You can find detailed and official information about the Schengen treaty and its significance here.

What does the Schengen cooperation involve?

The guiding principle is that all persons legally present in the Schengen zone can move about freely without having to show passports when crossing internal frontiers.

These internal frontiers are defined as the national boundaries between the countries taking part in Schengen, together with airports and seaports in the case of traffic to and from a Schengen country. You can cross the internal frontiers wererever and whenever you like without having to undergo being checked personally.

At the zone’s external boundaries, i.e. the borders with countries that are not a party to the Schengen Agreement, all travellers are to be carefully checked, however. You may only cross these borders at special checkpoints and only during predetermined opening hours.

If you are not a citizen of a Schengen country, you may need a visa in order to enter the Schengen zone. Such visas are usually valid in all Schengen countries and entitle the bearer to travel freely between them until the visa expires.

Once they have legally entered a Schengen country, those who are not required to have visas may travel freely about the zone for three months at the most. Foreign citizens with residence permits in a Schengen country, and whose identities have been properly established, may also travel freely in the zone for three months. This means, for instance, that a foreign citizen with at residence permit in Sweden may visit friends and acquaintances living in another Schengen country without hav-ing to apply for a visa first.

Despite the fact that personal checks have been abolished at the frontiers between the Schengen countries, Swedish citizens and other EU/EES citizens should make a point of taking along documentation, such as passport or national identity card, showing their identity and nationality.

Asylum seekers are excepted from the right of traveling freely between the Schengen countries.

What countries are included in Schengen?

Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Czech Republic, The Netherlands.