What is the time limit for transit at the Schengen airport?

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Accepted answer

The Visa code is has nothing on this but it's instructive:

In the examination of an application for an airport transit visa, the consulate or the central authorities shall in particular verify:

(a) that the travel document presented is not false, counterfeit or forged;

(b) the points of departure and destination of the third-country national concerned and the coherence of the intended itinerary and airport transit;

emphasis mine

(c) proof of the onward journey to the final destination.

The examination of an application shall be based notably on the authenticity and reliability of the documents submitted and on the veracity and reliability of the statements made by the applicant.

As always: trying to outsmart the authorities will not work. Their decision power is wide and (almost) absolute. (Almost: there are legal remedies but good luck winning a legal battle that your planned one month stay inside Frankfurt Airport was a "transit".)

There's no set amount of hours but I'd strongly suspect more than 24 hours would require extensive documentation and more than 48 is very near impossible. Extremely weird edge cases always exist -- if you are coming from some place with flights only every few days and your destination is also such and they mismatch then there's a chance you can gain an ATV visa stretching several days. I would even carefully say it's not unlikely this is the very reason why hours were not set. Once again: document extensively. But do not try to pull a Mehran Karimi Nasseri, it won't work.

Another guideline: the Type B visa abolished in 2009/2010 (see this answer ) was five days and so the ATV is very likely to be intended to be no longer than that.

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