Italy to extend validity of Schengen Visas for yacht crew

Rome: The Italian Parliament has decided to apply new Schengen visa validity rules for yacht crew who are not citizens of the EU.

The Parliament agreed to allow yacht crew who are nationals of third countries to apply for a 365-day visa. This means that in line with the new rules, yacht crew will be issued a long-term entry visa for work purposes.

Rather than being allowed to stay in the Schengen Area for up to 90 days within a six-month period, the long-term visa will permit them to stay in the area for up to one year.

Such a decision has been taken in order to help resolve the issue that yacht workers have been facing when visiting Italy, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

Different yachting organisations in Italy have been continually requiring the authorities to permit longer stays for crew members as they have been restricted.

According to Nautilus International, yacht crew have experienced issues in being stamped out of the Schengen zone when leaving Italian ports after local immigration started to apply the EU Directive 2016/399 and case law from a Dutch court.

It has been noted that some ports have taken the view that using a yacht does not count as crossing the border, thus suggesting that the vessel needs to depart for non-Schengen waters to be ‘exiting’.

The same source reveals that they refuse to stamp out crew members until the captain informs the ports that they are leaving for non-Schengen waters. Taking into account this, crew members were sometimes using their Schengen allowance needlessly.

The Schengen visa is the most common visa for Europe. This visa allows its holder to enter and travel freely within the Schengen zone.

A Schengen visa needs to be obtained by all nationals of third countries that have yet not reached a visa-liberalisation agreement with the Schengen member states. The Italian authorities issue Schengen visas for different types of purposes.

Italy plans to increase the number of people that will be allowed to enter the country with a work visa. The authorities said that they would issue more migrant work permits in 2022.

The Italian government said that for this year, they plan to allow a total of 75,000 non-EU nationals to arrive in Italy for work.