How to prepare for Europe's new travel entry rules

As the continent completes its rollout of a sweeping new biometric entry system for non-EU residents, many destinations are bracing for long airport queues. Here's how to avoid the worst of them.

When travel expert and author Ash Bhardwaj flew to Oslo in February, he expected the typical minutes-long border experience Norway is known for. Instead, he spent a full hour waiting in queues at passport control – and that was on a less-busy weekday.

Bhardwaj was far from alone. This winter, many other non-EU nationals who have flown into Europe have been greeted with hours-long queues, missed connections and chaos on the ground.  

The culprit: Europe's new Entry/Exit System (EES), a biometric border programme that has been gradually rolling out across the 29-country Schengen Area since October 2025 and is set to be fully implemented by 10 April. The system is designed to track who is entering and leaving the border-free Schengen zone, and for how long. By recording biometric data and travel dates digitally, the EU aims to more easily identify travellers who overstay the 90-day limit that non-EU nationals are allowed within the Schengen Area within a 180-day period.

But the rollout so far has been anything but smooth.

Because the system requires non-EU visitors to register their fingerprints and take a photo – and because this registration must currently be done in person at the border – the extra registration time is already causing massive backups for non-European passengers at airports across the region. EU passport holders have their own, typically faster-moving lines that remain unaffected by EES.

According to Airports Council International (ACI), which represents more than 600 airports and facilitates more than 95% of commercial air traffic in Europe, border processing times where EES checks are active have increased by up to 70%, with peak-period waits stretching to three hours in places like Geneva earlier this year. Lisbon Airport suspended the system entirely in December after wait times reached five or more hours at times, causing some passengers to miss their flights.

"Since the implementation of EES first began in October last year, we've already seen instances of significant delays at different airports and at different times," said Julia Lo Bue-Said, CEO of Advantage Travel Partnership, a network of travel businesses. "The impact has varied widely depending on the destination, time of day and passenger volumes."

Experts warn that the impact is........

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