A fairly urgent and very dopey question about entering Germany.
Hello, this is my first post and it's a question which will show my woeful research and preparation skills.
I'm an Australian resident and British citizen, travelling around Europe on a British passport.
Yesterday I arrived by train in Berlin. Now what research I have done tells me that on the British passport I don't need a visa to enter Germany but that I can only stay for a limited time.
I got off the train at Zoo Station, wandered down the steps and out onto the street.
So my questions are: why was there no immigration control? Am I supposed to seek out an office or something, somewhere to get my passport stamped? Am I in the country illegally at the moment? If this isn't neccessary, how can the Germans enforce the time limit that I can spend in their country? Will this cause me any problems when I try to leave Germany?
Hope you understand my dillema, and thanks in advance.
Reply to this Hello, as a British citizen you are part of European Union. You dont need VISA to travel through Europe. It is all open.
No worries at all, happy travels.
Reply to this Thankyou Liebe, that's a relief. Although I was kind of looking forward to getting a whole lot of stamps in my passport.
Just out of interest, if I was from a country that did require my passport to be stamped how would I go about that.
I guess I expected to get off an international train and have to go through some kind of passport control before I was alowed to roam free.
Leaving Waterloo station in London they did check my passport, but neither Brussels or Berlin had anything remotely resembling a passport control desk. Is it a case of once you get into one EU country you are free to travel between most of the other countries as if they were like Australian states?
Will it be checked if I go back into London?
Reply to this There are a few points to your questions...
1) Length of stay with in European countries.
As an EU citizen via your british passport you can stay in any EU state as long as you want - you do have to conform to local legal requirements - like registering with police/local beuruacrats, paying taxes on earnings - if you stay beyond being a tourist, and you may not be entitled to health care and very unlikely to get social security except in the UK.
2) VISAs - Liebe's right - you don't have to get a visa for any country in the EU - additionally most of the surrounding non-EU countries don't require visa's either - Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia etc - for short stays - usually 30 or 60 days. You will require a visa for Russia or Ukraine if you head that far east.
3) Passport stamps. If you really want them get an Australian passport as well 😊 Passport stamps exist to allow immigration officials to see the date of entry and exit into their teritory, so for countries like Bulgaria where a 60 day visit is permitted with no visa for EU citizens, they stamp on entry, and then check the date on exit. If you overstayed they'd fine you.
Hope that helps... (anyone reading please correct any factual errors if you see them!)
Reply to this your britich passport
Not sure about you, but I have a British one. 😉 I'm a stamp whore, so I'm slightly disappointed I don't get anything while traveling the EU!
Also, along with Russia and the Ukraine, you need a Visa for Belarus too, unless things have recently changed.
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