RELOVA JOURNAL

Blog/Published April 20, 2026 · Updated September 19, 2026

Van Life and Moving Abroad: Can You Live in a Van in Europe in 2026?

By Anna Moore

Van life in Europe 2026: the Schengen 90/180 rule doesn't bend for vans, France's 48h wild-camping tolerance isn't nationwide, and what connectivity costs.

Van life across Europe runs into exactly one hard legal wall regardless of nationality, budget, or how self-sufficient your build is: the Schengen 90/180-day rule, and it does not care that you technically never "stayed" anywhere.

Your van does not get its own visa exemption

Non-EU/EEA citizens without a residence permit can spend a maximum of 90 days within any rolling 180-day window across the Schengen Area as a whole — not per country, and not reset by driving across a border. A van makes this rule easier to break by accident, not harder, because the psychological sense of "I haven't really settled anywhere" does not match how border control counts days. The only ways around the 90/180 ceiling are a long-stay national visa or residence permit in a specific Schengen country (which then lets you stay in that country beyond 90 days while still capping cumulative time in the other 25 countries), or deliberately splitting time between Schengen and non-Schengen Europe — the UK, Ireland, and the Balkan non-members like Albania, Serbia, and Bosnia all sit outside the Schengen count entirely and are genuinely popular with van-lifers for exactly this reason. Track every entry and exit date obsessively; the EU's Entry/Exit System, rolling out through 2026, replaces manual passport stamps with automated biometric logging, which removes the old grey area where a light stamp was easy to miscount.

"Free camping" tolerance varies wildly and is not a nationwide rule anywhere

France's reputation for van-friendly wild camping is real but narrower than it sounds: the commonly cited 48-hour tolerance for overnight parking (not camping — no awnings, chairs, or leveling blocks out) applies at the discretion of individual communes, and plenty of coastal and popular tourist towns post explicit no-camping-car signage with real enforcement, especially in high season. Germany is considerably stricter in practice: municipalities commonly fine stealth camping or overnight parking outside designated Stellplätze in the EUR 35–100 range, and enforcement in cities and protected natural areas is active, not theoretical. The pattern across most of Western Europe is the same — official campsites and municipal Aires/Stellplätze (often EUR 10–25 a night with hookups) are reliably legal, while ad hoc roadside or forest parking is a local judgment call that changes town to town and season to season. Apps like Park4Night (roughly EUR 5 for the ad-free map unlock) crowdsource exactly this kind of local nuance and are close to essential for planning routes without wasting a night moving on after a knock on the window.

Connectivity is the real infrastructure investment, not the van build

Starlink's Roam plan, priced around USD 50 a month plus roughly USD 599 for the portable dish hardware, has become the default solution for van-lifers who need reliable video-call-grade internet outside cellular range — mountain passes, remote coastlines, and rural stretches where 4G coverage thins out. Combined with a local eSIM or physical SIM for baseline connectivity and cost control, most full-time van-based remote workers run a two-layer setup: cellular data day-to-day, Starlink as the fallback for dead zones and work-critical calls. Power budget matters as much as data plan here — a Starlink dish draws meaningfully more power than a phone hotspot, so van electrical systems built primarily for lighting and a fridge often need a solar or alternator upgrade before adding Starlink into the daily rotation.

Vehicle registration and insurance follow you, taxes don't (usually)

A van registered and insured in your home country generally remains legal to drive across Schengen for extended trips, but insurance policies frequently cap continuous time abroad — check the policy wording, since some European motor insurers void cover after 90 or 180 consecutive days outside the country of registration. Tax residency is a separate question from the 90/180 travel rule entirely: spending enough cumulative time in one country, or establishing a "center of vital interests" there, can trigger tax residency regardless of your Schengen day count, which is one more reason full-time van-lifers with real income need to track more than just border stamps.

For a deeper dive, Schengen 90 180 Rule Guide 2026 is the companion guide.

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