Anyones spouse got an Irish passport?

Can you just do a day in another country to reset?

Technically, probably, but as you might be arguing the issue of 'residence' so say you had rented a place for six months in Spain would you really want to argue with a Spanish border guard that popping over the border into France or Portugal for a night meant you were not resident in Spain even though your rental continued during your day trip.

However in reality, given there are no checks between the EU countries then the border guard on exit after you have been there for six months is likely not interested as you could have been anywhere since arriving, and more likely any residency checks are going to occur from any documents involved in renting property, or other things with living somewhere long term.

My Mrs is Irish and I am British. Different surnames.

We carry our marriage certificate with us just in case!

I just have a scan of it on my phone.

However once ETIAS and EES is turned on it won't be an issue as the non-EU spouse will record on their ETIAS that they are married to an EU citizen.

Then when the passports are scanned in and out of the EU, the EES system will know when the EU citizen is in the EU at the same time as the non-EU citizen to ignore those days for the 90/180 for them.

Fantastic, thank you for your response.

I can't speak for gotoPzero, but we flew from Switzerland to Manchester on Sunday and idiot here checked his wife in with her married name, not the name on her passport. It was picked up and the marriage certificate tied my wife's married name to her passport name and they let us through, but without it we'd have really struggled. It being further complicated by the fact my wife's name before she married is not the name on her passport due to the complexities of Scandi surnames, so the marriage cert actually tied together all three names.

Whilst it was the first time I'd made this error in 25 years together, no allowances were made and I was in the dog house for quite some time.

When my wife and I travel her British passport is stamped in and out, but obviously my Irish passport isn’t.

With different names it is possible that an awkward Border guard might not believe we are married and therefore that she has overstayed from her stamps.

Now a scan of a marriage certificate may not resolve that, but it certainly can’t do any harm.

From my reading about the ETIAS process when your wife completes her application she will declare that she is married to an EU citizen and provide your EU citizen details, then when approved that ETIAS information is held on her British passport.

Therefore every time she scans in and out of the EU with EES it records her, and the system also looks for you.

Now obviously you living in the EU is a bit different, but for most dual nationality British and Irish (or other EU nationality) spouses, they will be normally in the UK and travelling into the EU.

And that is where there could be a problem if they use their British passport, as the EES system will potentially not see them arriving but will see their spouse arriving.

I say potentially because the documents I have read about EES and ETIAS don’t seem to have considered that someone might have an EU and a non-EU passport and be dumb enough to apply for ETIAS and use it with a non-EU passport even though they don’t need to.

Plus what doesn’t help is the mistaken belief that a dual nationality British and other must use the British passport to leave and enter the UK, and the Advance Passenger Information only allowing a single passport number, all of which likely results in people using the ‘wrong’ passport.

Hi. Back again. My tiny mind remains blown. Not least as when I went through Stockholm at Xmas with the wife and kids (all using their Scandi passports) I got a proper quiz on entry. Opening line was ‘ you must come here often if you’ve family here, many days, are you counting , etc and let me see your return ticket’ all before he’d opened my passport’. Clearly this particular chap wasn’t so informed and was impatient as I searched my phone for the SAS return booking. Bearing in mind I’d not visited the in-laws for 2 years, I am dull, plain, old and meet the ‘anonymous demographic’ any typical guard would usually ignore I was rather surprised. If the electronic system comes in it would help if this rule is accurately applied.

Not really. The EU spouse has a right to live there, just needing to do residency, and the process for the non-EU spouse is made easier because if it wasn’t then it would be an infringement of the two EU laws of the EU citizens freedom of movement and their family life.

It isn’t a ‘workaround’ but the law.

And at the moment I would agree there is little or no scrutiny, and I think that once EES/ETIAS is turned on the people at risk won’t be those with EU spouses but non-EU citizens who have simply been overstaying.