The Czech Foreign Police quietly marked a milestone in Prague’s post-pandemic recovery on 15 May 2026 when it extended the automated border-control system known as eGATE to selected third-country nationals at Václav Havel Airport. Until now, the 24 self-service passport gates in Terminal 1 were reserved for passengers carrying EU, EEA or Swiss biometric passports. From Friday, however, citizens of the United Kingdom, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea who are 15 years or older and hold a biometric passport can also use the fast-track lanes when departing the Schengen area.
The change follows the EU-wide launch of the new Entry/Exit System (EES) in April, which obliges member states to collect biometric data and automatically register every non-EU traveller’s entry and exit. Police technologists spent the past month integrating the airport’s eGATE software with the EES back-end and running live trials during off-peak hours.
Before you even set foot at Václav Havel Airport, VisaHQ can help you verify whether you need a visa, fill out Schengen forms online and track your application status in real time. Their dedicated Czech Republic portal (https://www.visahq.com/czech-republic/) consolidates the latest entry rules for UK, Japanese, Taiwanese and South Korean travellers, making it easy to ensure your documents are in order so you can head straight for the eGATE.
Airport operator Letiště Praha expects the upgrade to “significantly ease pressure on manual counters” during the peak summer season, when passenger throughput routinely exceeds 60,000 a day. Martin Kučera, the board member responsible for operations and security, said lessons learned from EES’ first month of operation have already been fed into summer staffing models. He predicts shorter queues for EU citizens as officers are redeployed to higher-risk flows and document-fraud detection.
![Prague Airport opens eGATEs to U.K., Japanese, Taiwanese and South-Korean travellers]()
For businesses, the immediate benefit is a faster, more predictable departure process for non-EU executives working the Prague–London, Prague–Seoul or Tokyo routes. Travel-management companies estimate that shaving five to ten minutes off each border-control interaction could save large corporates tens of thousands of euro in productivity over the course of the year.
The UK Embassy in Prague welcomed the move, noting that more than two million seats are scheduled between the UK and Prague in 2026.
Looking ahead, the Foreign Police confirmed that other “low-risk” nationalities may be added once the first wave is fully bedded in.
Meanwhile, companies should remind staff that eGATEs are currently available only on departure and that manual booths remain mandatory on arrival until outgoing biometric capture has been validated at scale.
The change follows the EU-wide launch of the new Entry/Exit System (EES) in April, which obliges member states to collect biometric data and automatically register every non-EU traveller’s entry and exit. Police technologists spent the past month integrating the airport’s eGATE software with the EES back-end and running live trials during off-peak hours.
Before you even set foot at Václav Havel Airport, VisaHQ can help you verify whether you need a visa, fill out Schengen forms online and track your application status in real time. Their dedicated Czech Republic portal (https://www.visahq.com/czech-republic/) consolidates the latest entry rules for UK, Japanese, Taiwanese and South Korean travellers, making it easy to ensure your documents are in order so you can head straight for the eGATE.
Airport operator Letiště Praha expects the upgrade to “significantly ease pressure on manual counters” during the peak summer season, when passenger throughput routinely exceeds 60,000 a day. Martin Kučera, the board member responsible for operations and security, said lessons learned from EES’ first month of operation have already been fed into summer staffing models. He predicts shorter queues for EU citizens as officers are redeployed to higher-risk flows and document-fraud detection.
For businesses, the immediate benefit is a faster, more predictable departure process for non-EU executives working the Prague–London, Prague–Seoul or Tokyo routes. Travel-management companies estimate that shaving five to ten minutes off each border-control interaction could save large corporates tens of thousands of euro in productivity over the course of the year.
The UK Embassy in Prague welcomed the move, noting that more than two million seats are scheduled between the UK and Prague in 2026.
Looking ahead, the Foreign Police confirmed that other “low-risk” nationalities may be added once the first wave is fully bedded in.
Meanwhile, companies should remind staff that eGATEs are currently available only on departure and that manual booths remain mandatory on arrival until outgoing biometric capture has been validated at scale.
