Meeting in Brussels on 5 March 2026, EU interior ministers approved a revised timetable for the full roll-out of the Schengen Entry/Exit System (EES) and the long-delayed European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS). France’s interior minister Gérald Darmanin told reporters the decision “locks in” the last technical milestones France must meet before the country switches all of its air, sea and land border posts to biometric exit/entry kiosks in April 2026. French carriers and airport operators welcomed the clarity after three years of shifting deadlines. Under the new roadmap, Member States agreed that from 10 April 2026 all external Schengen crossings must rely exclusively on EES, retiring the manual passport-stamping still used during the transition. France, which already operates live EES gates at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle, Orly, Lyon and Marseille, confirmed it will expand the equipment to 42 regional airports and 11 major seaports by December 2025. The ministers also backed a consolidated ETIAS launch window of “Q4 2026”, six months after EES completion, giving France’s border police extra time to test the API connections between the two systems.
![EU Justice & Home Affairs Council Endorses Post-2026 Roadmap for Schengen Interoperability]()
Travellers who want hands-on help navigating the upcoming EES and ETIAS procedures can turn to VisaHQ, which already provides step-by-step guidance for Schengen visas and will alert users as soon as ETIAS goes live. The company’s France portal (https://www.visahq.com/france/) lets corporate mobility teams and individual passengers fill out forms, track applications and receive compliance updates in one place, removing much of the guesswork ahead of the 2026 changes.
Beyond technology, the Council endorsed a “Schengen Barometer” that will benchmark each country’s progress on voluntary return procedures. France pressed for stricter metrics after domestic audits found that only 13 % of return decisions issued in 2025 were actually enforced. The Barometer will be published every six months and feed into the annual Schengen evaluation cycle, a tool Paris hopes will strengthen peer pressure on under-performing partners. Corporate mobility managers should prepare for a fully biometric experience at French borders next spring. Travellers with multiple passports are advised to enter and exit with the same document to avoid “hit-mismatch” errors in the new databases. Companies that regularly send non-EU staff to France were urged to factor an extra 72 hours into itineraries from late-2026, when ETIAS pre-screening becomes mandatory for visa-exempt nationals.
Travellers who want hands-on help navigating the upcoming EES and ETIAS procedures can turn to VisaHQ, which already provides step-by-step guidance for Schengen visas and will alert users as soon as ETIAS goes live. The company’s France portal (https://www.visahq.com/france/) lets corporate mobility teams and individual passengers fill out forms, track applications and receive compliance updates in one place, removing much of the guesswork ahead of the 2026 changes.
Beyond technology, the Council endorsed a “Schengen Barometer” that will benchmark each country’s progress on voluntary return procedures. France pressed for stricter metrics after domestic audits found that only 13 % of return decisions issued in 2025 were actually enforced. The Barometer will be published every six months and feed into the annual Schengen evaluation cycle, a tool Paris hopes will strengthen peer pressure on under-performing partners. Corporate mobility managers should prepare for a fully biometric experience at French borders next spring. Travellers with multiple passports are advised to enter and exit with the same document to avoid “hit-mismatch” errors in the new databases. Companies that regularly send non-EU staff to France were urged to factor an extra 72 hours into itineraries from late-2026, when ETIAS pre-screening becomes mandatory for visa-exempt nationals.
