Is Gibraltar now part of the Schengen area?
Yesterday, a historic event took place in Spain: the dismantling of the fence separating Gibraltar and La Línea de la Concepción, which had stood between the two territories (Spanish and British) since 1909. To cross it and enter the British protectorate of Gibraltar—known as the British Overseas Territory—one previously needed identification, either a national ID card (DNI) or a passport. But as of July 15, 2026, the situation has changed radically.
Access to Gibraltar has been drastically simplified, as the Schengen Area boundary has been extended to include this small British territory, allowing unrestricted access from Spain. However, British citizens intending to fly from the UK to their small protectorate in Spain must now comply with Schengen Area regulations and ensure their ETIAS authorization is valid before boarding a flight to Gibraltar. At the border, passenger checks are not conducted between Spain and Gibraltar but rather at Gibraltar’s port and airport, where Spanish authorities manage and control entries and exits on behalf of the EU.
However, citizens of countries such as Morocco, India, or Pakistan who reside in the United Kingdom will need a Schengen visa to enter Gibraltar, since they hold legal residency in the UK but nationals of these countries cannot travel to the Schengen Area without a visa—not even with ETIAS—even though they previously could because Gibraltar was a British territory outside the Schengen Area.
The negotiations over Gibraltar were one of the most complex issues arising from Brexit. Although the United Kingdom left the European Union on January 31, 2020, Gibraltar’s future remained unresolved and required a separate negotiation process that lasted more than five years. In the 2016 Brexit referendum, nearly 96% of Gibraltar’s voters supported remaining in the EU. However, as Gibraltar is part of the United Kingdom for the purposes of foreign relations, it left the Union along with the rest of the country.
But this situation has finally been resolved in the best possible way for the free movement of both Spanish and British citizens and between the two territories.