Stingychips

don’t bother me if they want to stamp it they can. I’ll be going out every weekend when I’ve had my jabs so they will have plenty of stamps to study lol.

Stingychips

God knows how that’s going to work. Do they just stamp on top of stamps?

Notdunroamin

First and foremost it's always the travellers responsibity to ensure that there is space in a passport for a visa and the recommendation is that two full pages are kept available for that.

Obviously I don't know the actual size of the Schengen stamp but I wouldn't imagine it to be excessively large leading to the possibility of accommodating perhaps four on a page equating to two round trips.

That being so a standard UK passport should be good for about a year's worth of weekend visits, or a couple of years in the case of the 50 page frequent traveller one, after which it will need replacing, an expense and inconvenience you will need to factor into your travel plans.

Fredbargate

In the early days of the reopening of the Spanish frontier at Gibraltar people with British passports were stamped into into and out of Spain, so a British cross frontier worker would receive two stamps a day.
The Spanish would put their stamps on a clean area of a page, often bypass clean pages or maybe a single stamp, therefore passports would only last few weeks.
Fortunately a new Gibraltar passport could then have been issued within 24 hrs.
Spaniards were stamped in and out of Spain plus also into Gibraltar, Three stamps a day!

DLC

If you really want to know, The Practical Handbook for Border Guards says:

EU.flag

If I was border guard and there was no free space for stamp, I would be tempted to stamp it on passport photo. :-)
Or passenger forehead, if he objects to photo stamp.

Joppa

If there is absolutely no room left on passport pages, the normal border practice is to stamp on a separate sheet of paper and staple it to the passport, with an advice that the holder should get a new passport.

Mark604

Flew recently from a Balkan country direct to Germany - with UK passport.
Immigration stamped it on entry.
Returned via a transit in Vienna yesterday. No passport check between Germany and Austria and Immigration check on leaving Vienna.
Immigration officer didn't stamp passport, but swiped it. I asked him why no stamp out of Schengen area - his reply was "I'm not allowed to."
I asked him if, because he swiped it, there is a record of me leaving Schengen, namely at Austria so as to not affect my 90/180 day allowance ( - if I enter Schengen via another country later and so it can be seen how long I stayed this time.)
His reply was, "I'm not allowed to stamp it."

That didn't really answer my question (I just wanted confirmation that swiping makes a record and no need then for a stamp) so I asked him, "If you're not allowed to stamp me out, why did the official in Germany stamp me in?"
His attitude became tetchy and his reply was, "I'm not allowed to (stamp it)."
I wasn't in a position to stand there and discuss more as our connection was late and we had to rush to get the next plane anyway.
Any of that make sense?

(Just in case anyone wonders if there was a miscommunication due to language, this was in German which I speak well enough and his answer was always a short, "Ich darf nicht," which was easy enough to understand and translate.)

Stingychips

So many obvious flaws in this stamping system

DLC

And I'm pretty sure all of the points you've raised so far in this thread are answered in the Border Guards Handbook.

In this case it may be due to visa-free travel between the Schengen area and Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia.

Joppa

If you hold residence permit/document for a Schengen state, then your passport should not be stamped in or out. If that's the case, then you shouldn't have your passport stamped on entering Germany at Schengen external border, but the Austrian official was correct not to stamp you out. As for scanning your passport, some Schengen states do keep a record of people entering and leaving, but it's usually just for their internal record, plus a few other countries with which they may share their record. You have to wait until the introduction of ETIAS for a comprehensive tracking of passengers in and out of Schengen.

Mark604

"In this case it may be due to visa-free travel between the Schengen area and Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia."
I'd need that explaining to me. I'm not a resident of any of those and yes, do not need a visa with a UK passport, but then I don't need a visa for Germany/Austria either so I'm not sure what relevance that has as to why being stamped in, but not out.

"And I'm pretty sure all of the points you've raised so far in this thread are answered in the Border Guards Handbook."
6.2. No entry or exit stamp must be affixed in the following cases:
a) to the travel documents of nationals of the EU Member States, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland;

6.1. The travel documents of all third-country nationals must be stamped systematically on entry and exit.

Stamping is also intended to ensure that it is possible to verify, during checks on entry and exit whether the allowed maximum duration of a third-country national’s stay in the area without internal border controls or in the territory of Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus and Romania taken separately– 90 days in any 180 days period – has been respected.

Unless I've missed something, if the UK is not in the EU it is a third country by which nationals should be stamped in and out. No?
"If you hold residence permit/document for a Schengen state, then your passport should not be stamped in or out." - UK resident, not of a Schengen state otherwise the stamping thing I know, is moot.

DLC

Meanwhile, on the UK border:

EU citizens arriving in UK being locked up and expelled

The rules state you are allowed to visit the UK as a tourist to carry out job interviews then apply for a working visa from outside the UK if you have an offer.

This kind of treatment to please the Mail and Express peanut gallery is only going to backfire on Brits visiting or living in the EU.

Joppa

Since so many people try this trick ('I am only looking for a job offer and then will go home and apply for a work visa'), border force agents are on a lookout and assume people like that will just stay on and work illegally in the black economy. For it to work, you should have a pre-arranged job interview (with documentary evidence) and understanding of how visa sponsorship works. Sometimes it's best not to mention you are looking for a job and just say, when asked, that it's just a tourist visit, with evidence of job or study back home. This has been going on for years for non-EU citizens and now EU citizens fall into the same category.

DLC

If every tourist from neighbouring countries who visits the UK has to show evidence of a job or study back home to avoid being held and expelled then something's gone seriously wrong somewhere.