Travelling to other European countries with a carte de sejour

Hi
I am an English citizen living in France and have a ten year carte de sejour. If I wish to travel to other European countries like Italy or Spain how long in a year can I stay in another European country?
Many thanks

Hi Jennie.
The CdS is a French title which confirms French residency rights. It has no significance in other European countries, so you will be able to stay in other European countries for 90 days in any 180 day period - the same as a UK passport holder who is a UK resident.

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As you’re not an EU citizen, I think you are bound by the 90/180 day rules, but difficult to enforce as very few internal EU border controls.
Edit - as @_Brian says

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More for completeness, but if (hypothetically) you were married to, and accompanying an EU citizen, you both could legally spend up to 3 months consecutively in any combination of EU countries…

Hi Brian
Many thanks for that. When I get French citizenship will I still need to spend only three months at a time in other European countries?

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Yes, because as an EU citizen at 3 months you would be subject to residency rules in the host EU country. However, you would not be subject to Schengen 90/180.

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That’s different. If you get French nationality you will regain freedom of movement but… FoM does not allow you to simply move to another country without jumping through a few hoops but it does remove the 90 day restriction. It you wanted to spend more time in Spain for example that would be possible but after 90 days you would need to leave Spain for at least 24 hours before returning. You could then return for another 90 days. At that point you would meet another obstacle. You would need to leave for another 24 hours but if you return you would then be close to the point at which you will reach 183 days which is when you would need to become tax resident. At six months you would also have to register your car there. If however you want to set off in your camping car to travel through the Schengen Zone not spending more than 90 days in any one country then you will be fine.

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Should you have added ‘but without the need for a visa’ somewhere there @_Brian ? I don’t know but am sure I have heard it said.

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Thank you

A visa gets you into a country. A CdS allows you to stay.

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What I meant was that I don’t think a British national resident in France needs a visa to get into a neighbouring Schengen country, whereas a UK based one does. Isn’t that so?

Thanks, with all the talk of visas for UK residents I thought they needed them all the time. :grinning:

Hmmm, I recall there was a bit of a debate about this. A UK resident travelling around the Schengen countries for say 6 continuous months would surely need some sort of visa because the visa free period would expire after 3 months. I don’t know though if there is a European Schengen visa which allows this, or whether one would need a separate visa for each country visited after the 3 months.

And I would presume that technically the same would apply to a UK citizen resident in France although practically because of Schengen open borders such travel unlikely to be detected?

There are no long term Schengen visas and France is one of the few EU countries that offers extended visitors visas. There have been a few reported stories of motor caravan owners who have applied for a French VS-T then spent 9 months in Spain when their time out France should have come out of their Schengen 90/180 days. Many will get away with this as there are rarely checks on the internal borders and anyway passports are only stamped when entering and leaving the Schengen Zone. If caught they risk large fines and bans from entering Schengen for several years. Many second home owners with property in Spain talk about Spain introducing an extended visa like the VS-T but Spain has never shown any interest in doing so.