A Schengen visa is a document that is pasted in the form of a sticker into the applicant's passport. On a visa, you can enter any country that has signed the Schengen agreement, and stay there within the time frame established by the visa. It is important to read the visa correctly, because each of them has parameters such as entry corridor, duration of stay, number of permitted trips, and others.
Instructions
Step 1
There are three types of Schengen visas: A, B and C. Short-term visa types A and B refer to transit. Visa C is a tourist visa, this is the main type of Schengen visa, implied by default. There is also a type D visa, but this is a national visa. In what follows, we will focus specifically on type C visas, since other visas are not considered in the context of tourist travel. A short-term visa type C is issued for one trip (C01), for two (C02) or for several trips - C MULT.
Step 2
There are three types of Schengen visas: A, B and C. Short-term visa types A and B refer to transit. Visa C is a tourist visa, this is the main type of Schengen visa, implied by default. There is also a type D visa, but this is a national visa. In what follows, we will focus specifically on type C visas, since other visas are not considered in the context of tourist travel. A short-term type C visa is issued for one trip (C01), for two (C02) or for several trips - C MULT.
Step 3
A visa is considered open when the first entry into the territory of a foreign state (in this case, into the territory of any Schengen country) is made. If the visa does not have a corridor, then the validity period is strictly limited and the number of days is equal to the allowed period of stay. For example, with a visa, you can stay in Schengen for 10 days, and its validity period is also 10 days. Typically, these are single-entry visas that are issued to people with a clean passport.
Step 4
For a visa with a corridor, such a parameter as a validity period is always more than the number of days that you can spend in the territory of the Schengen countries. For example, a visa was issued for 1 year, but you can spend only 180 days on it in Europe. It turns out that if the visa has a corridor, you yourself decide how to spend the days allowed for stay on it. You can talk about a corridor when it comes to a multiple-entry visa. Single-entry Schengen visas, as a rule, do not have a corridor for entry. The standard Schengen visa corridors (or validity periods) are 30 days, 60 days, 180 days, 360 days, 2 years and 5 years. Not all consulates issue five-year visas, some of them are very reluctant to paste even two-year visas.
Step 5
Typically, the standard allowed length of stay for a Schengen multivisa is half of its validity period. So, the following visa validity periods are common: for a visa with a duration of 30 days, the period of stay is 15 days, for a duration of 60 days - a stay of 30 days, for 180 days (six months) the period of stay is 90 days, and so on. But there are also exceptional cases when a visa for various reasons is issued with a different duration and a different period of stay. The duration can be any (but not more than 5 years), and changes in the duration of stay are always made in the direction of its reduction, since, according to the rules, a tourist Schengen visa cannot stay in Europe for more than half of the validity period of a visa.
Step 6
Despite the fact that the Schengen visa involves a corridor for entry, it still has strict validity periods. So, even if you have not yet used up all the days allowed for the visa, and its validity expires, you should leave the Schengen area no later than 24:00 on the last day of the visa validity period. Some countries issue visas without a rigid visa validity period, where the most important thing is to enter the country during the allowed corridor, and you can leave when the days allowed for stay are over.
