Canadian traveling to Europe and Japan wanting to "reset the clock"

Upvote:1

Europe is not a country and there are no common immigration rules for all EU countries. If you move around a bit, it should be no problem for a Canadian citizen to stay indefinitely in Europe without breaking any immigration rules. You do have to move around a bit though.

The rules you are referring to (rolling 90 out of 180 days) are for the Schengen area. If you have stayed in the Schengen area for 90 days, you can't just leave and reenter to reset the clock.

There are however still a few EU countries, which are not part of the Schengen area (Ireland, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus), in which you can also stay without the Schengen clock ticking. Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus have the same 90 out of 180 days rolling window as in the Schengen area, but the clock is ticking independently for each country. I am not 100% sure about Ireland, but I believe you can stay there for 3 months as a tourist and that leaving and reentering will indeed reset the clock.

Then there are also a few non-EU countries, which are members of the Schengen area, e.g. Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, in which your stay is counting on your Schengen clock.

And at last, still plenty of European countries, which are neither in the EU nor in the Schengen area, between which you can move around and be granted a separate period of stay for each entry. You can as a Canadian citizen enter most other European countries without a visa.

Upvote:2

Schengen is "90 days out of 180 days". So it's a sliding window. If you are up on day 90, then your "past 180 day" window is completely full, and will remain full for another 90 days, when days will start scrolling off the end.

Note too that entering an EU nation isn't a right (that would be citizenship). If your facts do not impress your entry officer that your true purpose is tourism, they may refuse your re-entry even if you get the day thing correct.

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