Belgium’s border-control authorities are entering the final stretch of a three-month trial of the European Entry/Exit System (EES) – and the pressure is mounting. From 12 October Brussels Airport has been capturing fingerprints and facial images for roughly 10 % of non-EU arrivals. On 9 January that biometric-registration threshold automatically jumps to 35 % under EU rules. The Airports Council International (ACI) Europe warned in an open letter this weekend that processing times at some continental hubs have already ballooned by up to 70 %, with peak queues of three hours reported in France, Germany and Spain. Belgium has performed better thanks to 36 new e-gates and 61 self-service kiosks, but kiosk outages and the absence of a promised smartphone pre-registration app are creating confusion for travellers and headaches for airlines.
Interior-ministry officials confirmed they will press for a phased roll-out when they attend an extraordinary Schengen coordination meeting in Brussels on 8 January. They argue that short-haul transit passengers risk missing onward connections if the 35 % target is enforced overnight. ACI Europe echoed that concern, saying the EU should link higher biometric targets to proven system stability and airport staffing levels.
![Belgium scrambles to avert long queues as EU Entry/Exit System load rises in January]()
Travellers looking to stay ahead of the new rules can lean on specialist services such as VisaHQ. The company’s Belgium portal (https://www.visahq.com/belgium/) offers real-time updates on EES and ETIAS developments, step-by-step assistance with Schengen visa applications, and dashboard tools that let corporate travel teams monitor documentation for multiple employees at once—helping to keep itineraries on track even when border procedures change at short notice.
For corporate mobility managers the implications are immediate. Travel-risk consultancies advise adding at least one extra hour to itineraries for non-EU executives, scheduling arrivals before 07:00 when lines are shortest, and equipping travellers with printed proof of onward accommodation and meeting invitations in case of manual checks. Missed connections could trigger EU 261 compensation claims, so some companies are pre-authorising re-routing or premium-lane passes for critical staff.
Longer term, Belgium views EES as a necessary stepping-stone to ETIAS, the EU’s new travel authorisation now delayed until late 2026. The justice ministry is lobbying to allow trusted-traveller nationals of certain third countries to use e-gates, while Brussels Airport says it can redeploy security officers to man border booths at short notice. Whether those measures will be enough when business-travel volumes rebound in the spring remains to be seen.
Interior-ministry officials confirmed they will press for a phased roll-out when they attend an extraordinary Schengen coordination meeting in Brussels on 8 January. They argue that short-haul transit passengers risk missing onward connections if the 35 % target is enforced overnight. ACI Europe echoed that concern, saying the EU should link higher biometric targets to proven system stability and airport staffing levels.
Travellers looking to stay ahead of the new rules can lean on specialist services such as VisaHQ. The company’s Belgium portal (https://www.visahq.com/belgium/) offers real-time updates on EES and ETIAS developments, step-by-step assistance with Schengen visa applications, and dashboard tools that let corporate travel teams monitor documentation for multiple employees at once—helping to keep itineraries on track even when border procedures change at short notice.
For corporate mobility managers the implications are immediate. Travel-risk consultancies advise adding at least one extra hour to itineraries for non-EU executives, scheduling arrivals before 07:00 when lines are shortest, and equipping travellers with printed proof of onward accommodation and meeting invitations in case of manual checks. Missed connections could trigger EU 261 compensation claims, so some companies are pre-authorising re-routing or premium-lane passes for critical staff.
Longer term, Belgium views EES as a necessary stepping-stone to ETIAS, the EU’s new travel authorisation now delayed until late 2026. The justice ministry is lobbying to allow trusted-traveller nationals of certain third countries to use e-gates, while Brussels Airport says it can redeploy security officers to man border booths at short notice. Whether those measures will be enough when business-travel volumes rebound in the spring remains to be seen.
