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Date Published: 21/11/2023

Reports of Spain scrapping the 90-day-in-180 rule are greatly exaggerated

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Hopes that Spain would start ‘lobbying’ Brussels to end the post-Brexit 90-day rule are premature

Reports of Spain scrapping the 90-day-in-180 rule are greatly exaggerated

Despite recent reports that the Spanish government was planning to renew its appeal to European Union authorities to relax travel restrictions placed on non-resident UK citizens following Brexit, it turns out there has in reality been little evidence that the country will actually lobby Brussels to change the 90-in-180-day rule.

While the United Kingdom allows European visitors to stay for up to 180 days in any given 365-day period, the same is not true when Brits visit European Schengen countries as they can only stay for 90 out of every 180 days if they are not residents.

The hopes of many Brits who frequently travel to Spain and own holiday homes in the country were raised when it was reported that the Minister for Tourism had said, “Unfortunately, it is not something Spain has established by itself or can get rid of. It is in our interest to lobby and convince [the EU] we can try to work an exception with them. But the solution must come from them.”

This came hot on the heels of a statement by France’s Senator Martine Berthet, who said, “As I was elected for a department where British citizens who own second homes participate actively in the dynamism of the local economy, I would like to alert you to the difficulties that they are having to get to France… Due to the unique links that unite our two countries and the importance of these people for the French economy, I would like to ask you if you would consider the creation of a special status for British citizens who owned, before Brexit, a second home in our country.”

While the French are still a long way off being able to get the EU to scrap the measure, they can and hopefully will expedite and simplify visa applications for Brits that allow them to stay longer than the 90-day limit.

In Spain, on the other hand, it turns out that the quote attributed to the country’s (now former) Minister for Tourism, Héctor Gómez, but rather came from previous Minister for Tourism Fernando Valdés a full year ago.

Unfortunately, then, there is little concrete evidence that Spain is currently or will soon begin lobbying the EU to scrap the 90-out-of-180-day rule.

However, Gómez did reportedly hold a meeting last week with Jennifer Anderson, director of consular affairs and the UK Foreign Office, and he claimed that the two “discussed issues of interest regarding the stays of British tourists in Spain and collaboration projects for future seasons”.

So there may still be some hope.

Image: Archive

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