Germany and France Extend Border Checks Into 2027: Why Your Drivers' 90/180 Clock Doesn't Stop

Germany will keep checking traffic at all nine of its land borders until 15 March 2027, and France has notified a further six months of checks running from 1 November 2026 to 30 April 2027. Austria, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Italy have their own controls in place too. For UK hauliers the delays are usually modest. The bigger risk is a misunderstanding: a passport check at the French–German border feels like crossing a border, but for the 90/180-day rule it is not one. Your driver's Schengen clock keeps running straight through it.

What Has Been Extended

Schengen countries can temporarily reintroduce checks at their internal borders when they face a serious threat to public policy or internal security, but they have to notify the European Commission each time. The Commission's official list, last updated on 16 October 2026, shows these controls in force:

Germany cites continued irregular migration and migrant smuggling, pressure on asylum reception and the wider security situation. France points to persistent terrorist threats, smuggling networks and violence in the Pas-de-Calais. Not every country is renewing: the Netherlands ended its checks on 30 September 2026, and Slovenia lifted its controls in June.

Two Years and Counting

Germany has checked all of its land borders since 16 September 2024, so this extension takes the controls past their second anniversary. Under the revised Schengen Borders Code, internal border controls should normally last no more than two years in total. The Code allows up to two further six-month periods only in a “major exceptional situation”, and German press reports say Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has cited exceptional circumstances to justify this one.

The pressure to wind the checks down is growing. On 2 June 2026 the European Commission issued formal opinions to nine countries, including Germany and France, urging them to work towards phasing out their internal border controls. In April, an administrative court in Koblenz ruled that Germany's 2025 checks on the Luxembourg border were unlawful; Dobrindt has said Germany will appeal. None of that has stopped the latest extensions, so hauliers should plan on the checks staying in place at least until spring.

How Long Are the Delays?

On most days, not long. Germany's own monitoring, quoted in the Commission's June opinion, recorded no delays of more than 30 minutes, though the Commission noted difficulties at the German–Luxembourg, German–Polish and German–Dutch borders. Freight platform Transporeon reported in late September that average waits on the Poland–Germany crossings had risen by about eight minutes.

Averages hide the bad days, though. Before Christmas 2025, a Polish hauliers' association reported traffic crawling for 15 to 20 kilometres at the Šwiecko crossing on the A12 into Germany. Build extra time into schedules on the German–Polish routes, especially in the run-up to Christmas.

The 90/180 Point Most People Get Wrong

When a police officer checks your driver's passport on the motorway from France into Germany, it is easy to assume something has been recorded — that the driver has “left” one country and “entered” another. For the 90/180-day rule, nothing has changed. The rule counts days spent in the Schengen Area as a whole, not in any single country. France and Germany are both inside it.

The Entry/Exit System works the same way. The EES Regulation says the system operates at the external borders, so it records the moment a driver enters the Schengen Area and the moment they leave it — at Calais or Coquelles, for example — not the crossings in between. A check at an internal border creates no EES exit and no EES entry.

What Drivers Should Carry

Normally, once a non-EU traveller has passed the external border, there are no further checks inside the Schengen Area. Where internal checks have been reintroduced, the Schengen Borders Code applies the external-border rules to them, so a UK driver should expect to show a valid passport and may be asked about the stay. The EU's own advice to non-EU travellers heading to or through these countries is to make sure they have their passport and other supporting documents with them. An internal check is one more point where an officer can ask how long a driver has been in the Schengen Area — and a driver who has gone past 90 days has no lawful stay anywhere in it.

What UK Hauliers Should Do

The Bottom Line

Internal border checks are now a settled feature of European haulage, with Germany's controls past the two-year mark and France's booked until next spring. For most journeys they cost minutes. The real cost comes when someone mistakes a passport check for a border that resets the count.

Inside Schengen, a border is just a road. The 90/180 clock only stops when the driver leaves the Schengen Area.