Airport Council International (ACI) Europe — headquartered in Brussels — issued an open letter on Saturday (27 December 2025) calling on the European Commission and Schengen states to “urgently stabilise” the new digital Entry/Exit System (EES) after processing times ballooned by up to 70 % at several airports since the system went live on 12 October. Peak queues of three hours have been reported in France, Germany, Greece and Spain.
Although Brussels Airport has largely avoided headline-grabbing lines thanks to an ample stock of e-gates, Belgian border police concede that intermittent kiosk outages and the absence of the promised smartphone pre-registration app are already causing confusion for non-EU travellers. From 9 January 2026 the EU plans to raise the mandatory biometric-registration threshold from 10 % to 35 % of third-country arrivals — a step ACI warns is “untenable” without software fixes and flexible staffing rules.
For multinational employers moving staff into Belgium, the practical advice is to add at least an extra hour to itineraries and to warn executives that missed connections could trigger EU261 compensation claims. Mobility consultants also recommend scheduling early-morning arrivals, when border queues historically dip, and ensuring travellers enter Belgium with clear evidence of onward accommodation and meeting schedules to speed manual checks if kiosks fail.
![Belgium braces for Entry/Exit System bottlenecks as ACI Europe urges urgent review]()
For companies looking for practical help in keeping travellers compliant, VisaHQ can provide streamlined assistance. Its Brussels-based team and online dashboard (https://www.visahq.com/belgium/) deliver real-time EES and forthcoming ETIAS alerts, document checks, and appointment booking, allowing mobility managers to embed friction-free border preparation into corporate travel policies.
Belgium’s Interior Ministry will participate in an extraordinary Schengen coordination meeting on 8 January. Options on the table range from capping registration thresholds to allowing airports to redeploy security screeners at short notice to man border booths. Carriers have called for a temporary waiver for transit passengers in Brussels to protect the hub’s role as a connector between North America and Africa.
In the medium term, the EES is expected to pave the way for ETIAS, the EU’s new travel authorisation, now slated for late 2026. Global-mobility teams should track both roll-outs, budget for potential training sessions on kiosk use, and build EES compliance checkpoints into travel policies.
Although Brussels Airport has largely avoided headline-grabbing lines thanks to an ample stock of e-gates, Belgian border police concede that intermittent kiosk outages and the absence of the promised smartphone pre-registration app are already causing confusion for non-EU travellers. From 9 January 2026 the EU plans to raise the mandatory biometric-registration threshold from 10 % to 35 % of third-country arrivals — a step ACI warns is “untenable” without software fixes and flexible staffing rules.
For multinational employers moving staff into Belgium, the practical advice is to add at least an extra hour to itineraries and to warn executives that missed connections could trigger EU261 compensation claims. Mobility consultants also recommend scheduling early-morning arrivals, when border queues historically dip, and ensuring travellers enter Belgium with clear evidence of onward accommodation and meeting schedules to speed manual checks if kiosks fail.
For companies looking for practical help in keeping travellers compliant, VisaHQ can provide streamlined assistance. Its Brussels-based team and online dashboard (https://www.visahq.com/belgium/) deliver real-time EES and forthcoming ETIAS alerts, document checks, and appointment booking, allowing mobility managers to embed friction-free border preparation into corporate travel policies.
Belgium’s Interior Ministry will participate in an extraordinary Schengen coordination meeting on 8 January. Options on the table range from capping registration thresholds to allowing airports to redeploy security screeners at short notice to man border booths. Carriers have called for a temporary waiver for transit passengers in Brussels to protect the hub’s role as a connector between North America and Africa.
In the medium term, the EES is expected to pave the way for ETIAS, the EU’s new travel authorisation, now slated for late 2026. Global-mobility teams should track both roll-outs, budget for potential training sessions on kiosk use, and build EES compliance checkpoints into travel policies.
