second may be a bit more difficult if travelling alone, even to meet you, as proving it could be difficult.

But if travelling together the passports aren't stamped so no records. Just make sure you point this out at border control.

Its the same for us, I got a Swedish passport and my husband UK passport. We would like to spend, not more than 90 days at the time but be able to return before the 90 days outside the Schengen area is up. My husbands passport is always stamped and we don't trust that if we come before, they will let him in at that time.

(My husband is trying to prove & claim dual UK-Italian citizenship)
I've read somewhere that the 'travelling spouse' should always have an official (not photocopied) copy of their marriage certificate available. If/when husband gets his dual citizenship, he'll be EU AND British and I'll be allowed in to Schengen ignoring the 90/180 rule when I travel with him. I doubt it would be as simple as that! But the principle seems as mentioned earlier - though how you would prove you were with the EU spouse all the time might be tricky.

Tizzy74 wrote:

Its the same for us, I got a Swedish passport and my husband UK passport. We would like to spend, not more than 90 days at the time but be able to return before the 90 days outside the Schengen area is up. My husbands passport is always stamped and we don't trust that if we come before, they will let him in at that time.

According to EU rules, which have previously been quoted on here by Bee, as long as you are travelling together there should be no problem.

Some have said the accompanying spouse has not had their passport stamped when travelling together and some say they have, just like some with residency say that they have had their passport stamped and others not. All depends on how the border control reads or understand the rules, I suppose. Of course, if you then travel alone you'd have to prove your previous stay was with your partner.

The UK passport is always stamped. I have close friends in a similar position (Husband and wife - Spanish and UK passport.) They contacted Spanish immigration and emailed the EU immigration service. Their argument to them was that an EU citizen has in law “a right to family life” and therefore the UK partner should be able to extend their stay in Spain to be with their spouse. Both Spanish and EU immigration offices stated however that the only way to for the UK partner to remain past 90 days with their spouse was to take out residency- which in this case having a Spanish spouse would be an easy formality.
It’s possible to maybe bluff a way past uninformed border control but in my friends case the UK passport has always been stamped.