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If you’re a British visitor to Spain, you can stay for up to 90 days in any 180-day period without a visa. Go over that limit and you are staying in Spain illegally. Here is what the rules say, what can happen if you overstay, and what is about to change.
The 90-day rule applies across the whole Schengen area, not just Spain. Time spent in France, Portugal, Italy or any other Schengen country in the previous 180 days counts towards the same total. If you want to stay longer, you need a Spanish visa or residence permit. Time spent in Spain while you hold a residence permit or long-stay visa does not count towards the 90 days.
Overstays are now detected automatically. Since 10 April 2026, the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES) has replaced passport stamps for visitors from outside the EU. Your fingerprints, a facial image and the date and place of every entry and exit are recorded electronically, and the system works out how long you have stayed. The European Commission says it allows overstayers to be detected automatically, so an overstay will show up when you pass through the border on your way out.
Your record does not disappear when you leave. Each entry and exit record is kept in the EES for three years. If there is no exit record after your permitted stay has ended, your data is kept for five years. Border officers can see this information, so a past overstay will be visible the next time you travel.
Under Spanish law, staying without permission is a ‘serious’ infringement under Spain’s immigration law (Ley Orgánica 4/2000). That allows two possible penalties. The first is a fine of between €501 and €10,000. The second is expulsion, where the authorities order you to leave Spain instead of fining you. Expulsion must be based on proportionality, follow a formal procedure and be set out in a reasoned decision that looks at the facts of your case. The Spanish Ministry of the Interior is clear that a fine and expulsion can never be imposed together. It is one or the other.
The entry ban comes with an expulsion and stops you coming back into Spain. Spanish law says its length depends on the circumstances of each case and cannot exceed five years. In exceptional cases, where someone is a serious threat to public order, public security, national security or public health, the ban can be up to ten years. The ban is recorded in the Schengen Information System, so in practice it stops you entering the other Schengen countries too.
If you have already overstayed, leaving promptly really matters, and it may mean you avoid a ban altogether. Spanish law sets out two safeguards for people whose only offence is overstaying. If you leave Spain while your case is still being processed, no entry ban is imposed. If an expulsion order has already been made, it will give you a period to leave voluntarily, which is normally between 7 and 30 days from the date you are notified of the decision. Anything under 15 days is treated as exceptional and must be justified in writing, and the period can be extended for reasons such as the length of your stay, children in school or family ties. If you leave within that period, any entry ban is revoked. You can prove when you left by showing documents at a Spanish embassy or consulate in your home country. The reasoning behind this is simple: the aim of the law is to make sure people leave, so those who go promptly and of their own accord are not punished further with a ban.
The UK government’s advice is more cautious than the legal maximum. The Foreign Office’s travel advice for Spain says that if you overstay the 90-day limit, you may be banned from entering Schengen countries for up to three years. That is a useful guide, but Spanish law allows up to five years.
A new EU law is on the way. The EU has provisionally agreed a new Return Regulation, which will replace the current rules on people staying illegally. The Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached a deal on 1 June 2026, and EU ambassadors endorsed the final text on 10 June 2026. This is a provisional agreement. It still has to be formally adopted by the Council and the European Parliament, and the details could change before then.
Under the agreed text, the maximum entry ban rises from five years to ten years, and a ban of up to 20 years can be given for duly substantiated reasons. Bans can be extended by further periods of up to five years, and people assessed as a security risk can be given even longer or indefinite bans. A ban must be imposed if someone ignores the deadline they were given to leave.
The new rules would also weaken the protection for people who leave promptly. Border officers would be able to impose a ban on someone whose overstay is picked up at the exit check, without a formal return decision, and notify them after they have gone. A ban could also be imposed on someone who leaves before a return decision has been issued. In practice, leaving straight away would no longer guarantee that you avoid a ban.
The new law comes into force the day after it is published in the EU’s Official Journal, but most of it, including the new entry-ban rules, applies one year after that. Because it is an EU regulation, it will apply directly in Spain once it takes effect. Ten years is a maximum, not a standard penalty. But automatic detection, records that stay on file for years and longer potential bans together mean overstaying is a much bigger risk than it used to be.
To stay on the right side of the rules, count your days carefully. Add up every day you have spent in any Schengen country in the last 180 days, including the days you arrive and leave. The European Commission has an online short-stay calculator that does this for you. If you spend long periods in Spain, look at Spanish visa or residence options well before you reach 90 days.
If something goes wrong, act early. If illness, a cancelled flight or an emergency means you cannot leave in time, contact the Spanish immigration authorities before your 90 days run out and keep evidence of what happened. If you have already overstayed, leave as soon as you can, because under the current Spanish rules that can mean no ban at all.
If you live in Spain under the Withdrawal Agreement, the 90-day rule does not apply to you in Spain, but it does apply when you travel to other Schengen countries.
