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My wife and I will soon make our first post-Brexit trip to the EU (Denmark). I am a dual UK / Irish citizen and hence I will use my Irish passport card to enter. My wife is only a UK citizen. Can she use the EU citizen immigration queue with me or do we need to use separate queues? If we use the same queue, do we just walk up together and I hand over both passports together?

badjohn
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    The Schengen Borders Code says that you can go together to the EU citizens line, but I understand that different countries implement this differently. I don't know about Denmark. – phoog Apr 28 '22 at 13:55
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    I think you best stay together whatever line you use, each can hand their own passports, needed if you can use automated passport control ports. – Willeke Apr 28 '22 at 14:52
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    @Willeke Automated gates often don't accept passport cards. Of course, I could use my full passport but I rather like the card. – badjohn Apr 28 '22 at 14:58
  • I will be travelling to Europe next year on a Greek passport and staying past the 90 day limit imposed on non European citizens. Will my wife be restricted to the 90 day limit or can she stay longer as we will be travelling together. My wife is Greek of heritage but born in Australia... – Tony Tsihlakis Jul 26 '22 at 05:29
  • When travelling togeather, the 90 day limit does not apply to the non-EU citizen spouse of an EU citizen. – Mark Johnson Jul 26 '22 at 05:34
  • More details here - https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/family-residence-rights/index_en.htm – Anish Sheela Jul 26 '22 at 06:03

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The Schengen borders code states that family members of EU citizens can use the "EU/EEA/Swiss citizens" lane when they are travelling together.

In order to reduce the waiting times of persons enjoying the Union right of free movement, separate lanes, indicated by uniform signs in all Member States, should, where circumstances allow, be provided at border crossing points. Separate lanes should be provided in international airports.

‘persons enjoying the right of free movement under Union law’ means: Union citizens within the meaning of Article 20(1) TFEU, and third-country nationals who are members of the family of a Union citizen exercising his or her right to free movement to whom Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (21) applies;

Source: Schengen borders code https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32016R0399

meego
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  • It seems that not all border staff know this. We arrived in Copenhagen airport and, as expected, there was an EU and non-EU queue. I went to the EU and there was a woman doing a precheck. I showed her my Irish passport card which she was happy with it. I asked whether my non-EU wife could join me. She said no. I said that EU rules allowed it but she said: "not in this airport". I did not argue further as I did not want to make a scene. Anyway, the non-EU queue was quite short and moving well. In fact, my wife got though slightly ahead of me (probably due to my discussion). – badjohn Jul 26 '22 at 16:21