Australia Italy Bilateral Visa Waiver Agreement

Hello mirisonnabend,

Welcome to Expat.com

I really hope you will be able to find some answers here.

In the meantime, I invite you to read different articles about > Visas for Italy.

Best of luck,

Cheryl

Expat.com team

@mirisonnabend I'd like to know this too so am following the feed. I thought you could extend the stay as long as you leave the country prior to the 90 day and then return but I'm no sure either?

Hello, I am also currently investigating this option!

I'm curious to know if anyone has successfully done this? It is quite hard to find information online so I wrote to the Italian Consulate in Melbourne.

This is their response:

"the Treaty you are mentioning is still valid.

However, I would strongly recommend you verify with:

1.            your airline, whether they will allow you to board your flight without a visa on a return ticket valid for over 3 months, and

2.            the customs in your ports of entry to and exit from the Schengen area regarding their specific requirements given the circumstances you have described.

Under this agreement, in order to spend the second 90-day period in Italy, you will have to exhibit a proof of the duration of your stay in another (Schengen) country for the first leg of your trip. Since passports are no longer stamped when travelling across Schengen countries, you may have to visit the local police to report your arrival to and departure from any (Schengen) country you visit first.

The agreement in question was signed in 1951. It often happens that airport staff would deem it  superseded by Schengen regulations, with obvious repercussions for passengers, including when seeking to fly back to Australia.

The entire matter falls beyond the scope of our responsibility because we cannot exert any form of control on border protection agencies in any country, Italy included.

On account of which, kindly acknowledge that this is just on a suggestion note, therefore you are again advised to independently verify what precedes with your airline and all customs Authorities involved."

It sounds possible, but quite complicated!

Regards,

Georgia

In my experience.

Qantas new digital terminal checkin 2022 needed manual overide, my guess is it flagged my out and back dates for Rome were more than 3 months apart, the staff didn't know why but knew i didn't need a visa for europe, they didn't check my plans for between .

I got advice from the Sydney consulate 2019, more vague than Melbourne.

In 2020, the immigration officials at Rome airport wanted me to have a plane ticket out of the Schengen within 3 months before letting me through, they interpret that you must leave Italy for at least 30 days before being able to use the bilateral time. I bought and they accepted a flight ticket to London.

I have not crossed the border after 3 months to test the rest, but there was no problem when leaving via Rome after 5 months in total

Hi Georgia1818 and ao8odo, any update on your travels?

getting info on bilateral agreements is very difficult!

We also want to travel in Italy , and have this not count towards shengen 90 days.

thanks.

I am researching this topic for my partner. I carry an Italian passport so not an issue for me. We would like to stay in Italy for 90 days and then go to Scotland for a month and come back to visit Italy plus other Schengen countries. Total 8 months.

@mirisonnabend Definitely one existing for Germany & on the German Embassy/Sydney Consulate visa info page.

Once there and given the lack of internal Schengen checks one imagines you can go anywhere.

Just make sure you fly out of Germany!

https://australien.diplo.de/au-en/servi … sa/2073662

I have emailed the Italian embassy in Australia and had the below response on the 26.06.23

“Australian Citizens can stay in Italy and in the Schengen area for a maximum of 90 days without an entry visa. The agreement you mentioned (Bilateral Agreements with Italy & Australia) is currently under review by the Italian Ministry of Interiors, which has a restrictive approach and interpretation of it because of the European and Schengen regulations. At the moment It is therefore advisable to plan your trip to Europe according to the stricter interpretation of the Schengen rules.”

This reads to me that Australians aren’t able to use Italy for the bilateral agreement unfortunately.

I have also emailed other country embassies in Australia regarding the validity of the bilateral agreement & as at 26.06.23, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg (60 days), Belgium (60 days) have confirmed the bilateral agreement still holds and we can stay in these countries for 90 days AFTER a Schengen stay, but must enter through that country and not another schengen country.

I have emailed the Italian embassy in Australia and had the below response on the 26.06.23

“Australian Citizens can stay in Italy and in the Schengen area for a maximum of 90 days without an entry visa. The agreement you mentioned (Bilateral Agreements with Italy & Australia) is currently under review by the Italian Ministry of Interiors, which has a restrictive approach and interpretation of it because of the European and Schengen regulations. At the moment It is therefore advisable to plan your trip to Europe according to the stricter interpretation of the Schengen rules.”

This reads to me that Australians aren’t able to use Italy for the bilateral agreement unfortunately.

I have also emailed other country embassies in Australia regarding the validity of the bilateral agreement & as at 26.06.23, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg (60 days), Belgium (60 days) have confirmed the bilateral agreement still holds and we can stay in these countries for 90 days AFTER a Schengen stay, but must enter through that country and not another schengen country.

@melwalpole7 @melwalpole7 I too am looking at how to make this happen for a trip I am planning.

Can I ask when you say "we can stay in these countries for 90 days AFTER a Schengen stay, but must enter through that country and not another schengen country." what do you think that means exactly?

E.g  if I was using the German visa waiver do you think you can have used up your 90 days of the 180, pop over to the UK, get your passport stamped as having left, then you can go to Germany for up to 90 days, then do you think you could go to Austria for 90 days and then on to Belgium for 60 days? etc?

Hey @tanyachesher

I just did this recently. I used up all my Schengen days and flew to UK for a stamp out in my passport. I then travelled to Germany easy peasy (they require you leave the Schengen first so we did).

I then flew straight to the Netherlands. They let me in easy too. They (along with Belgium and the scandi countries) dont care if you have come directly from a Schengen country or not.

Austria and Germany however have stated they want you to leave schengen first.

Im struggling with Italy. Hoping to head there next but cant get a straight answer from anyone! A few weeks ago, italian embassy said 'technically yes' to us using the bilateral, but the border control has full discretion in the matter (???).

Hi @amyfransen7,

How did you go with Italy and hearing back from the embassy?

I have been in Spain for nearly three months using my Schengen Visa to do so.

I was hoping to use the bilateral visa agreements after leaving Spain later this month. I was thinking to spend some time in one of the bilateral visa countries before meeting friends in the UK on September 12. My hope was after that to make my way to Italy for up to 90 days.

One idea I had was flying into Germany from the Uk and training to Italy through Australia. While I wanted to fly out of Rome at the end of my time in Italy, instead, I could train back into Germany and depart from there. I am just worried that without confirmation from the embassy, this could be risky.

Like all of you, I am struggling to get direct answers/guidance from the embassy. Grateful for this thread!!

"One idea I had was flying into Germany from the Uk and training to Italy through Australia."

Won't work.

Ciao

Janin

@PatsyInParis

Im heading there mid August so will report back soon!

I have considered those same travel options. We are going to try flying from Amsterdam and then we plan to fly out of the Schengen (Turkey) from Italy. We decided on this because travelling overland was risky considering we aren’t technically allowed in Austria (Im fairly sure travelling overland from a to b through c means that you’re entering c, but I also can’t find a solid answer online about that matter!!). We also thought it best to go about it as legal as possible - but we might regret that at the border!

I don’t think there’s any good way to go about it given they’re not clear on their stance. I’m hoping the new ETIAS system will solve these issues in the future.

@amyfransen7 Please do report back!

I am finishing up my 90 days soon and have confirmation from Iceland that we can travel there after, waiting to hear back from Sweden but would love to go to Italy again too.

I actually showed this agreement to two police officers on a train in Italy doing passport checks. After a bit of discussion they agreed that it should be okay to use as long as we carried the Italian version. I did need to clarify in Italian that the agreement is meant to be in addition to the original 90 days however.

Keen to hear other peoples experiences.

@amyfransen7

Hey, how did you go with this as I will also soon  have used all my days. I am currently staying with family in Italy and wish to stay until December.

I did leave the shegain zone for 1 month but was unsure if it would re start once I returned to Italy for another 90 days.

really interested to find out as I have not been able to see anything online

@Mollypritchard01

hey where were you able to find the agreement to be able to show police or boarder as I would love to have some sort of form on me for when the time comes?

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat … 951/5.html

This is the active agreement.

@traveller89 do you have confirmation this aggreement is still active?

Yes I am understand . this agreement is active

@amyfransen7

hi Amy - are you able to share further details of evoking the visa waiver agreements with Germany and the Netherlands?

Hi guys,

Thanks for great info!

im also traveling to EU and plan to stay longer than 90 days. We will use up all our Shengen days in Italy and want to go to Bulgaria that is part of Shengen as of 31march for another 2 months.

i was wondering if we could leave shengen after 90 days and re enter via Germany, get the stamp and travel to Bulgaria for the remaining 90 days. Do you reckon it will work? spubds so cheeky lol

I contacted the Australian embassy in Rome today and received a very quick reply (very impressed - less than 30 mins):

"With regards to the 1951 bilateral agreement, we have been informed by the Visa Centre of the Italian Ministry of Foreign affairs that this agreement is technically still in force. However, we were also recently informed that the Italian Interior Ministry ( which controls Police/immigration authorities) does not acknowledge this and will not allow both the Schengen Treaty and the Bilateral agreement to be enforced.

Therefore, according to the Italian Interior Ministry, the maximum stay allowed is 90 days in spite of the fact that the 1951 agreement is technically still in force. Apparently this has been an ongoing issue and the Ministry of foreign Affairs is still working to find a solution.

We are waiting to receive official advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding this issue. At this stage we can only confirm that in practice it is necessary to abide by the 90-day rule in accordance with the Schengen visa waiver agreement."

So it sounds like the Italy BIlaterial Agreement isn't the best path and other bilateral agreements are more accepted (Germany, Austria etc).