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A UK national whose passport was not stamped by Spanish border officials has been denied entry when attempting to return to the country, highlighting the new issue of passport stamps for Brits travelling to the Schengen Area post-Brexit.
Linda, a British citizen looking to visit her son in Spain, reached out to The Local to explain how she had recently been prevented from entering Spain from Gibraltar by border officials who suspected she had exhausted her 90 out of 180 days in Spain and the Schengen Area.
The reason for refusal? Her passport didn’t have a stamp showing that she had indeed left Spain and abided by the new rules for non-resident British visitors in Spain since Brexit came into force in 2021.
“I was denied entry to Spain on September 26th due to my passport not being stamped on exit on a previous one-week visit to Spain which started on June 4th,” Linda, who is 72, told The Local.
“The guards initially stamped my passport to enter, then they noticed I had no exit stamp from that one-week visit in June, thereby classing me as an overstayer and subsequently marked the entry stamp with the letter F and two lines.