Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

BREXIT

OPINION: Travelling to Spain after Brexit will be more complicated and costly

Sue Wilson of Bremain in Spain takes a look at the changes ahead for those travelling to Spain after Brexit, including second-home owners.

Published: 22 September 2020 09:00 CEST
OPINION: Travelling to Spain after Brexit will be more complicated and costly
Photo: AFP

As part of the ongoing ‘Check, Change, Go’ offensive, the British government has launched a public information campaign, aimed at British tourists heading for Europe.

The campaign is designed to “help British travellers prepare for changes when visiting Europe from January 1st 2021”. The campaign asks if you are “Going to Europe next year?” then proceeds to explain – not always clearly – the issues awaiting our friends and families that want to visit after Brexit.

Topics covered include passports, health insurance, driving documentation and travelling with pets.

The imminent changes will affect British tourists to Europe, as well as our travel arrangements when visiting the UK. They will certainly impact those with a toehold in both the UK and Spain, limiting the time that second homers can spend here.

The rules regarding passports – such as that we must have six months remaining to travel – are merely a slight inconvenience. Other changes will prove considerably more cumbersome and costly.

On arrival in Spain, or any other EU country, visitors from the UK will need to prove they have enough money for their stay. As EU visits will be time-limited, travellers will also need to produce a return ticket to prove their departure date.

It will only be possible to stay for 90 days in any 180-day period – that’s 90 days in Europe in total, not 90 days in Spain alone.

READ ALSO: 

So, those with second homes won’t be able to spend half the year in their Spanish bolthole if they also want to visit any other EU country in the same year. Problems will also be faced by “swallows”, who fly into Spain for the winter, frequently for more than three consecutive months.

Additional inconvenience and expenses will be generated by health insurance and driving permits.

The European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) only remains valid for British citizens until the end of 2020. Despite several assurances from the UK government, the Brexit negotiations have thus far failed to guarantee that the current EHIC is protected.

Suggestions that a similar scheme could be implemented “unilaterally” have seemingly disappeared. With the Brexit negotiating deadline looming, it’s unlikely that the EHIC card is high on the government’s priority list, so private medical insurance will surely become the norm.

Older travellers, and those with pre-existing medical conditions, may be priced out of travel between the UK and Europe.

Thanks to the Withdrawal Agreement, legal British residents in Spain who qualify for the S1 – e.g. pensioners – will keep their existing EHIC rights. Likewise, people working in Spain who qualify for a Spanish EHIC will retain their access to healthcare cover in the EU and UK, even after the end of the transition period.

Driving between the UK and Europe will present additional challenges, especially for those who want to visit more than one EU country, as different permits may be required.

The current UK government advice is ambiguous – you “may” need extra documents, you “might” need an international driving permit, a green card or a GB sticker, so it’s a case of ‘watch this space’ for further information.

Many that choose to travel by car do so to facilitate travelling with pets. The EU pet passport scheme will be replaced by a new process that applies to dogs, cats and – weirdly – ferrets.

Until the Brexit negotiations are concluded, the final details are unclear. These largely depend on which category of “third country” the UK becomes. However, the process will certainly include a blood test, vaccination and inserting a data chip, which will take several months. Thankfully, quarantine will not be necessary for your pet, although it could be for you!

Mobile phone roaming charges will no longer be free for British tourists in Europe, who will end up hunting for the nearest venue with free WiFi or buying a cheap pay-go SIM in the destination country. Although other additional travel costs will be known upfront, unexpected phone charges could be a nasty surprise upon returning home. Those of us with Spanish mobile phone contracts will only lose this facility in one country. Our visitors from the UK, however, will lose it throughout Europe.

Thanks to the pandemic, international travel in 2020 has been significantly reduced. The Spanish tourism industry has suffered huge losses that are already hurting the economy, even before Brexit has a real impact on the travel sector.

It’s safe to say that the rhetoric about “sunny uplands”, and how nothing would change after Brexit, has been proven entirely false.

The cost to the UK of the failure to deliver Brexit has already exceeded years of EU contributions, with the worst yet to come.

The cost to Spain of making it more difficult and expensive for British travellers to visit will become clear over time.

The cost to us of having our family and friends visit less often will be the hardest price to pay of all.

By Sue Wilson – Chair of Bremain in Spain

READ MORE: 
 

 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

BRITONS IN SPAIN

FACT CHECK: Spain’s ‘£97 daily rule’ isn’t new nor a worry for British tourists

The British tabloids are at it again causing alarm over the so-called '£97 daily rule’ which Spain is apparently imposing on UK tourists, who in turn are threatening to ‘boycott’ the country. 

Published: 15 April 2024 14:28 CEST
Updated: 20 April 2024 07:22 CEST
FACT CHECK: Spain's '£97 daily rule' isn't new nor a worry for British tourists

American playwright Eugene O’Neill once said: “There is no present or future – only the past, happening over and over again – now”.

In 2022, The Local Spain wrote a fact-checking article titled ‘Are UK tourists in Spain really being asked to prove €100 a day?‘, in which we dispelled the claims made in the British press about Spain’s alleged new rules for UK holidaymakers.

Two years on in 2024, the same eye-catching headlines are resurfacing in Blighty: “’Anti-British? Holiday elsewhere!’ Britons fume as tourists in Spain warned they may be subject to additional rules” in GB News, or “’They would be begging us to come back’: Brits vow to ‘boycott Spain’ over new £97 daily rule” in LBC.

The return of this rabble-rousing ‘news’ in the UK has coincided with calls within Spain to change the existing mass tourism model that’s now more than ever having an impact on the country’s housing crisis.

Even though Spaniards behind the protests have not singled out any foreign nationals as potential culprits, the UK tabloids have unsurprisingly capitalised on this and run headlines such as “Costa del Sol turns on British tourists”.

READ MORE: Why does hatred of tourists in Spain appear to be on the rise?

What is the so-called ‘£97 daily rule’?

Yes, there is theoretically a ‘£97 a day rule’, but it is not a new rule, nor one that applies only to UK nationals specifically, and not even one that Spain alone has imposed (all Schengen countries set their financial means threshold).

As non-EU nationals who are not from a Schengen Area country either (the United Kingdom never was in Schengen), British tourists entering Spain could have certain requirements with which to comply if asked by Spanish border officials.

Such requirements include a valid passport, proof of a return ticket, documents proving their purpose of entry into Spain, limits on the amount of time they can spend in Spain (the 90 out of 180 days Schengen rule), proof of accommodation, a letter of invitation if staying with friends or family (another controversial subject in the British press when it emerged) and yes, proof of sufficient financial means for the trip.

Third-country nationals who want to enter Spain in 2024 may need to prove they have at least €113,40 per day (around £97), with a minimum of €972 (around £830) per person regardless of the intended duration of the stay. It is unclear whether this could also possibly apply to minors.

The amount of financial means to prove has increased slightly in 2024 as it is linked to Spain’s minimum wage, which has also risen. 

Financial means can be accredited by presenting cash, traveller’s checks, credit cards accompanied by a bank account statement, an up-to-date bank book or any other means that proves the amount available as credit on a card or bank account.

Have Britons been prevented from entering Spain for not having enough money?

There is no evidence that UK holidaymakers have been prevented from entering Spain after not being able to show they have £97 a day to cover their stay, nor any reports that they have been asked to show the financial means to cover their stay either. 

17.3 million UK tourists visited Spain in 2023; equal to roughly 47,400 a day. 

Even though British tourists have to stand in the non-EU queue at Spanish passport control, they do not require a visa to enter Spain and the sheer number of UK holidaymakers means that they’re usually streamlined through the process, having to only quickly show their passports.

The only occasional hiccups that have arisen post-Brexit have been at the land border between Gibraltar and Spain (issued that are likely to be resolved soon), and these weren’t related to demonstrating financial means. 

Therefore, the British press are regurgitating alarmist headlines that don’t reflect any truth, but rather pander to the ‘they need us more than we need them’ mantra that gets readers clicking. 

To sum up, there is a £97 a day rule, but it is not new, it has not affected any British tourists to date, and it is not specific to Spain alone to potentially require proof of economic means. 

SHOW COMMENTS