Brits have been warned by the Foreign Office to check their passports before travelling.
The UK Foreign Office has sounded the alarm that Brexit travel rules mean that UK travellers going to the Schengen Area need a stamp at passport control when they enter or leave.
Popular holiday destinations including Spain, Portugal, Italy and France are members of the 26 European countries within the Schengen Area.
Current rules for Brits going to the EU specify that UK travellers can stay for 90 days maximum in a 180 day period.
Not getting your passport stamped could spell serious trouble.
For example, without a stamp proving when a flier left a country, it may appear to immigration officials that someone overstayed their legally allowed time in a country.
In an update yesterday, the Foreign Office wrote: "Border guards will use passport stamps to check you’re complying with the 90-day visa-free limit for short stays in the Schengen area.
"If relevant entry or exit stamps are not in your passport, border guards will presume that you have overstayed your visa-free limit.
"You can show evidence of when and where you entered or exited the Schengen area, and ask the border guards to add this date and location in your passport. Examples of acceptable evidence include boarding passes and tickets."
The travel warning follows reports a 72-year-old British woman was refused entry into Spain due to not having an exit stamp from a prior trip.
She told Spanish publication thelocal.es : "The guards initially stamped my passport to enter, then they noticed I had no exit stamp from that one-week visit in June, thereby classing me as an overstayer and subsequently marked the entry stamp with the letter F and two lines."
The pensioner explained that proof she had been in the UK was rejected.
She said: "Even though I have proof of returning to the UK via banking activity as well as the test and trace Covid app, the border guards would not accept or look at any proof nor let me speak to anyone that could help.
"My son, who speaks Spanish, tried to explain that I had other proof of returning to the UK but the guards would not accept or even consider looking at it.
"They just kept insisting that I had no stamp, that I had overstayed and would be arrested as illegal."
