However, the UK also employs the concept of ‘spent’ convictions, which can allow travelers with a criminal record to enter the country if they are considered rehabilitated. Jail time of over months cannot be ‘spent’ and will always be held against the traveler. Therefore, it’s important to tell the truth about any EU criminal record attached to the passport of the traveler. Currently, ECRIS is used around million times a year to exchange information of previous criminal convictions.
A criminal record is shared in around of the cases when one is requested. Holding a valid ETIAS will be necessary in order to visit any country in the Schengen Area. When completing the ETIAS form, the traveler will be asked to answer a series of security questions about their criminal record.
The applicant will need to inform authorities of any convictions for serious criminal offenses over the past ten years. This led to a number of people contacting us asking about what implications this might have for people with criminal records , so we committed to producing some information on how the ETIAS works. Obviously, at this stage what we say is based on the assumption that the ETIAS process will be the same for UK nationals and our understanding of how the system will work once it is fully introduced.


