Italy has won a key concession from Brussels just four weeks after the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) went live. On 2 May the European Commission issued guidance that allows border officers to waive the slowest part of the new procedure – the collection of fingerprints – whenever queues risk spiralling out of control. The measure can be applied for up to 150 days, covering the entire summer peak, and was adopted after Italy lodged an urgent request citing three-hour lines at Rome-Fiumicino and Milan-Malpensa during the Liberation-Day long-weekend.
![EU grants Italy leeway to skip biometric fingerprints during summer travel rush]()
Travelers looking for real-time advice on these evolving border formalities can turn to VisaHQ’s Italy portal (https://www.visahq.com/italy/), which tracks the EES rollout airport by airport and offers streamlined visa, ETIAS, and document-preparation services. By sending automatic alerts when biometric pre-registration or new paperwork becomes mandatory, the platform helps mobility managers and individual passengers avoid last-minute surprises and keep trips on schedule.
The decision is not a suspension of EES. Passport data and facial images must still be captured and uploaded to the central database, meaning the 90-in-180-day over-stay calculation remains active. What changes is that guards may revert to manual passport stamping and record the missing biometrics later. For business travellers this could spell shorter waits at the border, but also an uneven experience: one lane may still insist on full enrolment while the next simply stamps a passport. Airports and airlines are scrambling to adapt. ENAC has asked carriers to brief crews on the fallback procedures and to stagger arrivals of wide-body flights where possible. Rome is also piloting an EU smartphone app that lets passengers pre-register their face and passport up to 72 hours before departure; officials hint it could become mandatory for visa-exempt business visitors heading to major trade fairs in the autumn. For mobility managers the message is clear: instruct travellers to leave extra time, keep blank pages in their passports for unexpected stamps, and watch local airport advisories because procedures may change hour by hour. The Commission’s flexibility clause shows the system can bend, but it is still very much in force.
Travelers looking for real-time advice on these evolving border formalities can turn to VisaHQ’s Italy portal (https://www.visahq.com/italy/), which tracks the EES rollout airport by airport and offers streamlined visa, ETIAS, and document-preparation services. By sending automatic alerts when biometric pre-registration or new paperwork becomes mandatory, the platform helps mobility managers and individual passengers avoid last-minute surprises and keep trips on schedule.
The decision is not a suspension of EES. Passport data and facial images must still be captured and uploaded to the central database, meaning the 90-in-180-day over-stay calculation remains active. What changes is that guards may revert to manual passport stamping and record the missing biometrics later. For business travellers this could spell shorter waits at the border, but also an uneven experience: one lane may still insist on full enrolment while the next simply stamps a passport. Airports and airlines are scrambling to adapt. ENAC has asked carriers to brief crews on the fallback procedures and to stagger arrivals of wide-body flights where possible. Rome is also piloting an EU smartphone app that lets passengers pre-register their face and passport up to 72 hours before departure; officials hint it could become mandatory for visa-exempt business visitors heading to major trade fairs in the autumn. For mobility managers the message is clear: instruct travellers to leave extra time, keep blank pages in their passports for unexpected stamps, and watch local airport advisories because procedures may change hour by hour. The Commission’s flexibility clause shows the system can bend, but it is still very much in force.
