Following thorough testing of the features you need, here’s the definitive answer to which is the best Schengen Visa Calculator, and amazingly there’s only one that tells you everything you need to know!
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What is the best Schengen visa calculator?
I’ve been putting all the well known ones to the test with a range of dates and examples to find out whether they do what you need them to do, and I’ll be going the extra mile to find the one that’s future proofed too.
I think you may be surprised at the results, because there’s only one Schengen Visa Calculator that does everything you need it to do. Yes, only one, what a shocker!
But before I announce the winner, I’ll show you the three stringent tests I’ve been using and how the calculators handled them. I used dates I had sent in by watchers of our YouTube channel, and they’ve been double checked for accuracy. Also important to know, I’m not being sponsored by anyone, okay? No bias. And at the end of the article I’ve gone the extra mile to give you some bonus information to help you even more with traveling in the Schengen Area.
Test number 1 is about checking when your allowance resets to 90 days, for example, if you’ve just been to Spain for 90 days, when can you go back again for another 90? But I’ll dig deeper than that. I’ll also have a look in this test at how the calculators handle a range of non-consecutive past dates to see when you can return and for how long. In my experience that’s going to be very useful to a lot of you.
Test number 2 is about checking whether the calculator takes into account any dates you’ve already booked in the future when you’re working out whether you can set off now or soon without jeapardising those future trips. Why’s that so important? Well, let’s say you’ve already booked some tickets in advance but need to go for a few days in between now and then. Could be an emergency or another business trip you weren’t expecting. So it’s very much a ‘need to know’ test.
Some people on social media say ‘it’s easy to work out your 90/180 day travel, you just count backwards 180 days and get your head round the rolling 180 days period. Simple. But test numbers 2 & 3 show you that you sometimes need to look backwards and forwards at the same time.
Test number 3 is the most difficult. It’s about checking whether the calculator can handle a much more complicated real world scenario of a range of trips in both the past and the future, and warn you of accidental overstays or whether you’re jeapardising a future visit. If you’re a business person or a homeowner needing to hop in and out of Europe a lot, this is the ultimate test and you need to be sure it’s accurate. Overstaying can result in not only fines, but being barred from entering Europe for years, which could be devastating for you.
How can I be sure the answers given by the calculators are correct or incorrect?
The simple calculations I tested against the EU’s own calculator, which I’d already tested for accuracy two years ago, and the more complex calculations needed for test numbers 2 & 3 have been checked with a spread sheet that I’ll tell you about later. For now, trust me, it’s good maths, and it’s accurate.
Here are the apps and online calculators that I’ve been testing:
1/ The EU’s short stay visa calculator,
2/ visa dash calculator dot com,
3/ Schengen visa info dot com,
4/ Schengen 90 dot app,
5/ Visa guide dot world,
6/ Schengen area calculator dot com,
7/ the Schengen Simple app,
8/ ninety 180 dot com
Here we go then…
Test number one. Let’s say you had a trip to Spain from November 1st 2023 to January 29th 2024. That’s 90 days. So you’ve hit the maximum. When can you return for another 90 days? Well, the correct answer is April 29th 2024. 90 days later. Sounds easy enough.
But two of the calculators, Visa Guide dot world, and ninety 180 dot com, don’t tell you which date you can return.
Visa Guide only tells you the last day you can stay. That’s very basic, you need to know more than that.
Ninety 180 only tells you how many days you’ve spent in the Schengen Area. So if you want to know anything else, you’ve got to count forward with your fingers on the calendar. You don’t want to be doing that! That’s what calculators are for!
So, because these two calculators not only failed test number 1, but (spoilers) they also fail tests 2 & 3 as well, I’m going to take them out of the running – no point wasting your time, you need to find out the winner, don’t you? Of course you do!
So let’s rule out another one and make it even quicker.
Schengen area calculator dot com. This one got the date correct of when you could return, but didn’t say how many days you could stay for. And (spoilers) it failed the other two tests as well. Out you go!
Now, I said I’d also test using a range of past dates. So I used these ones
01/11/23 – 02/12/23
20/12/23 – 07/01/24
18/01/24 – 02/02/24
I asked each calculator how long you could stay if you went back on the 4th of April. The correct answer is 23 days, so you can stay until the 26th of April.
The EU short stay calculator was spot on, they’re doing well so far. And so they should, it’s official.
Visa dash calculator dot com got the 23 days right, and also give you 3 examples of possible future travel, but there’s no way of asking ‘what if I want to go back on April the 4th?’ As you can see though, one of the examples was April the 6th, so I’m going to let them through to the next test because I’m feeling kind. No spoilers this time.
Schengen Visa info dot com also got the 23 days right, but again, no way of checking what the situation is on April the 4th. Not even a suggestion. So they’re out of the running! They’re dropping like flies!
Schengen 90 dot app correctly displays 23 days under each date on the calendar until April 5th, then it goes up to 55 days allowance, that’s a bit confusing, until you click on April 4th and then it shows your days ticking down until you reach the 26th. So that actually works, once you know how to read it.
Finally, the Schengen Simple app, it’s on my phone so here are all of the screens in the order you’d scroll through, and the final one shows you the 23 days you had and the latest exit date of April 26th, so that’s correct and they’re through to the next test.
Test number 2 – Everything’s going to move along a lot quicker from this point on, we’re really not far from finding out the winner, because this is where only one of the calculators works at all.
So a quick reminder of the test. Let’s keep it simple. Let’s say you’ve booked and paid for a big holiday to Spain from April 1st 2024 to the 29th of June 2024. Suddenly you find out the guys who are doing building work on your house need you onsite in Spain on the 28th of February.
How many days can you go for without jeopardising your future booked holiday?
Well, the eagle eye’d amongst you will have worked out that your booked trip starting on April the 1st is 90 days long. You fool, you’ve kind of ‘used up’ your whole 90 days! But what do the calculators say about going earlier, on February 28th?
Well, we’ve only got 4 calculators left in the running, and 3 of them don’t let you put that earlier date in, so you can’t work out how your 28th of February trip affects the one you’ve booked in April.
Some of you might be thinking ‘well that’s a bit of an obvious example, you’ve booked 90 days so obviously you can’t go before April without changing the 90 day trip’. And my answer to you is yes it’s a very obvious example, but the fact is whatever range of future dates I put in, and however many days you’re going to have used up, 2 of the calculators have no way of inputting control dates in advance, and a third one shows you still have 90 days left on the 28th of February, and I couldn’t find a way of working out my options on that one without deleting dates and dropping in more, and that’s just far too much messing about.
There’s only one calculator left in the running, and that is the Schengen Simple app.
Here’s what it shows for February 28th when I input the dates and save them: Zero days allowance left.
And what happens when I click on the 28th? There’s a warning message down the bottom of the screen saying No Allowance. And then, when you click on that message, it takes you to an explanation page that tells you more. And it gives you the option when you scroll down, to change that future 90 days if you do actually decide to re-jig your dates and go earlier.
But that’s not all, there’s another feature to this app which is so handy, it’s called Passport Control. On this page you’re asked to select a Control date of the day you’re going to be returning through passport control, which for this simple example is June 29th. And a screen comes up which you can show to the border guard to make their job easier. This feature really comes into its own when you do the final test.
Test number three
This is worth showing you even though (spoilers) we’ve already found the winner.
Don’t forget there’s more information to come at the end that’s really helpful, so stick around.
Now, let’s put in these dates as an example and show you how Schengen Simple handles anything you throw at it.
11/12/23 to 12/01/24
04/03/24 to 05/04/24
24/06/24 to 10/08/24
So you’ve booked and paid for those dates and you can’t change your tickets, you must be there. And somewhere in the middle of it all, let’s say February the 1st, your boss says get out to Spain immediately today!
How many days allowance do you have, without changing the future days?
The answer should be 21.
And as you’ll see if you input those dates, under Feb 1st on the calendar it says 21 days left. Click on Feb 1st and it shows you your latest exit day. And as an extra test, see what happens when you try to put in one day too many. You get an overstay message.
Very helpful. Then you can scroll forward to after those booked dates and see when you can return, in case your boss asks you.
Finally, look at the Passport Control page and set the control date to your final date of exit on August 10th, and it shows all of the dates in the past 180 days, everything that border control need to know and of course they can tally that with their system.
HERE’S THE WINNER!
So there you go, the winner is quite clearly Schengen Simple. But there’s more, stick around. Because I got in touch with the developer.
First of all I needed to ask a few questions to check the calculations and find out how they managed to build it to deal with past and future calculations. My head was exploding trying to work it all out with a calendar, it didn’t seem to make sense, even though I’m used to doing it. And that’s because when you’re not only looking back 180 days but checking what’s going to happen as the rolling 180 days moves forward into days you’ve allocated, the maths gets more tricky.
The developer, George his name is, was very patient and helpful, he sent me calculations, examples, one of his spreadsheets, and many paragraphs of explanations that lead to a lightbulb moment for me in my not entirely unintelligent mathematical brain. I’m quite clever really, I just prefer being artistic.
In the process, I learned that George is completely open to improvements, his developers are Beta testing still, he took on my suggestions for other parts of the app where you can find details about the Schengen Area, all of the relevant countries, and more.
EXTRA BONUS INFO!
One important detail I haven’t touched on yet, right at this moment the app is only available from the Apple store. However, the Android version is being built and tested as we speak, and George assures me it will be available very soon, they’re aiming for June, so what I’m going to do is invite George onto YouTooSpain live when the Android app is being released and you can all then ask him questions directly, and give suggestions for improvements.
You can play your part in making this app exactly what you need, when does that ever happen? Not very often I’m sure. You can even send in suggestions now in the comments of this article and I’ll pass them on. Test the app yourself. Make it your own. Go wild!
Peace & Love!
Peas & Fluff!
Let’s dance!
Article by Skatz
Here are the apps tested with links to their websites.
2 – Visa-calculator https://www.visa-calculator.com/
3 – Schengen visa info https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/visa-calculator/
4 – Schengen 90 app https://www.schengen90.app/
5 – Visa Guide World https://visaguide.world/europe/schengen-visa/schengen-calculator/
6 – Schengen Visas dot com https://www.schengenvisas.com/schengen-calculator/
7 – Schengen Area Calculator https://schengenareacalculator.com/
8 – Schengen Simple (app) https://schengensimple.com/
9 – Schengen Visa Calculator https://schengen-calculator.com/
I also tried…
Ninety 180 https://ninety180.com/
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