Poland has quietly taken a giant leap toward the European Union’s “smart border” vision. At 00:01 on 21 November 2025, Border Guard technicians activated the biometric Entry/Exit System (EES) at 38 land, air, rail and sea crossings—including all major airports and the busy Korczowa and Dorohusk road gates to Ukraine. The move ends the age-old ritual of manually stamping non-EU passports: instead, officers capture four fingerprints, a high-resolution facial image and the traveller’s biographical data in under one minute, storing it automatically in a shared EU database.
Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński framed the upgrade as both a facilitation and a security tool. Once a visitor’s biometrics have been taken on first entry, subsequent crossings can be handled by self-service e-gates, cutting queues that have long plagued Warsaw-Chopin and Kraków-Balice airports. At the same time, the system cross-checks Interpol, VIS and SIS alerts in real time and flashes an overstay warning as soon as the Schengen 90/180-day limit is reached. More than 600,000 travellers were processed during a six-week pilot on the Ukrainian border, giving officers what officials call “unprecedented operational visibility”.
![Poland Switches on EU Entry/Exit System at 38 Checkpoints]()
For corporates, the practical impact is two-fold. First-time assignees and business visitors should plan for an extra 5–10 minutes while fingerprints are captured, but repeat travellers will see faster lanes and fewer disputes about ‘days remaining’. HR teams are already updating travel policies to instruct staff to keep proof of residence cards handy until EES records and permit data are fully synchronised. Multinationals are also reviewing data-privacy clauses because EES logs will become discoverable evidence in tax-residency and posted-worker audits.
The launch also sets the clock ticking for ETIAS, the EU’s electronic travel authorisation now pencilled in for late 2026. Brussels insists that EES must run for at least nine months before ETIAS goes live, making Poland’s timely roll-out critical for the entire bloc. Polish officials say another 140 secondary crossings will be connected by 4 December, after which Warsaw will test “one-stop” multimodal gates capable of handling car, rail and ferry passengers in the same biometric corridor.
Strategically, the upgrade is part of a wider response to what the government calls hybrid threats from Russia and Belarus. Border Guard commanders argue that a single biometric perimeter closes loopholes exploited by document forgers and people-smuggling rings. With Schengen partners Germany and Lithuania re-introducing spot checks this autumn, Warsaw hopes that a fully digital record of every entry and exit will strengthen calls to return to passport-free travel in 2026.
Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński framed the upgrade as both a facilitation and a security tool. Once a visitor’s biometrics have been taken on first entry, subsequent crossings can be handled by self-service e-gates, cutting queues that have long plagued Warsaw-Chopin and Kraków-Balice airports. At the same time, the system cross-checks Interpol, VIS and SIS alerts in real time and flashes an overstay warning as soon as the Schengen 90/180-day limit is reached. More than 600,000 travellers were processed during a six-week pilot on the Ukrainian border, giving officers what officials call “unprecedented operational visibility”.
For corporates, the practical impact is two-fold. First-time assignees and business visitors should plan for an extra 5–10 minutes while fingerprints are captured, but repeat travellers will see faster lanes and fewer disputes about ‘days remaining’. HR teams are already updating travel policies to instruct staff to keep proof of residence cards handy until EES records and permit data are fully synchronised. Multinationals are also reviewing data-privacy clauses because EES logs will become discoverable evidence in tax-residency and posted-worker audits.
The launch also sets the clock ticking for ETIAS, the EU’s electronic travel authorisation now pencilled in for late 2026. Brussels insists that EES must run for at least nine months before ETIAS goes live, making Poland’s timely roll-out critical for the entire bloc. Polish officials say another 140 secondary crossings will be connected by 4 December, after which Warsaw will test “one-stop” multimodal gates capable of handling car, rail and ferry passengers in the same biometric corridor.
Strategically, the upgrade is part of a wider response to what the government calls hybrid threats from Russia and Belarus. Border Guard commanders argue that a single biometric perimeter closes loopholes exploited by document forgers and people-smuggling rings. With Schengen partners Germany and Lithuania re-introducing spot checks this autumn, Warsaw hopes that a fully digital record of every entry and exit will strengthen calls to return to passport-free travel in 2026.
