Romania and Bulgaria Join Schengen Area, With a Caveat
Romania and Bulgaria have joined the Schengen area and abolished passport control for flights to other Schengen countries, although checks remain in place at land borders.
Schengen Area
Today on 31st March 2024, Romania and Bulgaria officially joined Europe’s border-free Schengen area.
The Schengen Area, consisting of 29 European countries, allows people to move freely from one Schengen state to another without facing passport control or checks at the internal borders.
However, Romania and Bulgaria are only partially included in the Schengen Area.
Due to Austrian opposition, only Romanian and Bulgarian airports and harbours are included in the Schengen zone and no longer have passport checks when travelling to or from another Schengen country.
When traveling overland to or from Romania and Bulgaria, there will still be border checks in place.
Flying to Romania and Bulgaria
Romania and Bulgaria’s partial inclusion in the Schengen area has become known as “Air Schengen” and primarily benefits air travellers.
If you were to fly from, let’s say, Bucharest to Paris, or from Sofia to Frankfurt, there will no longer be any passport control.
In recent weeks, Romanian and Bulgarian airports have all been adjusted to include a dedicated Schengen departures area, accessible without going through passport control, and a non-Schengen departure area for flights to countries outside the Schengen Area, for which passport control is still in place.
Additionally, at airports in other Schengen countries, there will be changes to flights to Bulgaria and Romania, as these have now been moved from the non-Schengen terminals to Schengen zone departures.
At some airports, this can mean that your flight to Bulgaria and Romania may now depart from a different terminal than you are used to.
For example, if you fly with Air France from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to Bucharest, your flight will now depart from Terminal 2F (Schengen departures) instead of the non-Schengen Terminal 2E.
When flying from Prague to Bucharest or Sofia, your flight will now depart from Terminal 2 instead of Terminal 1.
Temporary checks
The absence of passport control at Romanian and Bulgarian airports does not mean that there will be no checks at all.
According to the Schengen Agreement, member states still have the possibility to carry out random checks, as well as the right to temporarily reinstate border control in exceptional situations.
This was for example done at the height of the European migrant crisis in 2016.
The Romanian border police have already stated they will conduct random checks to combat human trafficking and detect individuals using falsified travel documents.
Land borders
At land borders, nothing is changing so far regarding travel to Romania and Bulgaria.
The two land borders that Romania and Bulgaria share with other Schengen area countries – the Romanian-Hungarian border, as well as the Bulgarian-Greek border – will still have border checks, just as it has always been in the past.
Visa rules
Romania and Bulgaria joining the Schengen zone also impact the visa rules for travellers from outside Europe.
The Schengen 90/180 rule, which specifies that you cannot spend more than a total of 90 days within a total period of 180 days in the Schengen area without applying for a long-term visa or residence permit, will now count for Romania and Bulgaria as well.
Depending on your travel patterns this could either be a good or a bad thing!
Conclusion
Romania and Bulgaria have partially joined the border-free Schengen area, although this will only apply for airports and sea ports.
If you fly from another Schengen zone country to Romania or Bulgaria, or vice versa, you won’t have to go through passport control, which is a significant time-saving benefit.
However, passport control is still in place at the land borders, so you can still expect delays if you were to travel by road or rail between Hungary and Romania, or between Bulgaria and Greece.
