Your passport decides. With a US, UK, EU, Canadian or Australian one you can walk out of Berlin's airport without a visa; with an Indian one you need a Schengen visa first. And because BER puts everyone flying to or from outside Europe's Schengen area through passport control, expect to meet it even on a simple connection.
US, UK, EU, Canadian and Australian passport holders can leave the airport without a visa, for up to 90 days in any 180. Indian passport holders need a Schengen short-stay visa, arranged before they fly. Only changing planes? Plan on passport control at BER anyway; 20 nationalities also need an airport transit visa just to connect.
If you stay airside
Plan on German passport control at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), however you connect. Germany belongs to the Schengen area, a group of European countries that don’t check passports at their shared borders: France, Austria, Poland and most of the EU are inside it, and the UK, Ireland and everywhere outside Europe are not. BER puts every passenger arriving from, or leaving for, a country outside Schengen through passport control, and Terminal 2 arrivals from outside Schengen go back through security as well.
| Your two flights | Example | Passport control at BER? |
|---|---|---|
| Outside Schengen, then a Schengen country | Doha, then Vienna | Yes, on the way in: you enter the Schengen area here and need permission to enter, even without leaving the airport |
| A Schengen country, then outside Schengen | Paris, then New York | Yes, on the way to your gate |
| Outside Schengen, then outside Schengen | London, then Dubai | Plan on it. If your passport needs a visa for Germany, ask your airline before you fly whether your connection does too |
| Schengen, then Schengen | Vienna, then Madrid | No |
Stuck with a connection question at the airport? The VIABER counter, past security in Terminal 1 on level E1, helps passengers changing planes until 10pm, and its hotline, +49 30 6091 6091 0, is staffed day and night.
Airport transit visa
Twenty nationalities need a German airport transit visa just to change planes, with some exceptions for Jordanian and Turkish travellers:
- Asia and the Middle East: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Syria and Turkey.
- Africa: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan.
- The Americas: Cuba.
India isn’t one of them. Travellers from these countries are exempt anyway with any of these: a current visa or residence permit issued by an EU or Schengen state; a current visa from Canada, Japan, the US or another EEA state; or certain residence permits from Andorra, Canada, Japan, San Marino or the US.
If you want to leave the airport
Stepping out for even an hour means entering Germany, and with it the whole Schengen area, so your passport has to let you in.
| Passport | To leave Berlin airport |
|---|---|
| United States | No visa; stays of up to 90 days in any 180 |
| United Kingdom | No visa; stays of up to 90 days in any 180, British Nationals (Overseas) too |
| EU and Schengen | A passport or national ID card |
| Canada | No visa; stays of up to 90 days in any 180 |
| Australia | No visa; stays of up to 90 days in any 180 |
| India | A Schengen short-stay visa, from the embassy or a visa centre before the trip. An airport transit visa doesn’t let you out |
Those 90 days are shared by every Schengen country, and a layover uses one. Only someone who has already spent most of the past six months in Europe needs to count.
Passport validity
Whatever your passport, check two dates in it: it has to run for at least 3 more months after you leave the Schengen area, and it can’t be more than 10 years old. Officers can ask what brings you to Germany and how you’re paying for the trip on, and your onward boarding pass answers both.
The EES and ETIAS
Arriving from outside Schengen, non-EU visitors are now logged in the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES): no more passport stamps, but fingerprints and a photo taken at the desk. It makes the queue at BER slower.
ETIAS is different: an online permit that Americans, Britons, Canadians, Australians and other visa-free travellers will one day need before flying to Europe. It isn’t running yet and no start date has been set. The EU will announce the date several months before it starts, and at least 12 months of transition and grace periods follow, so you have nothing to do for now. The EU’s ETIAS site is the place to check before a trip.
If you’re on separate tickets
Two separate bookings usually mean the first airline can’t pass your bags to the second. You collect them in the baggage hall, beyond passport control, and carry them back to check-in, which puts you in Germany even if you never leave the terminal. If your passport needs a visa, that means a Schengen visa.
Ryanair and Wizz Air connections need the same permission with hand luggage only, when either flight is to or from outside Schengen, because those airlines’ flights use separate parts of the airport and you cross the border between them. Leave time to check in again, clear security and, for a flight leaving Schengen, go through passport control once more.
At the border
From landing to sitting on the FEX, the airport express into town, plan on about an hour. EU citizens show a passport or ID card; everyone else waits for a desk, where the EES fingerprints and photo slow things down. Off a flight from another Schengen country, you skip passport control and get out sooner.
If the queue is long, it’s your time in town that shrinks; the time you must leave town stays fixed. On a 5.5-hour layover, if you’re still in line well over an hour after landing, staying at the airport is the safer choice.
Before you go landside
- Keep your passport and your onward boarding pass on you.
- Make sure your checked bags are tagged to your final destination. If you’ve had to collect them, left luggage on the station level of Terminal 1 keeps them from 8am to 6pm, at €10.50 a bag for up to 4 hours.
- Be back at the airport 90 minutes before departure, for security and, if you’re flying out of Schengen, passport control. Still need to check in or drop a bag? Allow more.
- Getting into town and back: getting into the city.