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Double Overstay In Schengen Europe

The inevitable misadventures of traveling long-term in and out of the Schengen zone.

Carpathian Mountains

I lived in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, over the summer of 2024. Like many countries, Ukraine has a 90-180 rule. As an American, I can stay in Ukraine for a total of 90 days within a 180-day period. In mid-August, the end of my allotted 90 days in Ukraine was approaching, so I began to plan my return to Bucharest, Romania.

After a couple days of research, I had figured out how to get to the closest border crossing between Ukraine and Romania. First, a train to Rakhiv, then a minibus to Solotvyno. From Solotvyno, it looked like I could just walk down to the border crossing at the Tisza River. Once at the border, I would go through the Ukrainian pass control, walk across a small bridge over the river, go through the Romanian pass control, and then take a taxi to the nearby town of Sighetu Marmației.

In Ivano-Frankivsk, I went to the main train station and purchased a ticket to Rakhiv and then, online, a minibus ticket from Rakhiv to Solotvyno. I had booked a room at a hotel in Sighetu Marmației, purchased a train ticket for the following day to Cluj-Napoca, and booked a room for the first night there. I planned to spend a few days in the city and then take a train to Bucharest.

So with everything set, on the morning of Friday, August 30, I checked out of the hotel where I had stayed for the summer and took a taxi to the main Ivano-Frankivsk train station. The train departed on time and before too long the landscape changed as we entered the  Carpathian Mountains.

*

Rakhiv train station

Rakhiv train station

The train arrived in Rakhiv in the late afternoon. I had a couple hours before the departure of the minibus to Solotvyno, so I walked around the town. The sun was beginning to set by the time I climbed into the cramped, sweaty minibus for Solotvyno.

The bus followed a narrow road, often through valleys already dark, hidden from the last sunlight of the day. As we neared Solotvyno, it was pitch-dark. I was sitting in one of the seats toward the back and was trying to see outside. The driver was letting people off along the way. I knew that we were getting close to my stop.

At the stop I thought was Solotvyno, the driver stood up, looked at me in the back of the minibus, and then made swimming motions with his arms. What? I had no idea what he was trying to say. Standing up, I said, “Solotvyno.” He again used his arms as though he were swimming. Finally, I just shook my head and sat back down. The driver shrugged his shoulders, pulled the passenger side door shut, and pulled away from the stop.

We had been back on the road for about five minutes and slowing down for the next stop when I stood up again and said, “Romania.” As soon as the word was out of my mouth, the driver shot me a shocked look. Now he understood. He pulled the minibus up to the stop,stood up, and gesticulated wildly that I needed to go back to the last stop, where he had made the swimming motions.

Oh hell. I now scrambled, knowing that I had to get off the minibus immediately and somehow get back to the previous bus stop. As I dragged my suitcase and duffel bag off the minibus, there was a couple also getting off who spoke some English. I told them that I didn’t have a smartphone, so I couldn’t call a taxi. The man used his smartphone to call one, which arrived within ten minutes. He explained to the driver that I needed to go to the Ukraine-Romania border crossing.

I loaded my suitcase and duffel bag into the back of the taxi and climbed in. We went back to the last stop, but here the driver turned off the main road, now following a twisting road that was much longer than I had figured from the maps that I had used back in Ivano-Frankivsk. I realized that if I had in fact gotten off at the right stop and tried to walk to the border, I would never had been able to make it there without getting lost in the dark.

Later, when I had a chance to get online, I learned that there are, in fact, two Solotvyno stops, one for the Ukraine-Romania border and the other for people going to the nearby salt and brine lakes, where people swim in the muddy water for their health. Thus the driver was asking me which Solotvyno stop I wanted, the border stop or the one for the muddy lakes.

Anyway, I was now finally at the border. The taxi driver left me off in front of the entrance to the Ukrainian pass control. It was now around ten o’clock at night and I was the only person crossing with luggage. Two young women were in front of me, neither of them with even a purse. Our passports were quickly stamped and the three of us walked to the old,  iron one-lane bridge across the Tisza River.

I was not prepared for what I saw. The bridge was very close to collapse. Because it was between the two countries, neither country felt they were responsible, I guess, for the maintenance. The walking sections on either side of the lane for cars were unusable. Many of the short planks were missing and the ones remaining were hanging down. The two women and I had to use the one-lane section for cars. The planks here, too, were bowed and weathered. When I stepped of the first plank with my left foot, that section dropped down as the section to the right rose up. I quickly withdrew the pressure on my left foot and then gingerly made my way across the bridge, testing my footing along the way. I noticed that the two women were also doing the same, laughing as they did so.

At the Romanian pass control, the two women without luggage went to the window on the left and I rolled my suitcase over to the window on the right. The officer took my passport and began thumbing through the pages as he pulled up a page on the computer. He then told me that I had overstayed my visa and that he couldn’t let me enter Romania.

I handed him a small card on which I had listed the important dates and the numbers of the passport pages where he could find the corresponding stamps. I explained to him that back on May 31, when I flew from Bucharest to Warsaw, I was surprised when I wasn’t required to go through customs, which is normal, of course, when you move from a non-Schengen country to a Schengen Area country.

In Warsaw, at the hotel, I went online and learned that back on March 31, Romania and Bulgaria had joined the Schengen Area. I had entered Romania on March 4, but Romania didn’t become a Schengen member until March 31. So what was my status? Online, I couldn’t find an answer as to when they started counting, so I decided to exit Poland and the Schengen Area as quickly as possible. From Warsaw, I took a train to Lublin, and from Lublin to Lviv, Ukraine.

He listened to my story and then said that they started counting my residence in the Schengen Area on March 4, meaning that when I exited Poland on June 4 for Ukraine, I was on Day 93, so I had overstayed by three days.

“But on March 4, Romania was not part of the Schengen Area agreement,” I argued, “so you can’t start counting from that date. I couldn’t be residing in the Schengen Area, from March 4 to March 31, when Romania wasn’t yet legally part of the Schengen Area. By my calculation, starting from March 31, I am now on Day 66, not Day 93.”

He called over his superior. Together they looked over my passport, flipping through the pages and then glancing back at the screen. I again laid out my argument. You can’t start counting my days of residence in Schengen when Romania wasn’t even part of the Schengen Area agreement. Now both the junior officer and the senior officer disagreed with me. They started counting my stay from March 4, not from March 31, so I was on Day 93, not Day 66.

Was this legal? I have no idea. For all I know, they may have changed this rule already. But I could see that, for this junior and senior officer, there was no chance of them ruling differently.

The senior officer now pulled me away from the window, walking me over to a bench outside the pass control building, where I sat while he started the paperwork for my denial-of-entry paper. Once he had completed the paperwork, he came over to where I was sitting and had me sign the document. In my passport, he had added a stamp for my denial of entry and, in pencil, had added the capital letter “F” next to it. I have no idea what the “F” meant, but probably not good.

As I was sitting there, I now finally realized that I was in a bit of a bind. Okay, so I couldn’t enter any of the Schengen countries, and I was almost at the end of my 90 days in Ukraine. I couldn’t enter Schengen and I couldn’t stay in Ukraine. What was the nearest non-Schengen country? Well, that had to be Moldova. But how to get to Moldova from where I was sitting on a bench next to the Tisza River?

When the senior officer returned with my copy of the denial-of-entry document, I told him that I didn’t have a smartphone and I needed to contact the hotel in Sighetu Marmației and tell them that I wouldn’t be arriving. I handed him the card where earlier I had written down the hotel name, address, and phone number. He took out his smartphone and called the hotel, telling them that they weren’t letting me into the country. He handed the card back to me and returned to the main building.

Getting up, I folded and shoved my copy of the denial-of-entry form into my backpack and then wheeled the suitcase and duffel bag back over the rickety bridge to the Ukrainian pass control. After getting my passport stamped, I asked the officer at the window if he knew of any nearby hotels. “Hotel Viza,” he replied. I thanked him and rolled my luggage to the entrance, where I had arrived half an hour earlier.

A single taxi was sitting there. I told him to take me to Hotel Viza, which he did. Ten minutes later, I was in a hotel room and sitting over my laptop. I saw that the best plan would be to take a minibus back to Rakhiv the next morning and, from there, work out the next step. Somehow I needed to get to Chernivtsi, the city closest to the first Ukraine-Moldova border crossing.

The next morning, Saturday, August 31, I was up early. I walked to the one-room minibus station and bought a ticket back to Rakhiv leaving in the afternoon. Later, when I got back to Rakhiv, I checked into a hotel and then walked to the train station, asking about traveling to Chernivtsi. They told me that I’d have to go all the way to Ivano-Frankivsk and start from there. I walked over to the nearby minibus station and bought a ticket for a minibus leaving the next afternoon, going due east in a zig-zag fashion to Chernivtsi. By my calculation, I was on Day 89 of my 90 days for Ukraine, which meant that I’d have to try to get into Moldova before the end of the next day. Was that possible?

The morning of Day 90, Sunday, September 1, was warm with a clear-blue sky. I walked around Rakhiv and snapped a few photos. Later, after checking out of the hotel and with a couple more hours to kill, I had lunch in a restaurant just two blocks from the bus station.

Rakhiv

Looking west from inside the town of Rakhiv.

Coffee in Europe

A coffee before climbing into the minibus for Chernivtsi.

After an up-and-down, zig-and-zag route from Rakhiv generally heading east, the minibus pulled into the main Chernivtsi bus station at eight o’clock. I went directly into the station and asked the woman behind the glass if there were any buses heading to the Ukraine-Moldova border. She shook her head. The last bus had already left for the day. Well, I had tried, starting from that bench at the Romanian pass control along the Tisza River. So I bought a minibus ticket for the next day. With minibus ticket in hand, I took a taxi to a hotel for the night.

The next day, Monday, September 2, was Day 91 for my stay in Ukraine. The minibus, almost full with twelve passengers, left on time and headed southeast out of Chernivtsi, destination the Mamalyga-Kryva border crossing.

Ukraine-Moldova border

Photo snapped through the dirty window of the minibus to the Ukraine-Moldova border.

An hour later, when we reached the Mamalyga-Kryva border crossing, the driver pulled up to the building for the Ukrainian pass control. He collected all of our passports and handed them to an officer waiting outside. He then got back in the van and drove forward a hundred yards to the Moldovan pass control.

He pulled the van to the side of one of the buildings and we all now got out to stretch our legs. Ten minutes later, the driver approached me with my passport in his hand. He gestured for me to follow him. He led me all the way back to the pass control building for Ukraine. He brought me to a door and told me to stay there until they came out to get me.

It must have been at least half an hour before a female Ukrainian officer came out and ushered me inside. I took at seat across from her. Sitting at the desk with a computer monitor, she informed me that I had overstayed my visa for Ukraine. She then placed a small video camera on the surface of the desk between us to record our conversation.

I told her the truth. I said that I knew it was Day 91. I had tried to exit Ukraine on Day 90, but when I got to the bus station in Chernivtsi, the last bus to the border had already departed.

She listened to me and then said she believed me and that she wasn’t going to charge me for the overstay. But this was an official matter and we had a lot of paperwork to complete, along with fingerprints and a mug shot. It took a long time to fill out and sign everything. At the end of the process, she handed me back my passport and a one-page document confirming her judgment in the case.

With passport and sheet of paper in hand, I jogged back, in the blazing heat of the afternoon, to the Moldovan pass control. I didn’t see the minibus. As I was looking around, one of the officers pointed to some luggage dropped next to the building—my luggage, suitcase, duffel bag, and backpack. I asked the officer where the minibus was. He gestured up ahead. I guessed that they had gone through and were waiting for me outside the pass control area.

I got through the Moldovan pass control quickly and then hustled up ahead with my luggage to rejoin the minibus. I rolled the suitcase with the duffel bag on top up around a corner and saw to my right a gas station with a few vans parked here and there, but none of them were my van. I rolled the suitcase further ahead, past the gas station and around a corner. I then found myself standing on what looked like a highway.

I stood there in the shade of a tree along the side of the highway, looking around and trying to figure out this puzzle. The minibus was obviously gone, but I had to get all the way to Chișinău, a good seven or eight hours away.

As it happened, while I was perplexed about how to get to Chișinău, it was also a beautiful late-summer afternoon. I dug my camera out from the backpack and snapped a few photos.

Ukraine

Looking to my left, back toward Chernivtsi, Ukraine.

Chișinău, Moldova

Looking to my right, toward Chișinău, Moldova.

I have to assume that the late-summer afternoon was playing with me. As I was standing there, not thinking about much, just looking around, I must also have been oddly inattentive, because at one point I looked almost directly across from where I was standing and saw a red minibus pulled to the side of the road. Where did that come from? I then noticed that on the dashboard behind the windshield there was a sign for Chernivtsi. I watched the driver get out, open the passenger-side door, and begin cleaning the van.

Leaving my luggage on the side of the road, I crossed over to the van and asked the driver where he was going. He told me he was going to  Chișinău. What the heck. I asked him how much for a ticket. Fifteen Euros, he told me. He then explained to meet him over at the gas station. He needed to fill up there before returning to Chișinău.

Amazing. I crossed back over the highway and rolled my suitcase to the gas station, waiting inside the air-conditioned food court while he gassed up the van. Fifteen minutes later, he beckoned to me. At the door to the van, I handed him fifteen Euros and climbed in, his first customer.

So four days earlier, on Friday, August 30, I had boarded a train for Rakhiv. I had everything planned out in detail. Rakhiv to Solotvyno, then to Sighetu Marmației, then to Cluj-Napoca, and finally to Bucharest. All tickets purchased and hotels booked. By the end of that first day, however, that plan had been shredded by the Romanian pass control officials, leaving me to scramble to the border of another country, the closest being Moldova. Now, on Monday, September 2, sitting in the red minibus, heading south, I realized that I had overstayed my welcome twice, first for the Schengen countries, and then for Ukraine. No matter, I was now in transit again and going in the right direction.

Then, on the way to Chișinău, something very odd happened. As I looked out from the side window of the minibus, the landscape flattened out. I was born and raised in a small town in northeastern Iowa and now, out the window of the van, it looked like I was suddenly back home in Iowa.

Corn fields Europe

Rolling hills, cornfields, and a large sky filled with a mix of clouds.

I must have been smiling the whole ride to Chișinău, my nose inches from the window as the landscape of my home and memories of my childhood spent there stretched out in front of me—an unexpected bridging between two distant points in time and place that sometimes occurs when traveling in foreign lands.

That night, I checked into a hotel and, the next morning, through an American met by chance, I was able to secure an apartment to rent for the next three months in Moldova.

*

After three months in Moldova—well, on Day 88 to be exact—I flew out of Chișinău to Athens. Moldova also uses the 90-180 rule and I wasn’t planning on picking up a third overstay within six months of living in Eastern Europe. At the pass control in Athens, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Would I be denied entry again due that earlier overstay? Would I be charged with a huge fine for that overstay?

When my turn came, I stepped up to the pass control booth and handed the officer my passport. He opened to the main page and placed it face-down on a reader. He then put the open passport down in front of him on the counter, stamped one of the pages, and handed it back to me.

I didn’t ask any questions. I simply thanked him, put my passport back into the front pocket of the backpack, and then walked around the corner to the baggage carousels to retrieve my suitcase.

Twenty minutes later, I was riding the M3 line into Athens. At the Constitution Square station, I transferred to the M2 line, riding to the Larissa Station stop, where I got off and rolled the suitcase and duffel bag one block over to the hotel where I always stay in Athens. In the basement of the hotel building were a bicycle and a bag of sundries and kitchenware waiting for me.

So had I snuck back into Schengen? Possibly. Had that overstay already expired? Maybe. I didn’t really care now. I carried the bike up out of the basement, dusted off the frame, pumped up the tires, and headed out for a ride in the neighborhood.

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Filed under: Europe, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Schengen Visas, Ukraine

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has written 5 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

15 comments… add one

Leave a Comment

  • Trevor January 19, 2025, 11:39 am

    Good read Jeffrey.

    Bureaucracy at its finest!!!!

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  • Jeffrey January 20, 2025, 11:40 am

    Thanks, Trevor.

    Sadly, in Schengen, you can’t do those step-out and step-back in same-day visa runs that I’m used to in Southeast Asia and in South America. I used to complain about them, but having to step out for three months is much more of a pain.

    It looks like you’re based in Mexico. How are you maintaining your status there? If I may ask.

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    • Trevor Warman January 20, 2025, 5:26 pm

      @ Jeffery. still laying low, re UK…. but here is still 180 day visas.. issued mostly. BUT i did get married… ;)). a few steps to sort yet so i can stay with my now wife!!!!!!

      Link Reply
      • Jeffrey January 21, 2025, 4:15 am

        Trevor,

        Ah, got it. After the paperwork comes the Mexican equivalent of a green card, I suppose. Good news for you and your wife.

        A 180-day visa is very generous. And can you do a step-out and step-in visa run to trigger another 180-day visa?

        I’m planning on going to Georgia next, where they issue a mind-bending 364-day visa upon arrival. I keep re-reading that, thinking there must be a mistake somewhere, but I think not.

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      • VBJ January 21, 2025, 1:39 pm

        Georgia and a few other emerging markets are smart about this kind of thing. They know that people from high wage paying countries are just going to be spending more money, starting businesses, etc the longer they let them stay. It’s an easy and cheap way to get a small amount of continuous economic stimulus.

        Link
      • VBJ January 21, 2025, 1:37 pm

        Whoah! What a surprise to read. Congrats on that!

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  • VBJ January 21, 2025, 1:44 pm

    That’s wild about Romania. There is no way that it should have counted as an overstay and they should have had the foresight to ensure that the proper communication between member states was given so that it wouldn’t have been. But this just goes to show how little they care about long-term travelers. To them, we’re little more an annoyance. They probably didn’t even think about what to do with foreigners already in the country prior to the Schengen rules going into effect.

    Link Reply
    • Jeffrey January 21, 2025, 5:11 pm

      VBJ,

      My gut feeling is that there was no official ruling on people in my situation. The border officers just used their normal authority to deny me entry. I was surprised, I have to say, by how inflexible they were. They probably could have given me a nominal fine and let me through. But nope. Back over the falling-down bridge for me.

      Oh, that bridge. I just read that in the last month they shut down the bridge during the daylight hours to work on fixing it up. I wouldn’t be surprised if a car or truck had broken through those rotted planks and fallen into the Tisza River below.

      To be honest, the experience of crossing that bridge twice at night was almost worth all the hassle. I was laughing along with the two women crossing with me at how crapped out the bridge was. That kind of neglect from Romania and Ukraine was beautiful to behold. You fix it. No, you. Let’s hope that if they ever get their hands on the AI machines they muck those up, too.

      I have a good story from China, where I went to the police station to see if they could find a computer bag that had fallen off the back of my bike. The vaunted camera on every corner police state turned out to be more like the Keystone Kops.

      At first, when I explained what had happened, half a dozen officers leapt up and got busy with a couple computers at the front desk. This was like catnip for them. I gave them the street coordinates and exact time of evening. All of their eyes were glued to the monitors, as they toggled from camera to camera on the street corners. But when they showed me the video footage they had, it was impossible to see anything. Complete and utter failure. They couldn’t even find a shadowy human form picking up my computer bag. The idea of facial recognition was farcical. They couldn’t even find a body, much less a face.

      The half dozen officers slunk away from the front desk. The technology-driven surveillance state hype in China was mostly bullcrap, from my experience. The best surveillance they have? The usual goons who are assigned to keep a file on you, not the cameras.

      Our only hope is bureaucratic incompetence and laziness. Give them as many large meals as possible and let them snooze in their offices during the day. We win, they win.

      Link Reply
      • VBJ January 31, 2025, 12:54 pm

        Well, at least they’re fixing the bridge! 🤣

        That’s wild about the cameras in China. I bet they’re all super high res and function perfectly in Xinjiang at Tibet though. Probably just a coincidence …

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  • Trevor Warman January 21, 2025, 7:14 pm

    @ Wade. Thank you:)))

    @ Jeffery. they do not just give out 180 days willy-nilly any more. During the pandemic, Mexico was the only country that had zero entry restrictions. Many people abused the hospitality and regularly overstayed.. just paying a fine on departure. of course, they cracked down on it and coming up from the south, land borders would dole out as little as 7 days, even if i had been out for 4 months. It’s a bit like the States. The immigration officers can make or break your day.

    Leaving and coming back a week later for another 6 months just aint gonna work anymore. I have been out for 6-7 months and come back with a pre-booked flight out. and 2 weeks’ worth of cancel-for-free hotel bookings, and i had a change of passport this time, so was less stressed than other times.
    Travelling around on an expired visa will cause you problems. When you cross state borders, buses are often boarded, and documents checked. and an expired FMM is treated the same as someone who paid a mule to cross the border. They can and sometimes do, deport people.

    After marriage comes the application for temp residency..

    keep on writing and bring us those stories!!!

    Link Reply
    • Jeffrey January 22, 2025, 12:35 pm

      Trevor,

      Ah, I see. Visa issuance is now at the discretion of the border guards. That’s not good at all. As you say, they can the make or break your plans in a a second.

      I do remember back in 2020, when I was stuck in China, trying to figure out how to get a flight to Mexico because it was one of the few countries letting people arrive. But, in the end, the cheapest flight out in the summer of 2020 was $6,000. No way I was going to pay that. So I stayed another year. I think we chatted about all of this on one of the comments pages here at VBJ. Everyone was scrambling back then.

      And you’re saying that you also need to show forward flight out? That’s the one I hate the most. Somehow, in all my travels, I’ve been able to avoid it. One time, on a flight from Singapore to Seoul, they really wanted me to show a forward flight out of South Korea, but it was a packed line to board that flight and it was almost midnight, so I stood stubborn and eventually the harried attendants relented and let me on the flight. For me, I never really know where I’m going next — or when, for that matter — so that flight out ticket is really tough.

      Oh yes, I probably still have a few more stories to tell.

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      • Trevor January 22, 2025, 7:52 pm

        @ Jeffrey. Onward tickets are a pretty common requirement these days though its the check in staff who ask for it more.. the carefree days that we remember oh so fondly are gone for good. Many are going down the evisa route. It makes sense to let people stay if they want, Tourists spend money!!. Though get tough on working illegally , dt take jobs away from locals.

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      • VBJ January 31, 2025, 1:00 pm

        I usually just buy a ticket at the airport that you have a 24 hour window to get a refund on. Then once I clear immigration in the target country I just cancel it.

        The 24 hour grace period is still standard, right? Or did that change with the “pandemic” too?

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    • VBJ January 31, 2025, 12:58 pm

      One thing that most people in the US or Western Europe fail to grasp is how strict immigration is in other countries. We can’t just stroll into anywhere and expect to stay for as long as we want. When our time is up we get denied entry, kicked out, deported, fined, even sometimes even jailed …The fun irony is that the countries that are often the strictest are the ones who don’t seem to mind at all that their poor people and criminals exit en masse to enter other countries without documentation.

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  • Trevor Warman February 7, 2025, 6:16 pm

    @ wade. The 24 hour free cancelation period depends where you are from. was always an option on Expedia USA. but NOT on UK… ive never bought one. had 3 fake onward tickets. as in pay 10 bucks for a real ticket where the company cancels it for u. Copa Air had a “hold the ticket for 24 hours” option. Used that to good effect in Costa Rica and Panama.

    there s some viral video where the US woman got deported from Mexico…. she didnt have her passport with her. and she had overstayed. i am like WTAF, rolling my eyes with the dumbass idea that people think that rules dont apply to them

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