Less than two weeks after the European Union’s Entry/Exit System (EES) became fully mandatory, passengers landing at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle are grappling with waits that frequently top two hours. A report published on 20 April 2026 by travel-law portal Nomad Lawyer cites airport-authority data showing that the afternoon arrival ‘bank’ at Terminal 2E is most affected, with biometric kiosks processing around 35 % fewer travellers per hour than forecast. The congestion comes as border-police officers check newcomers’ fingerprints and facial images while manually scanning passports into the new database. Although some travellers breeze through the PARAFE e-gates, third-country nationals—including British business visitors and U.S. executives—must undergo the full EES enrolment on first entry, creating a bottleneck at peak times. Airlines for Europe (A4E) and ACI EUROPE have issued a joint letter urging member states to use the regulation’s ‘exception’ clauses more liberally when queues exceed 60 minutes.
![EES Roll-out Triggers Two-Hour Queues at Paris-CDG as Industry Demands Flexibility]()
Travellers and programme managers who want to stay ahead of these changes can tap into VisaHQ’s dedicated France portal (https://www.visahq.com/france/), which aggregates the latest EES advisories, Schengen visa requirements and document checklists, while offering expedited processing and real-time status tracking. Having a one-stop dashboard for compliance helps corporations ensure that employees arrive in Paris with the correct paperwork, potentially shaving precious minutes off an already congested border experience.
For corporate mobility programmes the delays have immediate consequences: same-day connections booked under the traditional 90-minute minimum are now risky, and travellers with priority security may still miss onward flights. Several multinationals told Nomad Lawyer they are instructing staff to schedule meetings after 12:00 the day after arrival, or to route via Amsterdam and Frankfurt, where extra staff have been drafted in. Travel-management companies are likewise re-programming booking tools to flag tight connections through Paris. French authorities say the bottleneck is a ‘settling-in’ issue and that additional mobile kiosks will be deployed before the Pentecost rush. But unions representing border officers have warned that staffing levels remain below the pre-pandemic baseline. If no relief is found, summer holiday peaks could see three-hour queues similar to those reported at Spanish airports last week. Industry groups are therefore pushing for a summer-long option to suspend biometrics temporarily during critical peaks, an idea Paris has not ruled out. In the meantime, global-mobility managers should brief employees to allow at least three hours between scheduled landing and any onward domestic or rail segment, and to keep proof of business purpose handy; anecdotal accounts suggest officers are scrutinising supporting documents more closely as they adjust to the dual-system workload. VIP meet-and-assist services report a 40 % surge in bookings since 11 April, underlining the commercial impact of the new regime.
Travellers and programme managers who want to stay ahead of these changes can tap into VisaHQ’s dedicated France portal (https://www.visahq.com/france/), which aggregates the latest EES advisories, Schengen visa requirements and document checklists, while offering expedited processing and real-time status tracking. Having a one-stop dashboard for compliance helps corporations ensure that employees arrive in Paris with the correct paperwork, potentially shaving precious minutes off an already congested border experience.
For corporate mobility programmes the delays have immediate consequences: same-day connections booked under the traditional 90-minute minimum are now risky, and travellers with priority security may still miss onward flights. Several multinationals told Nomad Lawyer they are instructing staff to schedule meetings after 12:00 the day after arrival, or to route via Amsterdam and Frankfurt, where extra staff have been drafted in. Travel-management companies are likewise re-programming booking tools to flag tight connections through Paris. French authorities say the bottleneck is a ‘settling-in’ issue and that additional mobile kiosks will be deployed before the Pentecost rush. But unions representing border officers have warned that staffing levels remain below the pre-pandemic baseline. If no relief is found, summer holiday peaks could see three-hour queues similar to those reported at Spanish airports last week. Industry groups are therefore pushing for a summer-long option to suspend biometrics temporarily during critical peaks, an idea Paris has not ruled out. In the meantime, global-mobility managers should brief employees to allow at least three hours between scheduled landing and any onward domestic or rail segment, and to keep proof of business purpose handy; anecdotal accounts suggest officers are scrutinising supporting documents more closely as they adjust to the dual-system workload. VIP meet-and-assist services report a 40 % surge in bookings since 11 April, underlining the commercial impact of the new regime.
