Insurance for stays longer than 90 days
Everything else on this site is built around the short-stay Schengen visa. If your trip runs past 90 days, you're in a different system entirely — different visa type, different insurance rules, and no single standard answer across all 29 countries.
Why 90 days is the hard line
The short-stay Type C Schengen visa allows up to 90 days in any rolling 180-day period, and the €30,000-minimum insurance requirement under Article 15 is built specifically for that window. Once your planned stay exceeds 90 continuous days — for work, study, family reunification, or long-term residence — you move into a national Type D visa, which each Schengen country administers under its own immigration law, not the shared Schengen regulation. That includes its own insurance requirement, which can look quite different from country to country.
What long-stay insurance actually needs to cover
There's no single rule here, which is the main thing to internalize before you start shopping. Some countries require private international health cover for the entire length of your stay. Others only require insurance to bridge the gap between your arrival and the date you become eligible to enroll in the local statutory or national health insurance system — after which the visa-required private policy is no longer necessary. A few require a specific minimum cover amount that's different from the €30,000 short-stay figure entirely. The only reliable source for your specific case is the consulate or immigration authority for the country you're actually moving to — not a general Schengen guide, including this one.
Common long-stay situations
Work visas. Many employers arrange or contribute to health insurance as part of the relocation, but confirm this explicitly rather than assuming — some employment contracts leave the initial arrival period uncovered.
Student visas for full programs. Most countries require proof of health cover for the initial period, then transition to student health insurance tied to university enrollment. See our student insurance guide for how this differs from a short study trip.
Family reunification. Requirements often mirror the sponsoring family member's status, but the joining family member may need separate proof of cover depending on the country.
The mistake to avoid
Don't try to stitch together two consecutive 90-day short-stay policies to cover a longer trip. Immigration authorities count total days physically present in the Schengen Area over a rolling window, not how your insurance happens to be split into separate policies — overstaying the 90-day short-stay limit is a visa violation regardless of what your insurance certificate says.
Bottom line
If your trip is genuinely under 90 days, everything else on this site applies as normal — start with the comparison table. If it's longer, treat this as its own separate process: confirm the specific insurance requirement with the destination country's consulate before you buy anything, since the standard Schengen comparison doesn't apply here.
Compare the five providers whose certificates consulates accept, or estimate the price for your exact trip in 10 seconds.