Schengen Area countries
The 29 countries inside Europe’s passport-free travel zone: 25 EU members and four that aren’t, with Ireland and Cyprus the two EU members still outside.
29 countriesAs of September 2026Short notes, not sourcedSuggest a correction
The Schengen Area takes its name from Schengen, a wine village in Luxembourg on the Moselle, where the borders of Luxembourg, Germany and France meet. There, in 1985, five countries agreed on a boat moored on the river to scrap checks at their shared borders. Checks between them ended in 1995, and the rules became part of EU law in 1999.
Inside the area there are normally no passport checks at the borders between members, and a single short-stay Schengen visa covers all of them. In return they share one external border, and a database of wanted people and stolen documents. Members can bring back checks for a while in a crisis, and many did during the migrant crisis of 2015 and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The founders (1985)5
The five countries that signed the agreement at Schengen.
GermanyWest Germany signed in 1985. It has more Schengen neighbours than any other member.
LuxembourgThe agreement is named after its village of Schengen.
EU members that joined later20
Most EU members joined in the 1990s or when they joined the EU. The newest waited years to be let in.
ItalyJoined in 1990, with checks lifted in 1997.
SpainJoined in 1991. Its cities of Ceuta and Melilla, on the African coast, keep checks on travellers heading to mainland Spain.
DenmarkIn the area, but Greenland and the Faroe Islands aren’t.
CzechiaJoined in 2007, with eight other countries that had joined the EU in 2004.
MaltaJoined in 2007. Its only borders are by sea and air.
CroatiaJoined in 2023, ten years after it joined the EU.
BulgariaAir and sea checks ended in 2024 and land checks in 2025, after years of waiting.
RomaniaJoined with Bulgaria, air and sea in 2024 and land in 2025.
Outside the EU4
Four countries that take part without being EU members.
IcelandJoined with Norway in 2001, keeping the passport union the Nordic countries had had since the 1950s.
NorwayVoted twice not to join the EU, but has been in Schengen since 2001. Svalbard isn’t included.
SwitzerlandJoined in 2008, after voters approved it in a referendum.
LiechtensteinJoined in 2011, the newest member until Croatia.
Close calls
Ireland
Ireland has an opt-out. It keeps a Common Travel Area with the United Kingdom instead, which would be hard to keep if Ireland checked passports on the same terms as Schengen.
Cyprus
Cyprus is legally bound to join, but hasn’t yet. The island is divided, and the government doesn’t control the north, which makes a Schengen border hard to run.
The microstates
Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City aren’t members, but they have open borders with France or Italy, so in practice there are no checks. Andorra, between France and Spain, does have border posts.
Overseas territories
France’s overseas regions, such as French Guiana and Réunion, are part of the EU but outside the Schengen Area, so a flight from Paris to Cayenne still means a passport check.
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