How many days can a UK citizen stay in France without a visa?

90 days within any rolling 180-day period, as a tourist. The same cap applies collectively across the whole Schengen Area — days spent in Spain, Italy, Germany etc. all count towards the same 90.

Does the 90 days reset each calendar year?

No. The window is rolling, not annual. On any given day, France's border officer will look back 180 days and count how many of those you spent inside Schengen. If it's already 90, you can't enter.

I own a holiday home in France — does that change the rule?

No. Property ownership doesn't grant any right to stay longer than 90 days in 180 as a tourist. To stay longer you need a long-stay visa (VLS-T or VLS-TS) issued by the French consulate before travelling.

What if I'm visiting France during the summer and again at Christmas?

The two visits add up. If a summer stay used 60 days and December is now 200 days later, the summer trip is partly out of the rolling 180-day window but the Christmas allowance is whatever's left of 90 after subtracting the days within window. A tracker app or the EU official calculator will work this out precisely.

Can I enter France on the day I'm meant to leave?

Both your entry day and your exit day count as full days in Schengen — even if you cross at one minute past midnight. Plan around this when booking flights.

What happens if I overstay in France?

At minimum, an entry stamp showing the overstay on your next visit anywhere in Schengen and a discretionary fine. Longer overstays can trigger a Schengen-wide entry ban of one to several years. France's PAF (border police) records the overstay against your passport in the SIS system, so it follows you to Germany, Italy, Spain etc.

Does the new EES (Entry/Exit System) change anything?

The rule is identical — but EES replaces manual passport stamps with biometric entry/exit records. That means the day-count is now automated at the border: if your remaining 90 days is 0, the system will know instantly. Manual stamps were easier to argue with.

Is there a long-stay visa for people who want more than 90 days?

Yes. The VLS-T (visa long séjour temporaire) covers 4–12 months for visitors not seeking residence. For second-home owners spending 6 months a year, the VLS-T is the usual route. It's applied for at the French consulate in London before travelling and typically takes 4–6 weeks. The 90/180 rule is then suspended for the duration of the visa.

How do I actually count my days in France accurately?

The European Commission publishes an official short-stay calculator at travel-europe.europa.eu where you enter every trip and it computes the rolling-window math. For ongoing tracking on your phone, Passport Pilot (the iOS app we make) automates the logging and verifies bit-exact against the EU calculator. Either tool works — the important thing is to actually do the calculation, not estimate it.

France · 90/180 guide

How many days can a Brit spend in France?

Since 1 January 2021, UK citizens have been third-country nationals in the Schengen Area — including France. The answer is 90 days within any rolling 180-day period. Here's what that actually means in practice, what most people get wrong, and how to track it without overstaying.

The rule, in one paragraph

As a UK passport holder visiting France for tourism, family visits, or non-paid business meetings, you can stay up to 90 days within any rolling 180-day period. The 180-day window slides forward every day. There is no annual reset on 1 January, no per-country quota, and no special allowance for British nationals — the same rule applies to American, Canadian, Australian, and most other non-EU visitors. The days you spend in any other Schengen country (Spain, Italy, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, etc.) all count against the same 90-day total. France is not a separate quota.

Worked example: a Brit with a second home in the Dordogne

Take a couple who spend May–July at their Dordogne house, then return for two weeks at Christmas.

1 May – 27 July 2026: 88 days. Two days under the cap. They leave on the 27th to be safe.
17 December 2026 – 31 December 2026: They want to come back for 15 days. The question: are they allowed?
The calculation, on 17 December: Look back 180 days, to 20 June. Days spent in Schengen between 20 June and 16 December: 37 (the tail end of the summer stay, 20 June – 27 July). Remaining allowance: 90 − 37 = 53 days. Their planned 15 days fits easily.
By 31 December, the 17–28 December segment of the summer stay falls out of the rolling window. The arithmetic always shifts; the only way to be sure is to actually compute it on the day.

Most people get this wrong by counting "I had 90 days, I used 88 in summer, so I've got 2 left for Christmas." That's a calendar-year calculation, which is not the rule. The right answer (53 days available at Christmas) depends entirely on where the 180-day window happens to land.

What if you own property in France?

Property ownership does not change the rule. A Brit with a €500,000 cottage in Provence has the same 90/180 allowance as a backpacker. The French government has not introduced a "second-home visa" or carve-out for British property owners, and despite years of UK press speculation, none is on the table.

What does exist is the standard French long-stay visa (VLS-T — visa long séjour temporaire), which covers 4 to 12 months. It's the usual route for second-home owners who want to spend 6 months a year in France. You apply at the French consulate in London (or via TLScontact), it takes 4–6 weeks, and during the visa's validity the 90/180 rule is suspended.

The EES and ETIAS — what changed in 2025 and 2026

Two new systems affect British visitors to France:

EES (Entry/Exit System) — rolled out across Schengen borders, replaces manual passport stamps with biometric records (fingerprint + facial scan). The 90/180 rule itself didn't change, but the day-count is now automated and accurate to the minute. The "I forgot to get stamped" argument no longer works.
ETIAS (European Travel Information and Authorisation System) — a separate €7 authorisation that Brits will need to apply for online before travelling. It's good for three years, and is required in addition to the 90/180 day count, not instead of it.

What happens if you overstay

The consequences are graduated. A one-day overstay at a French border is typically a discretionary fine and a black mark recorded against your passport in the Schengen Information System. A multi-week overstay can trigger an entry ban of one to several years — applicable to all Schengen countries, not just France. You can apply to overturn a ban, but the burden is on you, and it rarely succeeds for tourists.

The safer move if you realise mid-trip that you've miscounted: leave voluntarily before the cap expires, even if you have to absorb a cancelled return ticket. Border staff have discretion; pre-emptive honesty almost always plays better than a discovered overstay.

How to actually track your days

You have three options, in order of effort:

The official EU calculator at travel-europe.europa.eu — free, authoritative, you enter every trip manually. Best for occasional one-off checks before booking.
A spreadsheet — works, but the rolling-window arithmetic is fiddly and prone to errors at the margins. Most spreadsheet templates floating around UK expat forums are subtly wrong about edge cases.
A dedicated tracker app. Passport Pilot is the iPhone app we make — it logs every trip, computes the rolling window the same way EU border officers do, and one-tap exports your trips to the official calculator for verification. Free to download, €29/year for unlimited trips. There are other trackers; we mention ours because we built it. For any decision that matters, cross-check against the official EU calculator.

FAQ

Does the 90 days reset on 1 January?

No. The rolling 180-day window doesn't care about the calendar year. It slides forward every day.

Can I leave France for a weekend in London and "reset" my Schengen days?

No. The day count tracks total days inside Schengen — leaving doesn't reset it, it just pauses it. Days inside the rolling window still count even if you've left.

Do entry and exit days both count?

Yes. Both count as full days, even if you cross at one minute past midnight or at 23:59.

What about Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland?

The Republic of Ireland is in the EU but not in Schengen. Time spent in Ireland doesn't count toward your 90 days. Northern Ireland is in the UK, so it obviously doesn't count either.

What if I have an Irish passport?

An Irish (EU) passport gives you unlimited stay in France under freedom of movement. The 90/180 rule applies to the passport you enter on. If you enter France on your Irish passport, the rule simply doesn't apply to you for that trip. (Most dual citizens just always use the Irish passport in Schengen and the UK passport for the UK.)

Is there a long-stay French visa for retirees?

Yes — the VLS-TS (with the "TS" = temporaire séjour) covers up to 12 months with the right to renew if you meet income and accommodation requirements. It's the route for British retirees who want to spend most of the year in France without becoming tax-resident.

Will Brexit ever be reversed for short-stay travel?

There's no proposal on the table. The TCA negotiations didn't include short-stay mobility, and neither the UK nor the EU has signalled an opening. Plan around the 90/180 rule as a long-term reality.

Tracking days across France, Spain, and Portugal in one place? Passport Pilot is built for travellers managing the Schengen total alongside UK Visitor caps, US ESTA, Canada Visitor days, and tax-residency thresholds. Local-only, no accounts, no cloud — your trips never leave your device. Free download, paid Pro tier for unlimited trips.