Europe’s new border slow-down
Europe is rolling out a new Entry/Exit System that airlines warn will create longer airport queues this summer — so expect slower border processing at Schengen airports. (easyJet warned about delays and published guidance tied to the change on April 1; industry groups say full registration requirements could strain airports during peak summer traffic). (express.co.uk) (travelandtourworld.com)
If you’re flying into much of Europe this summer, the line that used to end at a passport stamp now ends at a camera and fingerprint scanner. The European Union’s new Entry/Exit System becomes fully operational on 10 April 2026 after a phased rollout that began on 12 October 2025. (travel-europe.europa.eu) (euronews.com) The change hits non-European Union travelers on short stays, including Americans and Britons visiting for up to 90 days in any 180-day period. Instead of getting a passport stamp, they now have their entry and exit logged digitally with passport details, a facial image, and biometric data. (euronews.com) (travel-europe.europa.eu) This system covers 29 countries in the Schengen travel area and related states, including France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland. Ireland and Cyprus are not using it, so they are continuing with manual passport checks. (travel-europe.europa.eu) (euronews.com) The promise is a cleaner record of who entered, who left, and who overstayed, using a digital log instead of an ink stamp that can be missed or forged. The European Commission says the system is meant to modernise border control, reduce fraud, and flag security risks faster. (home-affairs.ec.europa.eu) (euronews.com) The problem is that the first registration takes longer than a stamp ever did. Airport and airline groups said on 11 February 2026 that even the partial rollout was already producing waits of up to 2 hours at border control while only 35% of eligible non-European Union travelers had to be registered. (iata.org) (aci-europe.org) Those same groups, including Airports Council International Europe, Airlines for Europe, and the International Air Transport Association, warned queues could reach 4 hours or more in peak summer traffic. They blamed three things together: too few border officers, technology problems with automated gates, and weak use of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency’s pre-registration app by Schengen states. (aci-europe.org) (iata.org) That warning matters because summer is when Europe’s airport traffic roughly doubles, which turns a one-minute slowdown into a terminal-wide backup. The industry groups asked Brussels to let countries partially or fully suspend the new checks through the end of October 2026 if lines become unmanageable. (iata.org) (aci-europe.org) The European Union built a special legal ramp for this launch because it knew every border post would not be ready on day one. Regulation (EU) 2025/1534, adopted on 18 July 2025 and in force from 26 July 2025, allowed a progressive start instead of a single hard switch. (home-affairs.ec.europa.eu) (eur-lex.europa.eu) For travelers, the biggest slowdown is likely to be the first trip after 10 April 2026, when the system needs your face and fingerprint record for the first time. Later trips should be quicker because the border post can match you to an existing file instead of building one from scratch. (travel-europe.europa.eu) (euronews.com) So the new summer ritual at many Schengen airports is simple: land, join the non-European Union queue, and budget more time than the old stamp-and-wave system needed. Europe is not closing its borders on 10 April 2026, but it is replacing a rubber stamp with a database, and databases move at the speed of the slowest scanner in the room. (travel-europe.europa.eu) (iata.org)
