The busiest international gateway in South America took a major technological leap this Friday (5 December 2025). Guarulhos International Airport (GRU) confirmed the completion of phase 1 of its border-modernisation plan, replacing all legacy Automated Border Control (ABC) kiosks in Terminal 3 with 42 next-generation e-Gates supplied by air-transport IT specialist SITA.
The new gates combine high-resolution facial-recognition cameras, fingerprint readers and e-passport inspection in a single transaction that takes under 10 seconds. According to GRU’s operations director Marcelo Vasconcellos, the upgrade increases throughput by up to 40 %, slashing queue times at peak international-arrival banks that regularly exceed 4,000 passengers per hour.
![Guarulhos deploys 42 new biometric e-Gates to accelerate border clearance]()
For the Federal Police, which is responsible for immigration control, the equipment frees officers from routine passport stamping so they can focus on secondary inspections and risk profiling—an important gain as Brazil expects a record 8 million foreign arrivals in 2026, driven by the COP-30 climate summit in Belém and a buoyant regional business-travel market.
Business travellers will feel the difference immediately. The e-Gates are open to Brazilians and holders of “chip” passports from Mercosur, EU, UK, US, Canada, Australia, Japan and several other countries on a reciprocal basis. Eligible passengers simply remove masks or hats, look at the camera and place their passport on the reader; successful matches trigger automatic gate opening without human interaction.
GRU Airport says phase 2—adding a further 28 e-Gates in Terminals 2 and 1—will start in February 2026. Together with a parallel smart-security pilot that uses CT scanners and biometric boarding, São Paulo hopes to position itself as the most efficient hub in Latin America for connecting corporate traffic.
The new gates combine high-resolution facial-recognition cameras, fingerprint readers and e-passport inspection in a single transaction that takes under 10 seconds. According to GRU’s operations director Marcelo Vasconcellos, the upgrade increases throughput by up to 40 %, slashing queue times at peak international-arrival banks that regularly exceed 4,000 passengers per hour.
For the Federal Police, which is responsible for immigration control, the equipment frees officers from routine passport stamping so they can focus on secondary inspections and risk profiling—an important gain as Brazil expects a record 8 million foreign arrivals in 2026, driven by the COP-30 climate summit in Belém and a buoyant regional business-travel market.
Business travellers will feel the difference immediately. The e-Gates are open to Brazilians and holders of “chip” passports from Mercosur, EU, UK, US, Canada, Australia, Japan and several other countries on a reciprocal basis. Eligible passengers simply remove masks or hats, look at the camera and place their passport on the reader; successful matches trigger automatic gate opening without human interaction.
GRU Airport says phase 2—adding a further 28 e-Gates in Terminals 2 and 1—will start in February 2026. Together with a parallel smart-security pilot that uses CT scanners and biometric boarding, São Paulo hopes to position itself as the most efficient hub in Latin America for connecting corporate traffic.
