Transit counted as Schengen days?
This is probably a duplicate, but scrolling is broken on the suggestions.
My multi-leg flight was DUB-BCN-LIS-JFK. In BCN, they stamped an entry 30 03 2017 and in LIS exit 31 03 17. I was only in the airport an hour or so and did not leave.
Should I protest this as an error, or just tolerate the extra two days cut out of my ninety?
To make matters worse, on this visit, entering BIO, the guy saw the BCN entry but not the LIS exit on the same page and gave me a hard time about it. "How the hell are you coming in again when you never left?" (Loose translation). Parked me on a bench while he went elsewhere, I presume to discuss it with the boss.
Best Answer
To make your BCN-LIS connection, you had to enter the Schengen Area, even if you stayed inside the airports. For this, you had to pass immigration - there was no way around that - and that's enough to make the two days count.
If you really need these days to not count against your 90 days in the future, you have to take a route that does not require you to board an Intra-Schengen flight (e.g. direct, via only a single Schengen airport, or via non-Schengen airports like London, Shannon, Moscow or Istanbul, to just name a few).
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