Rosalind F. Says:
What’s the difference between the EU and the Schengen Zone?
IL Executive Editor Jennifer Stevens Says:
Hi Rosalind,
When you start researching Europe as a potential overseas retirement destination, you’ll almost certainly run into that phrase: Schengen Zone. And it can be confusing as to what it actually means.
The Schengen Zone is an area within Europe that has a uniform visa policy, and has abolished passport controls and most other border controls within the Zone.
Your passport will be checked—possibly quite carefully—when you first enter the Zone via a member country. But once you enter the Schengen Zone, your passport normally won’t be checked again until you leave the Zone. So, for most practical purposes, you’ll treat the Zone as though it were a single country.
It’s important to note the Schengen Zone and the European Union (EU) are not the same thing.
The EU is a political and economic union of countries within Europe that have decided to cooperate closely. Holding citizenship from any EU country grants you the right to live and work in any other.
Most Schengen Zone countries are also EU members, but not all of them.
Ireland, for instance, belongs to the EU but is not part of the Schengen Zone. Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Iceland, on the other hand, are part of the Schengen Zone but not the EU.
Still, most of mainland Europe is part of the Schengen Zone. The current Schengen Zone countries are: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
You can learn a lot more about the Schengen Zone—including how to use its rules to extend your time in Europe—on our website here.
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