I am canadian, my first visit to netherlands was - feb 7-16 2015 and Mar 7-23 2015 and Jun 28- Aug 25 2015 totalof 85 days. i am now in turkey since aug 25th cause i thought my time was up in Netherlands The calculator they give you to figure out your days said i still have 31 days left so my question is could i go back now, how do i know when it starts over. How can i find out if this is true?
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It doesn't start over, it's a continuous rolling period, 180 days back from today. – CMaster Sep 07 '15 at 10:32
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I don't think we can do much better than the calculator. There is also a full explanation of the rules in How does the Schengen 90/180 rule work? but they are somewhat complicated, there is no way around that.
But I can at least offer a quick rule of thumb: If you stay for a full 90-day period out of the Schengen area, then you can definitely reenter for another 90 days, provided you fulfill all the usual conditions. It might be possible to reenter earlier if you made several short stays with breaks in-between and that's why you need a calculator to figure it all out, but 90 days after the last time you were in the Schengen area is definitely safe.
The reason for that is that after 91 days, the first day of an earlier 90-day stay has to be more than 180 days in the past. So you have at least one day left. On the 92th day, then the second day is now more than 180 days in the past and you still have 1 day because it's a sliding window. And so on, for 90 days in a row.
Something similar happened in your scenario. On the 25th of August (and after that date), the February stay is already more than 180 days in the past so it does not count, which means that you have used only 76 days (and not 85). That's the easy part. But after a few days, on September 2, the first day of the March stay is also 180 days in the past. So you can use those days again, one at a time, following the sliding window principle I just explained. And the total length of stay allowed (either then or now) is 14 (that's 90-76 available on the 25th of August) + 17 (the length of the March stay sliding out of the window starting on September 2) = 31 days.
And it's only in December that your last stay will begin sliding out of the 180-day window. So if you don't come now but enter on the 24th of November instead, you will have a full 90 days available. Why the 24th? It's because 181 days after the 28th of June is December 25 and you have your 31 days to bridge the time between November 24 and December 25. (If you enter all the dates in the calculator, you will see that on November 23 you only have 31 days and on November 24, you suddenly have 90 days. That's because if you enter the area on November 23 and stay 31 days, there is still a one day gap before you can reuse the 59 days of your June-August stay.)
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thank you but like i said according to that calculator, i have 31 days left, so maybe i can go back to netherlands now lol. I wonder if i contact the dutch embassy they should be able to tell me. – mjk110 Sep 07 '15 at 00:24
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@mjk110 I add a paragraph to explain the calculation. You can in any case go now, the question is for how long exactly. After all, even counting all your stays and putting the calculation aside, you have at least 5 days left (90 - 85). – Relaxed Sep 07 '15 at 00:25
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yes thx, sorry it just seems so confusing, but yes even though they say up to 31 days, maybe best to only stay maybe 25-26 days – mjk110 Sep 07 '15 at 00:27
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@mjk110 I am not sure I follow your logic, 31 days is correct, I tried to explain why. But if you don't want to rely on this calculation, then the safest would seem to be 14 days (that's 90 minus the 76 days you stayed in March and June-August). At least, that's a simpler calculation. – Relaxed Sep 07 '15 at 00:30
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I trust what you say, i just was afraid of trouble with the customs thats all.. thank you. – mjk110 Sep 07 '15 at 00:39
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@mjk110 It depends a bit on where you enter the Schengen area but mostly they are just confused as you are and won't check too closely. If you are concerned, what you could do is take a print out of the calculation with the official calculator. There is a legal disclaimer but it should still help you convince them. – Relaxed Sep 07 '15 at 00:43
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But what I am saying is that if you don't trust the 31 days (or you don't trust that border guards will understand the rule), you don't have any extra room, you can't pull out a number that's slightly lower and hope it's OK. Either you rely on the sliding window or you don't. Safest and easiest is of course staying several months out of the Schengen area or perhaps even six months, that way there is no ambiguity whatsoever. But that's not really needed. – Relaxed Sep 07 '15 at 00:50
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just curious how you are so good at knowing these things, thats great, lucky you .....are you a travel agent or something like that :)) if so i will ask you other things if i need too lol – mjk110 Sep 07 '15 at 01:13