Schengen for holiday.. confused..

[megmog]

Hi

My husband and I just returned from a 9 day holiday to Austria/Czech. My husband (South African passport, UK Perm Resident) received a Schengen Visa from the Austrian Embassy for the trip that contains the following info:

Valid from: 24/12/15
Until: 23/03/16
Type of Visa: C
Number of Entries: MULT
Duration of Stay: 30

This is the first time we have applied/used a Schengen visa and I wanted to know what this means exactly?

We were hoping that we could go to another European city (budapest) for a 4 day break in Feb before the visa runs out, since we went to the effort of getting it, but would this be possible based on the info above?

Thank you in advance!

[CR001]

Should be ok to travel again if it is a multi entry visa.

[megmog]

Thanks. I thought that might be the case.

My concern is the fact that it says 30 days under duration and i realized yesterday that although Vienna stamped him "in" on 24th Dec, Prague (our country of departure) did not stamp him out.

So how would they count the 30 days I wonder? we were technically back in the UK on 30th Dec (so in fact was only 7 days in the schengen area, i forgot to discount edinburgh when we returned). just not sure how they would know that....

[liksah]

Yeah sometimes in the EU they forget to stamp because of the differing regulations for different situations. You should ask for it though to be on the safe side.

The 30 days are counted INSIDE the Schengen region. Stamps are just proof of entrance and departure, if you need to prove that.

Did he get a stamp entering the UK? That would work too. There are several countries that don't stamp exits (USA, Canada, Mexico, etc.) so the only way to know that you exited are through boarding pass stubs or entrance stamps for your destination country.

In any case, if you have:
1. Boarding pass stubs
2. Stamps from your entrance into the UK
3. Or even an e-ticket printout/boarding pass printout proving you left

It should not be a problem. FURTHERMORE, if you are an EU national, your husband actually has the right to be there with you for 90 days - no strings attached. The 30 day "period" on the visa sticker is actually not relevant in this case.