Operational headaches with the EU’s new biometric Entry-Exit System (EES) are prompting additional member states to follow Greece’s April decision to pause registration of British travellers during peak season, according to industry reports compiled on 6 May. Portuguese and Italian border officials are said to be ‘informally relaxing’ mandatory fingerprint and facial-image capture at airports when queues exceed acceptable limits, while Croatia has confirmed it will maintain checks for now.
![EU Entry-Exit System under pressure as more countries consider suspending checks for UK tourists]()
UK travellers and corporate mobility teams looking for up-to-date visa and entry guidance can tap VisaHQ’s specialist advisory service; its United Kingdom portal (https://www.visahq.com/united-kingdom/) tracks Schengen policy changes in real time, helps users confirm document validity, and offers expedited processing for ancillary travel paperwork such as ETIAS once it goes live.
The EES, launched on 10 April, records non-EU nationals’ arrivals and departures and automatically flags over-stays — a change that affects the 12 million UK residents who holiday in the EU each summer. The system includes a built-in 90-day suspension mechanism, and Brussels has reminded capitals they can invoke it until September. Budget carrier Ryanair and the Advantage Travel Partnership have formally asked all 29 Schengen members to shelve the scheme until after the holidays, blaming “hours-long passport queues” and missed flights. In France, ferries and Eurotunnel services are still awaiting the hardware needed to enrol fingerprints, meaning most Channel-crossing passengers are currently exempt; airports, however, are struggling with staffing and kiosk shortages. For UK businesses the implications are twofold: leisure-traveller congestion often spills over into Monday-morning business flights, and the stop-go nature of EES enforcement makes advising employees tricky. Mobility managers should alert staff that some airports may wave Brits through without biometrics while others insist on full registration, adding 30–60 minutes to journeys. Travellers holding the UK’s new Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) still need to complete EES steps when entering Schengen. Long-term, the episode underscores the fragility of Europe’s push toward biometric borders. Unless reliability improves, member states could pressure the Commission to rewrite timelines for ETIAS (the travel authorisation that will layer on top of EES next year), potentially extending the transitional period during which carriers — and by extension corporate travel teams — must police passport validity and stay-limits manually.
UK travellers and corporate mobility teams looking for up-to-date visa and entry guidance can tap VisaHQ’s specialist advisory service; its United Kingdom portal (https://www.visahq.com/united-kingdom/) tracks Schengen policy changes in real time, helps users confirm document validity, and offers expedited processing for ancillary travel paperwork such as ETIAS once it goes live.
The EES, launched on 10 April, records non-EU nationals’ arrivals and departures and automatically flags over-stays — a change that affects the 12 million UK residents who holiday in the EU each summer. The system includes a built-in 90-day suspension mechanism, and Brussels has reminded capitals they can invoke it until September. Budget carrier Ryanair and the Advantage Travel Partnership have formally asked all 29 Schengen members to shelve the scheme until after the holidays, blaming “hours-long passport queues” and missed flights. In France, ferries and Eurotunnel services are still awaiting the hardware needed to enrol fingerprints, meaning most Channel-crossing passengers are currently exempt; airports, however, are struggling with staffing and kiosk shortages. For UK businesses the implications are twofold: leisure-traveller congestion often spills over into Monday-morning business flights, and the stop-go nature of EES enforcement makes advising employees tricky. Mobility managers should alert staff that some airports may wave Brits through without biometrics while others insist on full registration, adding 30–60 minutes to journeys. Travellers holding the UK’s new Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) still need to complete EES steps when entering Schengen. Long-term, the episode underscores the fragility of Europe’s push toward biometric borders. Unless reliability improves, member states could pressure the Commission to rewrite timelines for ETIAS (the travel authorisation that will layer on top of EES next year), potentially extending the transitional period during which carriers — and by extension corporate travel teams — must police passport validity and stay-limits manually.
