Expired Spanish Student Visa - can a non-visa national go on to travel in the Schengen Area?

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Your relative's visa must be a Type D visa issued by Spain -- it can't be a type C short-stay visa, because such visas are not issueed to U.S. citizens at all.

Holding a Type D visa has the convenient side effect that days he spends in Spain under that visa do not count towards his 90-in-any-180-days Schengen clock; for all intents and purposes the Schengen system treats such visas just like residence permits.

If he has been in Spain for the entire semester, the effect of this is that when the visa expires he won't have any days-that-count-for-Schengen in the last 90 days, so at that time he can start traveling within the Schengen area for 90 days as an ordinary visa-free American.

Thus, it should be okay for your relative to travel from Spain to Poland and then exit the Schengen area together with you. His entry and exit stamps will show a long time spent within Schengen, but since the passport also contains his Type D visa, it will be easy for the border guards to see that this does not make him an overstayer.

On general principles, it would be a good idea to hold on to receipts for accommodation or the like in Spain, so that he can document that he was actually there while his visa lasted, but it is not very likely that he will actually have to show them to anyone.

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