I've had conflicting info' on this situation so thought I'd look for extra imput here.
The situation is a UK citizen/permit C holder normally drives backwards and forwards to France so never a passport stamping issue. However, whilst in France they had to make an unplanned trip to the UK to see a sick relative. One the return to France to collect the car for the return drive to CH they had their passport stamped on entering France from the UK.
They were in France in Augt for 6 weeks (ish) and May for about 4 weeks, and are normally good at watching the dates. Now, given they have an entry stamp to France, but no exit stamp, on paper the 90/180 day clock has been ticking since 3rd Oct, and with the time from august (although not stamped as it was a roadtrip) it could on paper look like an overstay.... and now they have to go to France again for the month of december.
The only way I can see to try to normalise this, is when the get back to France, pretty quickly fly back to UK to get the exit stamp, then fly back to Switzerland, and TGV back to France... sounds a bit extreme, and costly.
Any tips on a way to get a France/schengen exit stamp would be appreciated.
I am a citizen of one of the "new" EU countries and have had my passport stamped in an EU country while in possession of a valid Swiss permit before my country was an EU member. I never realized it could be a problem and, indeed, it never turned into one.
No entry or exit stamp shall be affixed to the travel documents of nationals of the EU, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. Moreover, no stamp shall be affixed to documents of border residents under the local border traffic regime, in accordance with Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 1931/2006[5]. Travel documents of third-country nationals and family members of EU citizens are also exempt from stamping on entry and exit when they present a residence card issued by a Member State under Article 10 of Directive 2004/38/EC[6].
This makes it clear that if you have an EU residency permit, then no stamps should be made in your passport. However, I can’t find anything that talks about a schengen country residency permit! It would make sense that you shouldn’t, but trying telling that to a border guard…
I’ve a shiny new UK passport replacing my lost old one. If I travel to the UK on it, there’s no entry stamp recording my arrival in Schegen. So that might be fun. Although even on my old one there was a mismatch between entry and exit stamps and it never caused any trouble .
It’s not necessary. If questioned show your permit and say it was stamped in error. Always hand your permit and passport over together when entering/exiting Schengen countries to avoid stamps and questions.
Before I became Swiss I was travelling extensively with my B (10 years) and C (24 years) permits. On average more than 35 flights returning to CH a year. Around 1990 I started to hand Passport and Permit at the same time, after being scolded by a dragon at passport control. It always worked for me after that.
I had a similar issue, normally fly back and forth to UK showing the permit, but one time flew into UK and drove back, getting passport stamped by the French.
Several months later, I got stopped at Amsterdam by border control (changing flights from Zurich) who flicked through the pages, then asked where I had been as it looked like an overstay. I showed my Swiss permit... and he then referred to the system and said Ah yes...
They might not stamp your PP but it is scanned. So entries and exits to CH via the airport make it onto the EU/Schengen records.
As others have said, with a Swiss C permit you are free to travel throughout Shengen without time limit.
When you exit Shengen, you need to show your shengen document (Swiss permit, EU passport etc) and when you enter UK you need to show your UK passport. When you leave you do the reverse- UK passport to leave UK but EU/Shengen document to enter Shengen (including when you board the plane as the airline needs to make sure you have the right paperwork.
Yes, you normally show both, but which one is 'primary' depends on which direction you are going.
As others have said, probably they never needed to stamp your passport, and just make sure you show your Swiss C permit....
Actually that's not strictly true. My UK passport ran out in summer 2021 so I was travelling on my Swiss passport back and forth to the UK. They didn't bat an eye. I even said to them once that I'm a UK citizen and "sorry, I've not got my UK passport with me" but the bloke just shrugged.
C permeit and passport were both presented to the French border guard, but he stamped her passport, and when asked why said all UK passports had to be stamped UNLESS accompanied by a WARP CDS.... the joys of anything French.
There are no passport controls leaving the Excited Kingdom. At least not for many years and not again yet. Your airline might check your documents, but that is for their purposes, not the UK governments.