The 90/180 rule in five lines
- A visa-free short stay in the Schengen Area is limited to 90 days in any 180-day period (Regulation (EU) 2016/399, Article 6(1)).
- The 180 days are counted backwards from each day of stay, so the window moves with you.
- The day you enter is the first day of stay and the day you leave is the last (calculator manual).
- Leaving and coming back does not reset anything; the window keeps rolling.
- The European Commission publishes a calculator for the arithmetic; it is a helping tool, not a decision (short-stay calculator).
How the photo import works
Photos taken abroad carry a date and, if location was on, a place. PlanToTrip reads those tags on the iPhone and turns them into days in the counter. Nothing is uploaded, and once you allow it the import keeps itself current. Trips you planned in the app already count themselves, and anything the app cannot know about can be entered by hand.
Why a photo is evidence, not proof
A photo proves you were somewhere on a day. It does not prove where you were on the days between photos, and a photo taken right by a border does not say which side you stood on. That is why a borderline day is queried rather than assumed, and why the counter calls itself an estimate. Entry and exit stamps remain the record that counts at the border.
Days from where you actually were
If location is on, the app already records arrivals at and departures from places you picked yourself. Those visits can feed the counter too, with the country resolved on the device. Location is optional and permission-gated, and the recorded visits can be erased in one tap.
What the official calculator does instead
The Commission's tool asks for entry and exit dates and tells you whether a past stay complied and how long a future stay may last. It imports nothing and plans nothing. Use it as the reference when a trip runs close to the limit, and use the app's counter to see the answer while you plan.