Arriving at night before Schengen visa valid date?

2/8/2016 12:11:14 PM

Entering into the country is completely different from entering into the airport, Airport is just a transit area and you can be in airport without holding that country’s visa i.e. while transiting. Entering the country means passing the immigration desk and need valid visa. And, your visa gets valid after couple of hours from the time you reach. It matters what time you pass the immigration check not what time you arrived at airport.

You can reach that country without any problem and simply walk to the immigration officer and explain your situation. In most cases he should agree but be sure, give a valid and genuine reason with pleading manner and you should be fine. In worst case scenario he may ask you to wait for couple more hours to let you into the country.

Immigration cannot deny your entry for this kind of reasons. Yeah, sometimes these airways can be hassle, but as long as you got a visa they cannot deny boarding the plane.

4/17/2015 11:04:26 AM

You don’t specify which nationality you have, which would be helpful in this case. You could arrive earlier and enter with a tourist visa, assuming that your nationality would let you enter as a tourist without needing a visa.

If that’s not the case, and your visa is in fact a tourist visa, you can always wait in the airport before “entering” the territory. As everybody knows, an airport is a transit area, it’s not officially the country until you pass the border control.

I have been backpacking and traveling the world for three years and I never experienced an airline asking me to see a visa for a country I was traveling to. That’s not their issue, it’s the destination country’s issue. As a matter of fact, the airline doesn’t loose anything if you travel without the visa because you are paying for the flight. Let’s theoretically use a worst case scenario and let’s assume you would be denied the access to your destination country: in that case you would have to pay the flight back. The airline wins in both cases, so they don’t loose anything letting you travel. Don’t be afraid.

4/16/2015 11:13:42 AM

For the first point, it will really depend on the immigration officer. Arrival at 20:30 means presenting your papers at 21-22:00 depending on the lineup. They might consider that you won’t get to your hotel before nearly midnight, or they might say “have a seat”.

For the second point, I think there is a very high chance the airline will deny boarding. They get large fines for bringing passengers without proper permissions and are often pickier than the immigration agents.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

Search Posts

Latest posts

Popular posts