What happens if you overstay a visa or stay limit?

Unlawful presence (US)	Consequence on departure
180 days or less	No statutory bar
>180 days, under 1 year	3-year bar
1 year or more	10-year bar

In the EU an entry ban is mandatory where no voluntary-departure period was granted or the return obligation was not met, and its length in principle does not exceed 5 years.

Most systems treat overstay length in bands rather than as a sliding scale, so a few days either side of a threshold can change the outcome sharply.

In the Schengen Area, staying beyond your authorised period makes you an illegally staying third-country national. EU law provides for a return decision, which may be accompanied by an entry ban. That ban is mandatory in two cases — where no period for voluntary departure was granted, and where the obligation to return was not complied with — and discretionary otherwise. Its length is set case by case and in principle does not exceed five years. Enforcement in practice varies a great deal between member states, which is why anecdotes conflict; the legal framework does not.

In the United States, the concept is "unlawful presence", and its thresholds are explicit: accruing more than 180 days but less than one year and then departing voluntarily before removal proceedings begin triggers a three-year bar on return; one year or more triggers ten. Note where the boundary sits — exactly one year falls in the ten-year band, not the three. That is a legal consequence of departing, not a discretionary penalty.

Elsewhere, many countries operate a daily fine payable on exit for short overstays, with detention, deportation and blacklisting reserved for longer ones. The pattern — cheap and administrative at the short end, severe and lasting at the long end — is close to universal.

A fine is paid and finished. The entry on your immigration record is not.

Later applications — a visa, a residence permit, settlement, naturalisation — routinely ask whether you have ever overstayed or been refused entry. Answering yes is survivable and often explained; answering no when a record says otherwise is a much more serious problem, because it converts an immigration lapse into a credibility one. Several systems treat deception as grounds for refusal in its own right, independently of the original overstay.

This is also why "nobody stamped my passport" is a poor foundation. Automated entry/exit recording at EU external borders means the record exists whether or not you saw it made.

This is a point to take proper advice rather than internet consensus, because the right step is jurisdiction-specific and time-sensitive. Broadly:

• Do not simply keep staying. In most systems the consequences worsen at thresholds, so the gap between a short and a long overstay is the gap between an administrative penalty and a ban.
• Keep the evidence for anything outside your control — cancellation notices, medical records, a filed extension application with its date.
• Expect to disclose it, and prepare the explanation with documents rather than recollection.

• Regulation (EU) 2016/399 — Schengen Borders Code (codified)
• Directive 2008/115/EC — common standards for returning illegally staying third-country nationals
• USCIS — Unlawful presence and inadmissibility