The Schengen 90/180 rule for Australian citizens

The basics for Australians

Smartraveller (updated August 2026) confirms: Australians can travel to the Schengen area for short trips without a visa for up to 90 days in any 180-day period, for tourism, visiting friends and family, business for an Australian employer, cultural and sports events, medical treatment or transit.

• Passport: valid for at least 3 months after you leave and issued within the last 10 years.
• EES: fingerprints and photo on first entry. Smartraveller warns of delays of up to 4–6 hours at some airports.
• ETIAS: no confirmed date. Dual citizens of a participating country will have to use that passport.

Bilateral visa waiver agreements

Smartraveller lists agreements with: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden. Some of these let Australians stay beyond the 90-day limit, under specific conditions:

• You can only use one bilateral agreement in addition to the 90-day Schengen allowance.
• Most countries need you to use the agreement at the end of your Schengen travel.
• Tell the border guard on your first entry that you plan to use an agreement to stay longer than 90 days.
• Each country applies its agreement in its own way: check the country's embassy before you rely on it.

The calculator counts the standard Schengen 90/180 rule. Time spent under a bilateral agreement is outside that count, so plan it separately and carry the relevant documents.

How to count your days

On every day you are in the Schengen area, count the days you spent there in that day and the 179 days before it. The total must never go above 90. Entry and exit days both count, and days in all 29 countries are added together. The 90180.app calculator does this for every day of every trip, including trips you are only planning, and tells you your latest exit date.

Before you travel, you can confirm with the EU's official EES tool, which uses your border record. It does not include stays that began before 10 April 2026.