Why can you cross most European borders without showing a passport?

You can cross most European borders without a passport check because 29 countries, together called the Schengen Area, have officially abolished border controls at their common borders. The count reached 29 when Romania and Bulgaria fully joined on 1 January 2025. The system is named after the 1985 Schengen Agreement and the 1990 Schengen Convention, both signed in Schengen, Luxembourg. For travel purposes the zone mostly works like one country, with a common visa policy.

It began as a coalition of the willing. Open borders were not new: the Nordic countries had allowed free movement between them in 1954, and the Benelux countries opened their mutual borders in 1960. In 1985, five of the then ten EEC members, the Benelux countries, France and West Germany, signed the Schengen Agreement separately from the European Communities, because consensus could not be reached among all member states. In 1990 a Convention proposed abolishing internal border controls and a common visa policy, and the Schengen Area was created on 26 March 1995. The Amsterdam Treaty later brought it into EU law.

For many people it is just daily life. About 1.7 million people commute to work across an internal European border every day, and in some regions these commuters make up to a third of the workforce.

But open inside means guarded outside, and the arrangement has limits. A member state may temporarily reinstate checks for a serious threat to public policy or internal security, and such controls were used notably during the 2015 migrant crisis and the 2020 pandemic. Not every EU country is in: Ireland keeps an opt-out to protect its Common Travel Area with the United Kingdom.