Meeting in Strasbourg on 28 October, MEPs approved the Commission’s revised timeline for introducing the long-delayed Entry/Exit System (EES), a biometric border database that will replace passport stamps for non-EU nationals. The vote paves the way for a phased launch beginning 12 October 2025, with Spain’s major airports—Madrid-Barajas, Barcelona, Málaga and Palma—among the first wave of implementation sites.
Under the new plan, air and sea borders will deploy EES first, followed by land crossings in 2026. Travellers will provide fingerprints and a facial image on first entry; subsequent crossings will be processed in seconds using biometric kiosks or e-gates. Overstay alerts will be sent automatically to national immigration authorities, tightening compliance checks for assignees on Schengen short-stay visas.
Spain’s Interior Ministry has already begun one-hour-a-day live trials at Málaga Airport and is training 1,500 extra border guards ahead of Easter 2026. Carriers fear initial congestion: modelling by Iberia suggests that without adequate staffing, peak-time queues at Madrid could triple. The phased approach, however, allows airports to calibrate staffing and technology before full-scale holiday traffic.
Multinationals should audit travel-policy wording now: employees on regular Schengen business trips will need to factor in biometric enrolment time, and companies using the Van der Elst secondment route must monitor 90/180-day limits more closely, as EES overstay data will be shared across Schengen.
Civil-liberty groups welcomed Parliament’s commitment to independent data-protection audits but warned of potential ‘function creep’. Spain’s data watchdog (AEPD) has requested real-time access to system-performance metrics to ensure queue times stay within the EU’s 45-minute benchmark.
Under the new plan, air and sea borders will deploy EES first, followed by land crossings in 2026. Travellers will provide fingerprints and a facial image on first entry; subsequent crossings will be processed in seconds using biometric kiosks or e-gates. Overstay alerts will be sent automatically to national immigration authorities, tightening compliance checks for assignees on Schengen short-stay visas.
Spain’s Interior Ministry has already begun one-hour-a-day live trials at Málaga Airport and is training 1,500 extra border guards ahead of Easter 2026. Carriers fear initial congestion: modelling by Iberia suggests that without adequate staffing, peak-time queues at Madrid could triple. The phased approach, however, allows airports to calibrate staffing and technology before full-scale holiday traffic.
Multinationals should audit travel-policy wording now: employees on regular Schengen business trips will need to factor in biometric enrolment time, and companies using the Van der Elst secondment route must monitor 90/180-day limits more closely, as EES overstay data will be shared across Schengen.
Civil-liberty groups welcomed Parliament’s commitment to independent data-protection audits but warned of potential ‘function creep’. Spain’s data watchdog (AEPD) has requested real-time access to system-performance metrics to ensure queue times stay within the EU’s 45-minute benchmark.
