90 day Schengen rule for non-EU/EEA nationals with non-EU/EEA dual citizenship?

Visas, Permits, Passports and Naturalization
1
Hi all

Question regarding the 90 day within a 180 day period rule for non-EU/EEA nationals coming into CH and/or Schengen. What if the person had two non-EU/EEA passports?

Example: Someone with both a US and Japan passport, both can enter Schengen without a visa but must leave after 90 days total within 180 days. What if that person spent 90 days in CH with the US passport, then tried to re-enter with a Japanese passport? Would there be a fresh 90 days?

Thanks in advance

2

Just hope you don’t get the same passport checker when you come in as you did going out. Could get recognised and maybe questioned.

3

The 90 days in any given 180 day period is personally. You cannot extend your stay using multiple citizenships.

You can find the finer details in the Regulation (EU) 2016/399 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2016 on a Union Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders (Schengen Borders Code).

4
No. The limit is per person, not per passport. Get caught and you could get a Schengen ban.

5
Can a moderator please make a sticky post where we can link all these brilliant loopholes so that we have a collection of them?

6
I guess the question is "who's gonna know?"

7

THANK YOU @aSwissInTheUS for the link - this was a genuine question and not about loopholes as I like to learn about stuff like this and given there are so many dual-nationals, was wondering how this was treated

8
The Schengen Information Service. Identical names and birthdate.

9
Once ETIAS starts, I’m pretty sure they’d probably pick it up. Would you try it with the USA and ESTA?

10
It’s more a case of are you willing to pay the penalty if you get caught - fines, deportation at your expense, a lengthy ban on entering the Schengen Area, loss of visa free travel and having to acknowledge being refused entry on visa applications else where is probably not what a person who wants to stay longer in the area wants.

The authorities are well aware of dual nationals trying to game the system and have checks to detect it. The chances of two people with different passports, born on the same date in the same location with the same name entering the Schengen Area in a given 180 day period are very low. So when the passport is scanned on entry.....

11
I'd sure appreciate a pointer to an article of the Schengen borders code that confirms that the 90/180 day limit is applied per person and not per a person/citizenship.

I'm inclined to assume that it's true and it's illegal to circumvent the 90/180 rule by doing visa runs with alternating citizenships but I just couldn't find any confirmation after scanning the border code a couple times.

As an anecdote, I know a person who had been doing exactly that using their two different citizenships to de-facto live in Spain for YEARS until the pandemic (they legally owned an apartment but never bothered with getting a residence permit), they were always entering Schengen via Spain and were never challenged at the border.

12
I think it would be very hard to come to a conclusion that by having another nationality an already "third party national" would be considered to be a different person. I don't think there needs to be specific wording for the situation you describe.

In your Spanish example maybe the authorities there don't have the system in place which is claimed to be in place here in Switzerland in one of the above posts. Someone needs to try it out and report back.

13
Yeah, it's entirely possible that the Spanish system for registering external Schengen crossings wasn't designed with detecting such abuse in mind. Once ETIAS is in place the system will be at least the same across all Schengen borders.