Hi friends,

I'm a citizen of an EU, Schengen country with an expired passport and I'm flying back from the States in less than two weeks. I plan to renew my passport once I reenter my country, however I'd prefer not to reenter Schengen using my U.S. passport.

My question is, can I enter Schengen (via an airport) with just my national ID?

Thanks in advance!

So, just to confirm, you are a dual national, and you have a valid US passport, an expired passport from a Schengen member state and a valid national ID card from the same member state - correct?

Yes, of course you can enter Schengen on your ID card. It is a valid travel document for entering EU and Schengen member states.

That's correct. My passport expired last year and I had some issues renewing it abroad (my country doesn't allow dual citizenship). My national ID is valid for another two years and I'd prefer to enter with that rather than the U.S. passport to avoid any problems.

Thanks a bunch for the quick response .

I've always heard of people entering Schengen with their national ID via land but have never of heard of anyone using it at an airport.

I do it all the time (Schengen national resident in non-Schengen EU country)

Yes you can enter with your national ID if it is from a Schengen country. People do it all the time when flying from the UK back go to the Schengen Area.

Your can also enter the UK on your EU ID, regardless of where you are coming from.

Which means on the way back they use their ID card to re-enter the Schengen Area as described by me.

Schengen has nothing to do with it.

If you have an ID card that is a valid EEA/Swiss travel document (for travel within the EEA/Switzerland) it can be presented at the border of any of those countries for entry, regardless of whether you entered from another such country or not.

(Not all ID card types from all EEA countries are valid travel documents, some countries do not have ID cards, other produce various types)

N.b. You do get non-Schengen ID cards which ARE valid travel documents in the EEA/Switzerland. So Schengen really does have nothing to do with it.

Use this to verify

http://www.staralliance.com/en/services/visa-and-health/

As others have indicated, generally speaking the answer is yes.

As others have said - nothing to do with Schengen. Nothing to do with the EU either, at least not originally - though there is probably some EU-wide agreement in place now that has replaced the original bilateral agreements.

As long ago as the 1960s citizens of many Western and non-aligned European countries were able to visit many other Western and non-aligned countries using just their identity cards. In the 1960s the EU (then known as the EEC - European Economic Community) had six member states. Being able to travel on one's national ID card was not restricted to those six member states but included the Scandinavian countries as well as Austria and Switzerland and possibly some others (I have a vague recollection that Yugoslavia may have been one of those "others" - but I'm not sure, it was a long time ago!)

Travel to the UK was also possible on an ID card, but involved some additional paperwork - visitors had to complete, and carry with them, a pink piece of paper known as (IIRC) a "Visitors' Card".

True, but with Scandinavia there was no real reciprocity until recently, as none of the Nordic nations had government-issued ID cards in the continental sense. For intra-Nordic travel, Nordic citizens could use their driver's licenses, but to go to the continent, they had to bring their passports.

To this day, I as a Swedish citizen cannot leave Schengen from Sweden with a Swedish national ID card. This has the effect of a de facto passport requirement for intra-EU travel to the UK.