My wife and I got Schengen visas in 2024 to attend a friend's wedding in Europe. We applied early, went through the whole VFS ordeal (you know how that goes), and after about 35 days of waiting the visas finally came through — leaving us just 3–5 days to book flights. Prices at that point were brutal.
When we checked the visas, we saw a one-month validity for both of us and booked accordingly. What we missed — and this is entirely on us — was that the number of days authorized didn't match the full validity period. The visa was valid for a month, but we'd only been granted 14 days of actual stay. We did 16 days in Europe, meaning we technically overstayed by 2 days. At the time, we had no idea.
Fast forward to now: I'm applying for a new Schengen visa for a work trip through Denmark, and the embassy called me to ask why I overstayed. I explained exactly what happened — that I'd focused on the validity date and genuinely missed the days field. The officer said she'd need to refer my case to DIS (the Danish Immigration Service) for review.
I went into this fairly confident, but after doing some reading online I'm now worried. Some people are saying this kind of thing can result in a ban, even if the overstay was unintentional and even if it was for a day. Has anyone dealt with something similar? Any idea what the DIS review process actually looks like or what outcome I should be preparing for?