Visa-free travel: no entry or exit stamp given between UK and French border?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 13 Aug, 2023
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In my experience as a French national, our border control officers often forget to apply entry or exit stamps. They’re police officers who can’t be bothered to do the servile bureaucrat job of applying stamps. I have seen them lecture people for missing entry stamps that they had themselves failed to apply, at the same airport three weeks earlier. Their answer was “You should have asked for it”.
So I guess that’s the answer : you’ve got to ask for the stamp any time you leave or enter the Schengen area through France. The word for stamp in French, funnily enough, is “tampon”.
I think there are no exit stamps in the UK for scheduled transportation, as in the US.
To answer my own question: when I was crossing the border from Slovenia to Croatia, the border officer asked me about the lack of an entry stamp into the Schengen Area. I showed him my chewed-up IDBUS ticket and explained that, apparently, the French border control sometimes didn’t stamp passports coming from the UK. He asked me why; I said that I didn’t know, and that other travelers had the same story. He shrugged, gave me a stamp, and sent me on my way.
So my experience so far is that it’s not a huge problem, but might require a bit of explanation + evidence.
Yes, in principle you should have gotten an entry stamp for the Schengen area. It seems the French border guard did not follow the rules. I don’t think UK border guards generally put exit stamps in passports, I believe the UK authorities should have gotten a passenger list from IDBUS so you should be fine as far as the UK is concerned.
As far as Schengen rules are concerned the burden of proof will indeed be on you and you could theoretically be treated as an overstayer if you cannot show a recent Schengen entry stamp, as set in article 11 of the Schengen Borders Code:
Presumption as regards fulfilment of conditions of duration of stay
If the travel document of a third-country national does not bear an entry stamp, the competent national authorities may presume that the holder does not fulfil, or no longer fulfils, the conditions of duration of stay applicable within the Member State concerned.
The presumption referred to in paragraph 1 may be rebutted where the third-country national provides, by any means, credible evidence, such as transport tickets or proof of his or her presence outside the territory of the Member States, that he or she has respected the conditions relating to the duration of a short stay.
The previous exit stamp and UK entry stamp will at least show you haven’t been in the Schengen area all the time since your last entry stamp but it would still be best to keep your IDBUS ticket to document the date you reentered the Schengen area, at least until the next time you exit it and probably for a few years after that. This is especially important if you are playing it close and want to stay several weeks (if you are leaving within a few days of your first entry, it does not matter at all as you would not exceed the maximum allowed stay either way).
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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