Glossary:Schengen area
The Schengen area encompasses 27 European countries that have eliminated all passport controls on their common borders, of which 23 are EU Member States. It takes its name from the Schengen Agreement signed in Schengen (LU) in 1985; this agreement was later incorporated into the European Union's legal framework by the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam.
As well as the 23 EU Member States, the EFTA countries Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland also belong to the Schengen area.
The following countries have implemented the Schengen Agreement and allow passport-free travel between them, thus making it the Schengen area:
| Belgium | (BE) | Italy | (IT) | Portugal | (PT) |
| Czechia | (CZ) | Latvia | (LV) | Slovenia | (SI) |
| Denmark | (DK) | Lithuania | (LT) | Slovakia | (SK) |
| Germany | (DE) | Luxembourg | (LU) | Finland | (FI) |
| Estonia | (EE) | Hungary | (HU) | Sweden | (SE) |
| Greece | (EL) | Malta | (MT) | Iceland | (IS) |
| Spain | (ES) | Netherlands | (NL) | Liechtenstein | (LI) |
| France | (FR) | Austria | (AT) | Norway | (NO) |
| Croatia | (HR) | Poland | (PL) | Switzerland | (CH) |