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Comment by apexalpha | Hacker News Reader

I had no idea travel was this difficult for people who aren't EU citizens.

Wow, I'm almost annoyed on the authors behalf of how much hoops there are to jump through.

>To apply for British citizenship, you need to prove you were physically in the UK on your application date but five years ago. Not approximately five years, not that week—that exact day when you press "submit" on the form minus five years. Miss it by 24 hours and your application is reject after months of waiting, and you have to pay a hefty fee to re-apply.

That's a hilarious requirement. I wonder how that ended up in there.

View on HN

First, the author is actually wrong. The date is not 5 years before you submit, but is 5 years before the form is received by the home office! So there are a few days of uncertainty, depending on how fast Royal Mail was with the physical documents.

Additionally, I did a request for my information from the home office prior to filling in my form. After all, you have the right to request the information they have on you that will be used to verify your form. Kafka would be proud.

Let me tell you, Home Office doesn't have a clue where you were 5 years ago. It had approximately 50% of my trips, and frequently only had only one leg of the journey. Plane, ferry, train, sailboat, ... it didn't matter. It seems like they have not been keeping the information very well.

> It had approximately 50% of my trips, and frequently only had only one leg of the journey

Relevant current news: Home Office denying child benefits to 1000s of people because they had incomplete data of people vacation trips, so people were thought to have emigrated and never returned [0]. Some people who never even left (due to cancelled flights, denied boardings etc.) were also affected.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/01/hmrc-likely...

This is because the UK doesn't have exit checks. They rely on airlines to submit the information to them.

I guess this makes sense when you consider that there's an open border with Ireland. Though you'd think that the UK and Ireland could get together to track exits...

The UK's borders used to be hilariously lax. In 2000 I travelled a lot. To leave, as you note, you just left.

To return, you'd walk past a man at Heathrow who was invariably reading the paper. He had his feet up on the desk. You were walking at a clip, passport held aloft, photo page ostensibly open towards him.

That was it. Immigrated.

In 2014 I landed on either Heathrow or another London airport I don’t remember coming from Spain after a vacation

I read on a sign “travellers from Europe this way” and I thought ok my flight came from Spain I’m going that way … when I saw I was out of the airport with no immigration whatsoever

In hindsight it obviously meant if you’re European (which I’m not), I was in shock how easy someone could get in the UK !

I don't know about UK, but my experience is the signs for EU and non-EU point different directions, but either way you just go through a door that leads to the exact same place. I've been told that when they are looking for "something" they will put extra checks at the non-EU door, but if you have a US passport (I presume other countries like Canada) in hand they will send you through the EU door.

Are you sure your passport wasn’t checked?

What you’re describing sounds like it was the customs check. Pre-brexit, if you were arriving from the EU, then there was no customs check since we were all part of the same customs union.

The usual flow is

immigration check -> baggage collection -> customs check

Yeah wasn’t checked. I’m pretty sure it was a smaller airport than Heathrow. I definitely went through the wrong path out

Perhaps your passport was checked on departure instead of on arrival? At least that's how it worked when taking the Eurostar train.

Even if they did check his passport, he didn't have an EU passport so probably shouldn't have been allowed to skip customs.

From a customs perspective, flying from one EU country to another EU is treated like a domestic flight.

If I (a British citizen) flew from London to New York, then on to Chicago; I'd expect to go through customs when I arrived at New York, but not when I arrived at Chicago.

Ah, good point.

No, you were good. You were already inside the Schengen Area so you actually took the correct path, though I can see how the sign seems vague now I read it from your perspective.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area

The UK was never in the Schengen Area, though.

2 years ago I landed at London City (from Zurich), got off the plane and then we all walked all the way to the exit without being stopped by a single human to check passports or customs. I couldn't believe it.

I am not a British or EU citizen

* * *

Speak for yourself, not the Irish.

this is a genuinely awful description of Irish history

> The open border treaty was put in place because the alternative was either giving the territory back, or nonstop terrorism (look up the Irish Republican Army) until they gave the territory back.

The Common Travel Area's origins are in the the period 1923-1925[0], although it wasn't called that back then...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area

> Ireland dislikes the UK since the UK invaded it

This was centuries before the UK. The Normans came to Ireland by invitation of Macmurphy, King of Leinster, to help him restore his power, in exchange for promises of territory. This barely counts as a conquest CB, but with certainty not as an invasion.

The Tudor conquest of Ireland involved the English and Scottish. It was before the UK existed, but was perpetrated by the constituents of the UK. At least, the ancestors of the contemporary constituents. Maybe not of Wales though, I don't know.

> Maybe not of Wales though,

The original Tudors were Welsh.

Huh, I'd totally missed that. I need to brush up on my history in this part of the world. It's way more interesting than I used to think. Thanks for that

Fwiw, in the time period you're talking about Wales was just a label for a group of English counties, each fully annexed to England like any other county. The rulers were of Welsh heritage, the Tudors being from Gwynedd in N Wales (I suspect originally Norse, possibly via Ireland).

Strangely, no 'English' people have ruled England since the latter Norman invasion.

Scotland and Wales often try to pretend they weren't part of the Empire and its horrors - in reality their were nobles/toffs/rich nobs from all across GB (at least) doing their part. Barely any of our ancestors were involved in any way other than servitude.

(My family are from both sides of the Anglo-Irish conflicts.)

This is such an interesting insight. Thank you. The part about barely any ancestors being involved apart from servitude is quite a common thread in history since empires began.

20+ years of lighting our hair on fire over immigration and we still have no idea who is in the country.

Starmer addressed this a while back, accusing the Tories of campaigning on reducing immigration while actually running an experiment in open borders. Having made this statement, he then proceeded to do nothing about immigration himself.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2024/nov/28/keir-...

It seems to be a bipartisan thing in the UK to recognize that the electorate really doesn’t want immigration, and then not to fulfill the will of the electorate. Instead, the politicians use that will to accomplish unrelated goals like imposing a national digital ID.

> the electorate really doesn’t want immigration

Is that the case or is there just a significant minority that cares and the rest are happy enough as things are and would get mad if there was change - thus making their approach rational: get the votes of those who care but don't do anything because then you will be voted out next term.

I don't know myself, but this is something that I've wondered about a lot of issues that I care about where nothing happens. (I've long been on the side of more immigration)

Politicians like campaign on reducing immigration because it's an easy thing to campaign on. They don't like to actually do anything about it because (1) it's hard, especially when you want to comply with laws and treaties and (2) effectively reducing immigration could hamper the ability to campaign on reducing immigration.

> It seems to be a bipartisan thing in the UK to recognize that the electorate really doesn’t want immigration

Usually, it's not an "inner wish" of the electorate, but the electorate gets manipulated to feel that way by mass media, especially tabloids. Outrage sells, after all, especially when it can be laced to make it more effective.

The problem at the core is that immigration is vital for societies, especially the low-pay-hard-labor segment. Has the UK found a replacement for Ukrainian and Polish farm workers yet [1]?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/15/pounds-6...

> Usually, it's not an "inner wish" of the electorate, but the electorate gets manipulated to feel that way by mass media, especially tabloids. Outrage sells, after all, especially when it can be laced to make it more effective.

As you say, the tabloids sell what people want to read. Who's manipulating whom?

> The problem at the core is that immigration is vital for societies, especially the low-pay-hard-labor segment. Has the UK found a replacement for Ukrainian and Polish farm workers yet [1]?

Immigration is also good for the would be immigrants.

Though if you are only interested in cheap labour (and giving foreigners jobs which are better than what they can get at home), you can run a guest worker programmer without giving them the right to stay. Singapore has a few successful programmes like that.

Ie you can have cheap labour without permanent immigration.

I'm in favour of open borders; but if for political reasons you can't have permanent immigration, guest worker programmes are better than completely closed borders.

I think people who are against immigration usually also are against guest workers. They've negative sentiment towards seeing people not looking like them, without knowing whether they are permanent residents or only here for six months. It's a gut feeling based on stereotypes and prejudices not facts.

Maybe. But for better or worse, most people don't say this out loud.

See also https://laneless.substack.com/p/the-copenhagen-interpretatio... Basically, people don't like having to look at poverty, and rather have poor people stay far away (and even poorer).

He's done plenty (https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-coming-collapse-in-immigration/), following on from the changes Sunak made, which are already showing up in the early numbers this year.

But of course it's never going to be enough for the noisily anti-immigration lot.

GCHQ has metadata on all digital communications - even among homeless and immigrant populations have near 100% mobile daily usage.

"We" surely have pretty good information about number of adults in the UK, and if the security services are worth their salt we know their names and associations.

Heck, the main supermarkets can probably tell you within a percent or two what the live demographics of the country are.

Well, that's what you get for not running a totalitarian country.

By and large, it's a feature, not a bug, that the government isn't sharing all the information it has between its various parts.

Eg GCHQ has lots of information it has (ostensibly) for keeping the country safe, but that doesn't mean that the prosecution in a criminal case should get access to all the same information.

Of course, that's a bit inefficient and duplicates efforts. But such is a price for restrained government.

In the context of the issue that doesn't really make sense. The issue is that the home office think you left and didn't come back. How would an exit check tell the home office you have come back into the country?

In a country that has exit checks, in order to go airside, a border agent will stamp you out and record your exit. If you were to get stamped out and then decide that you don't want to catch your flight after all, you'd have to get stamped back in again (often not a real stamp these days).

In the UK there's no exit checks. The only information they have is that you booked a flight. This is "Advance Passenger Information" which all airlines are legally required to submit. They don't know if you've actually boarded the flight, they just assume that if you booked a flight that it means you left the country.

The exit check doesn't tell them that you've come back, they know that already unless you cross the land border. But it does tell them that you truly left and stop the guesswork.

> I guess this makes sense when you consider that there's an open border with Ireland.

Weren't the other borders with the Schengen area open, too? Eg if you take a small boat from England to Denmark, no one needed to check anything.

As someone who's been through that dance twice, it's 5 years from the time (well, day) you press "Submit" if you're applying online, or $RANDOM days of Royal Mail nonsense if you choose to apply by post.

I agree though, the Home Office doesn't have a way of knowing where you were fore sure 5 years ago unless they got someone to go through your "days in and out of the UK" list and vetted/cross-referenced it. And even then it'd likely be incomplete and they'd have to guess.

My surmise is that they look at the level of effort you've put in to filling out that detail, and if the total days in/out isn't particularly a borderline case, then they just wave that bit through.

i think they meant online, which could be different?

I would have thought that the point is that you're supposed to be there continuously for some considerable duration (and having worked through other processes of legal immigration) before applying for citizenship.

So the idea of trying to figure out exactly which day five years in the past you have to mention seems odd to me. If there's really no care being paid to the intervening time... well if you're trying to exploit a loophole like that I think I'd prefer that it's difficult... ?

As someone that is about 50, we also had it this way in Europe.

Newer generations don't get how lucky they are to have been born into EU, appreciate it while it lasts.

I'm almost 50 and from Europe, never had to think about this stuff for a second.

Well I remember the fun days of crossing borders before EU, ordering stuff from computer magazines from other countries, having to deal how to pay them across countries, and so forth.

I also happened to work in Switzerland, before they made cross-region agreements with EU, and it was lot of burecratic fun, explaining the situation regarding a Portuguese, living in France and working in Switzerland.

The sane side of the iron curtain. We've envied you for the longest time.

I'm mid fourties and I remember bordercrossings were annoying back in the 90ies. I'm Danish so we didn't enter Schengen until around 2000. I guess it didn't help that I was young enough that we traveled by bus. Once when we were on a school trip to Prauge we had the Slovakia borderpatrol go through our entire bus while waving machineguns around.

> we had the Slovakia borderpatrol go through our entire bus while waving machineguns around

Quite common in Eastern Europe before Schengen. That's why we hate border patrols, police and all sorts of uniformed men in general. They used to cut young people's blue jeans or long hair back in the '80s and bribing them was common before 2005. We also had quite a lot of policemen jokes (they were called militia men before 1990). One goes like "Why do militia men work in couples? Because one knows how to read and the other knows how to write.". I used to wish that we join Schengen so we no longer have to deal with border police any longer and they'd lose their jobs or get moved to a different border. If finally happened. Now Germany Poland, Austria and also other EU states introduce "temporary" border checks. Which they keep extending. Great.

I thought they worked in groups of 3: one knows how to write, the second knows how to read, and the third is there to keep an eye on the dangerous intellectuals.

> Now Germany Poland, Austria and also other EU states introduce "temporary" border checks. Which they keep extending. Great.

Yeah. Though I live close to a Slovakia-Austria border crossing and use it frequently and it is quite apparent these are border checks in the name only. Pedestrians and bikers are not checked at all; passenger cars are waved through and only vans and busses seem to be actually stopped for a check and even that depends. Still sucks compared to no border police presence at all.

I crossed the Austria-Hungary land border at Hegyeshalom in... 2017? They had "border checks" in place. I was driving a German-plated rental car, and my wife and I are obviously of European descent. They waved me through before I could even pull our (USA) passports out to show them.

Germany still does this, to a good fraction of incoming long distance busses (but not trains IIUC)

Correct, and not just Germany. I have travelled all over Europe by bus and train. In recent years borders have been making a comeback, despite Schengen. Buses are target number 1 for border police.

Last year my bus took nearly an hour to get across the Serbia-Croatia border, which is technically a Schengen border, but Serbia is surrounded by Europe so security is usually lax. We all had to get off and go through passport control while the police combed the bus. Meanwhile, car traffic was being waved through without the slightest formality. Infuriating.

The Serbia-Croatia border is definitely not a Schengen border; I assume that was a typo.

Indeed. Typo. Too late to fix.

Wait! It was not a typo. Serbia-Croatia is indeed a Schengen border (Croatia is in Schengen). My point was that there was anti-bus discrimination even at this low-security border.

At the supposed non-borders within the Schengen zone, police are increasingly present. Often they get on buses (and trains) just to check out the passengers, obviously looking for passengers with migrant profiles.

Two or three years ago I crossed the ultra-low-security Germany-Denmark border on a local bus. There was no border security but I overheard the driver making an intentional phone call to someone to say that he had a foreign tourist aboard. Schengen has not completely abolished borders, alas.

Ack. Intra-Schengen versus outer Schengen border. Borders are confusing.

And yes, border controls are almost everywhere again.

Btw, long distance busses have a really strange history in Germany.

The literal Nazis made a law that virtually banned long distance busses inside of Germany, and the market was only liberalised in 2013. Deregulation and liberalisation often get a bad rep, but they have done a lot for us.

(To be more precise, the Nazis didn't outright ban long distance busses directly, what they did was give the government railway monopoly a veto over most bus routes and lots of extra restrictions. Which amounted to the same result as a ban. Just like the US doesn't directly ban buying from the world's most popular electric car brand or importing photovoltaic cells: they just slap outrageous 100%+ tariffs on them.)

I guess you never tried to cross the Iron Curtain in your youth?

As a 29 year old that experienced EU citizenship then had it cruelly taken away by some stupidly thin margin of voters… feckin Brexit.

I get how lucky I was for 25% of my life expectancy.

Schengen is NOT a EU achievement.

Nations can sign Schengen, but are never forced to join the EU, nations can be EU members but are allowed to refuse the Schengen treaties.

Yes. Though it's part of the same broader 'European project', so it's permissible for people to be a bit lax when informally discussing these things.

Schengen is absolutely an EU achievement, although for some time it developed separately; it is now absorbed into EU law. Note that every Schengen country outside of the EU is a member of EFTA and to be in Schengen has to sign an association treaty with the EU.

Where have I said that on my comment?

Too bad there aren't too many people in their 90s around to discuss how things operated prior to WWII. Schengen was a solution to a problem that had only been created a few decades earlier.

>I had no idea travel was this difficult for people who aren't EU citizens.

Most people can't afford to travel to the Schengen Area for more than the visa-free limit of 90 days within a 180 day period.

Those that can are "digital nomads" and are almost certainly working illegally while travelling.

Illegally = like smoking weed in Amsterdam

Except few countries, all EU countries tolerate this

Although the EES biometric system that just got added is intended to crack down on this

Despite being required to, most crossings I did recently did not use it, though

I think it is more for overstays. Years ago when I asked about my stayed days ( I was traveling a lot ) , border guard took passport and tried to count then gave up

> Most people can't afford to travel to the Schengen Area for more than the visa-free limit of 90 days within a 180 day period.

> Those that can are "digital nomads" and are almost certainly working illegally while travelling.

WTF are you talking about? The Schengen Area is right here and you don't need a visa to work anywhere else in it. That's the whole point.

If you don't live in the EU the rules are different. They often don't care but the rules are there. (I've been sent through the EU citizen line with my US passport which is normally fine but my coworkers on a multi year work in the EU visa have to be more careful about the right stamps - though I'm not sure exactly what this means)

If you are an EU citizen (or a citizen of one of the other Schengen Area countries) then yes, you have freedom of movement and can live and work anywhere in the area without a visa.

But the article isn't talking about being an EU Citizen. It's talking about having to count how many days have been spent in the Schengen Area by a third-country national.

Citizens of certain other countries (e.g. the USA or UK) can enter the Schengen Area visa-free for tourism or limited work-related activities (for up to 90 days in a 180 day period), but are not allowed to just do whatever work they want to.

Note that the comment I replied to was talking about non-EU Citizens.

They're talking about people from outside the EU presumably.

Most of those work restrictions are put in place to protect local labor. They just don't want tourists taking jobs from locals in tourist places without a permit, and without paying taxes. They really don't care much you're doing remote work for a corporation in California or writing a book.

Then they should change the laws to match. I've heard this time and time again. All the digital nomads I know are dodging taxes.

The number of people affected (in principal that is, even fewer in practice) is likely so small that the political time involved would not be justified.

Immigration permission to work legally and tax compliance for the earnings are two completely different topics in probably all countries.

Even mostly law-abiding citizens with full work permission often dodge taxes in certain sectors of the economy - a common US example is restaurant workers underreporting cash tips on their tax returns. Plus, in addition to digital nomads, many freelancers (certainly not all) play as fast and loose with the tax rules even in their home countries as they think they can get away with. And much cross-border employment is disguised as independent contracting in ways that dodge employers’ tax burdens even when the employee has full work permission.

Conversely, there are already cases where even income earned illegally by visiting foreigners can legally be exempt from a country’s taxes. Example: Income earned in Canada by a US resident can qualify for Canada-US tax treaty’s exemption from Canadian taxation if the criteria listed in the treaty are met, regardless of whether the work was legal for immigration purposes. (Canada is actually one of the few countries from which foreign tourists can often legally work remotely for employers or clients abroad, but that depends on a lot of factors, and it can also be illegal like in most countries.)

> They really don't care much you're doing remote work for a corporation in California or writing a book.

They do, actually.

It’s for collecting taxes, which supports local infrastructure.

Going to another country, living within their infrastructure and consuming their services, but pretending that you’re not working (and therefore not paying local taxes) is something they don’t want.

Digital nomads who abuse the situation like it because they get the benefits of a country (and city, region, etc) without having to contribute to their taxes. Getting California level pay, not paying taxes, and living in what’s basically a vacation destination is the digital nomad dream.

They don’t care too much as long as you don’t qualify for / consume social benefits like medical.

It depends. And different people care about different things.

Eg some people complain about tourists renting AirBnBs. Some people complain about digital nomads competing for rental apartments.

As you suggest, lots of other people are happy for tourists and digital nomads to come in and bring money to the local economy.

And some people are happy to receive the benefits, and still complain about the drawbacks. People really like to complain!

This is not the full picture, as you surely know.

Remote workers from rich countries do pay tax locally, in the form of VAT and sales taxes. And they typically spend far more than locals, on food to accommodation and everything in between, all while requiring nothing of the local welfare state. It's a direct wealth transfer of thousands per month, earned in one economy and spent in another. In purely economic terms, it's hard to see how this is anything but a good deal for the host country, in the large majority of cases. Hence digital nomad visas.

This is not to say that countries - and societies - don't have the right to allow or deny access to foreigners as they see fit.

spending more than locals on rent is actually one huge problem with digital nomads

And that's a big shame!

You can set up your tax system so that you raise a lot of public money from foreigners using your real estate. Be that Chinese tycoons parking their money in London apartments, or digital nomads renting a large house in the countryside.

It's really straightforward: a high enough property tax will do it automatically. Or if you want to get fancy, use a land value tax, which is like a property tax, but you get a discount for the value of the building.

Between "renting an empty house in the country" and "buying a flat to park money", there is a major difference IMO. The second scenario pushes up housing costs for locals and is almost certainly not a good deal for the host society.

Even the first scenario will fuel inflation, especially given the typical spending power of rich foreigners. It's complicated.

> Between "renting an empty house in the country" and "buying a flat to park money", there is a major difference IMO. The second scenario pushes up housing costs for locals and is almost certainly not a good deal for the host society.

Developers are happy to produce more housing, if there's demand and construction is legal.

Why is producing widgets to sell to foreigners (=exports) generally seen as a good thing, but producing housing to sell to foreigners is seen as bad?

> Even the first scenario will fuel inflation, especially given the typical spending power of rich foreigners. It's complicated.

The central bank controls inflation.

Countries usually like tourism, don't they? But tourists are also living there and consuming services with no income tax. What's the difference?

One thing to note is that even if you're not paying income tax there, you're bringing tons of money into the country from outside. So that's worth something.

Indeed, the author describes a lifestyle I can hardly imagine, and then markets a product motivated by the resulting use cases.

Last time I looked was a few years ago, but I was surprised how hard it was going to be to legally live in France while keeping my US tech job. My employer was happy to do what they had to to make it happen, but there just didn't seem to be a route in the French immigration system.

The options seemed to be:

- Get a job in France and get a work visa. This is very difficult due to economic protectionism.

- Come on a tourist visa and not work.

- Be provably independently wealthy and get some variety of golden visa. This meant proving that you had enough assets to live (lavishly I might add) long term without working.

No easy option for "I want to come to your country, get paid USD by a US company, but pay taxes to you!"

I think there have been some new developments regarding digital nomad visas since then. Still, seemed crazy given what a good arrangement it would have been for France.

It doesn't exist, because it's complex to set up and up until 5 years ago almost no one wanted to do this. Now some people want to do it, and they can use an Employer of Record via facilitating companies. But the visa situation will probably still be difficult, it's pretty much a gap

> I called the app Residency and you can get it here. No subscriptions, costs less than an airport martini, and you'll likely regret it less a few hours later.

The article is content marketing, so I wouldn't be surprised if the pain points are being talked up somewhat (but who knows?)

Anecdotal evidence: timezone-aware precision might be only necessary for those pushing it to very edge of the allowances, but travel log spreadsheet was very very real for me, and everyone else in my own immigrant bubble. I still have it somewhere.

UK officials seem to operate on vibes though, not obsessive precision - I witnessed missed presence days being successfully propped up with a good sob story, but I can imagine it still being useful if you need to appeal a case where vibe turned against you.

Then was a short rest between making oath and Brexit, and here we are at that shit again - spreadsheet is back, and there's a script for Schengen rolling days.

“Vibes” sometimes work against you. This is a great app for documenting that you met the rules if you need to.

Back in 2000, entry to Canada was based on vibes. I had no idea what I was doing but looking back I don’t think they’d let someone in who forgets their DL, passport, and is on a “management consultant visa”.

Guessing it stems from "we need something dead-simple to evaluate that yields a definite yes-or-no answer, with no annoying variables."

I'm trying to think of some other reason they might want a specific moment rather than "pick your own instant within this span", but I can't think of anything. Even if it was to "make sure you aren't claiming the same time on two applications to different places", the person could have simply staggered the applications.

The other reason is more mundane. There's been a lot of political incentive to reduce immigration for a long time, which means adding arbitrary friction to increase the effort of applying and decrease the number of successful applicants.

Whether this is _effective_ is a different question, but certainly it's gotten a lot harder in recent decades, even pre-Brexit.

That explanation doesn’t seem to jive with the fact that post-COVID the UK has accepted millions of immigrants

it does, if the alternative would have been "more millions"

That millions were accepted says nothing about the process having changed for the worse.

lol, that’s extra funny considering that the boat people can just appear and receive not only the de facto right to remain, but get free hotel rooms for years. Meanwhile productive people with useful skills are tortured with red tape.

My guess is that if you need to have been there for 5y, you need to have a way to tell when that 5y starts. I presume it only matters if you apply the day after 5y. When I applied I had been in the UK for over 10y, provided 10y worth of proof of address, and the issue never came up.

It's not even hard really, I did it lastyear. I book a visit to the city hall, they look into the address db and see when I registered the first time. I see exactlt the same thing myself when I login into the thing.

The official agrees with me on the appointment date to actually submit the application, that is after cutoff date.

I put a signature on one sheet of paper, pay a thousand and go my way. The thing takes 15 min tops.

But it's continental Europe, not UK

It depends on where you're going and what you're doing.

A lot of this faff isn't relevant if you're not applying for any visas or citizenship. Which is most people, most of the time.

The obvious solution to most of these problems for most people is "don't cut it close to any of the limits". If you enjoy traveling a lot, that's definitely a problem, but most people don't cross borders often enough to run into this many corner cases.

This is only a small peek into the awful bureaucracy that will hit Europe if extreme right wing parties keep gaining popularity across the EU. The extra calculations Brexit imposes, but not for every country you travel through!

> A lot of this faff isn't relevant if you're not applying for any visas or citizenship. Which is most people, most of the time.

That’s true for many, but my passport isn’t very strong, so I still have to deal with a lot of paperwork for most transits.

If your job is travel, like you are an international truck driver or maybe aircrew, these kinds of things might affect you a lot sometimes.

There's probably special rules for those people in some places, which makes the situation even more complicated.

The point is not to produce a system where a software engineer can loophole the system. The point is to try to prevent people who aren't committed to the UK apply for citizenship.

Yes, but…

Convoluted rules like that smack of the ridiculous literacy tests for voting in the US during the Jim Crow era (if you don't know why the terms “grandfathering” and “grandfather clause” have fallen out of fashion in recent years, go have a poke around that bit of history which is where those terms originate).

Either that or it looks like a dysfunctional overly-complicated system like the mechanisms draw by Heath Robinson, which while better still isn't good. How many good (morally) and useful (i.e. to the economy) people are being rejected because of unnecessary complications like this?

> To apply for British citizenship, you need to prove you were physically in the UK on your application date but five years ago.

I am confused whats British citizenship application to do with his, or any travel at all? That's not what you do regularly, I mean most people do not apply for citizenship in other countries ever in their lives? Or am I missing something?

He needs to plan travel very carefully in order to not accidentally undermine his citizenship application.

> I had no idea travel was this difficult for people who aren't EU citizens.

I traveled before and I traveled after Schengen and the only thing that changed was not having to wait a bit at border control. What the article describe concerns a very small number of people, and exist only because of cheap air travel and internet

Do you think applying on February 29 is allowed?

Note also that this isn't a travel requirement.

It’s just as difficult for EU citizens when traveling to most of the world.

I'll tell you a secret, UK gov has no clue where you were 5 years ago :-)

Right now the biggest problem in life is the country of my passport.

I have enough in savings and enough passive income to be able to live comfortably almost anywhere, but whenever I talk to travel agents, or people who can help set up companies etc in the countries I want to go to, first they're like "Sure, we can do it, when do you want it" etc and then they ask where I'm from, and when I tell them, they either stop replying or say sorry, they can't help me.

sigh...Racism is a funny thing. They haven't even seen me, or seen my history of travel, or anything, they just stop cooperating when they see that one word, the name of my country.

And I can't blame them either, I know many people from here go and overstay there visas and generally make problems in other countries.

I just wish I could put down a deposit of a few thousand dollars as a guarantee that I'll behave and get a visa.

Germany lets you get a Chancenkarte with a deposit of 1000EUR/month to look for a job upto a year.

This is actually standard for other countries too

But it is a ridculous requirement. Like having a millsecond-hand one a pendulum clock it appears to be to precise for the timeframe involved

Why not just make it a before-date if you care for someone having been here for a time? So just proof that you have been here X years ago or longer. Totally sufficient and much easier to have at hand.

But this is of course the point. It isn't policy where the state requires a certain thing and all people who fulfill the requirement have a shot. Instead the state makes the process of demonstrating the requirement hard on purpose as a means of reducing the people who get the benefit.

And this idea isn't just unique to the described process. It is everywhere. A bit of friction in certain places is placed there on purpose and it can also be a net positive for that friction to exist. But beyond a certain level it can turn people with rights into beggars.

Immigration laws and memos (aka office procedures) are usually opaque and ambigous by design. Be it for exploitable loopholes that benefit internal production, or whatever.

Speaking of the EU, in Italy specifically for example the naturalization is really opaque and there's no clear process deadlines. While you can submit after 10 years of residence in Italy, with additional documentation from your country of origin, the process of actually getting a reply (denied or approved) may take usualy 5+ years, for some people even a decade because the people that should work on the papers forget them above a desk under a pile of dust for years.

Immagine having only third-world-like country citizenship. It's a travel nightmare.

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