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I am a UK citizen married to a Dane. We've been married for 37 years and have lived in the UK since we married. Previously my Danish wife lived in Denmark. She is a Danish citizen. I have looked on Danish government web sites to see if I can stay with my wife in our summerhouse in Denmark for more than 90 days and less than 180 days in the same year but we do not fit any of their categories. We are both retired. I have read on this site, a question a few years ago, that article 2 of the Schengen agreement allows the husband of his EU citizen wife to accompany her by right. Is this correct and where can I find the evidence post Brexit?

Peter Goodliffe
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  • Have you looked at https://www.gov.uk/transition – Traveller May 06 '21 at 18:57
  • Traveller i can’t find any info there. – gnasher729 May 08 '21 at 12:55
  • Traveller, that site is all from the point of view of the uk government. As far as the uk government is concerned, he can go anywhere in the world. – gnasher729 May 09 '21 at 13:29
  • @gnasher No, it is intended to help UK citizens figure out what has changed since Brexit relative to their personal circumstances. Granted it’s not a complete ‘checker’ of every aspect of the changes. – Traveller May 09 '21 at 15:50

2 Answers2

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As far as the UK is concerned, you (UK citizen) can go anywhere in the world and return to the uk, Covid rules excluded. If your Danish wife has settled status, she can leave less than five years and return. If sh has pre-settled status, she loses that if she leaves for two years, and she won’t be able to convert it to settled status if she leaves for more than six months. That’s the uk side.

For the Danish side, your wife is free to travel to Denmark or to any other EU country. You don’t have the right anymore to enter as an EU citizen, but possibly as a husband under “free movement” rules. I don’t know details, so you’d best check with the Danish embassy. “Free movement” is intended for people working outside their own country, so being retired might be a problem. And some countries, like Germany, don’t apply “free movement” rules to their own citizens; the uk didn’t either. That might or might not be a problem with Denmark.

Finally, you might be able to get just a visa for Denmark if you apply. That would be decided by politics. And embassy employees might be more helpful if one of their own citizens calls in their own language.

gnasher729
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    '"Free movement" is intended for people working outside their own country": that's incorrect. Free movement grew out of free movement of workers, but it is now much broader and is available to retirees. The problem here is that free movement doesn't apply in general to family of a country's own citizens, and it's not clear how the exception for those returning to their country from another EU country applies in light of Brexit. – phoog May 10 '21 at 06:04
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    There's still the possibility of the Surinder Singh precedent in other countries, e.g. it does apply if you've been out of your country already – SztupY Jun 08 '21 at 16:10
  • (+1) Denmark is generally among the most restrictive countries in the EU and the official Danish Immigration Service lists strict conditions for spouses of Danish citizens to benefit from EU free movement rules. In particular, you must have established residence in another EU country (Surinder Singh route) so Denmark clearly doesn't extend those benefits to all its citizen beyond what's required by EUCJ case law. – Relaxed Oct 08 '21 at 10:33
  • On top of that, they also require that there is “no significant time gap” between the time the EU citizen used their free movement rights elsewhere in the EU and the application to come back to Denmark. That would seem to rule out UK residence as a route to residence under free movement rules as the UK has now been out of the EU for quite some time. – Relaxed Oct 08 '21 at 10:36
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The Schengen agreement (and the relevant EU regulations that partially replaced it) only covers stays under 90 days so it wouldn't help you in this case. Directive 2004/38/EC also defines extensive rights to residence for more than 3 months for EU citizens and their family but outside of a few very specific scenarios carved out by EU Court of Justice case law, it only applies to countries other than your own.

In other words, EU freedom of movement creates a right for you as an EU citizen to reside in all the other EU countries but it is not designed to interfere with the way the Danish government treats its own citizens when no other EU member state is involved. Some countries have unilaterally extended these rights to all citizens but unsurprisingly Denmark has taken a restrictive interpretation, implementing only what's strictly required under EU law. This leads me to conclude the free movement directive wouldn't help you either.

What's left are the regular family reunification rules under Danish law. If you are not able to find a category of visa or residence permit you would qualify for, the default assumption is that you do not have a right to stay in Denmark for more than 90 days in any 180-day period (that's the general Schengen rule that applies to you irrespective of your marriage to a Danish citizen).

Alternatively, you could try to trigger EU rules and get a Danish residence permit by moving to another EU country long enough to establish that you have become a resident there (what has become known as the “Surinder Singh route”). After that, you can immediately apply for “family reunification with a Danish citizen under EU regulations” and once you have secured that, going back and forth between the UK and Denmark should be no problem as long as you stay long enough in Denmark each year to maintain your residence rights. This does obviously involve significant effort and you would also need to consider any potential effect on your wife's status in the UK.

Relaxed
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