EU Entry/Exit and Summer Travel

Some recent media reports argue that the rollout of the EU Entry/ Exit System (EES) should be delayed, to ‘avoid risky summer travel chaos’ ¹. In reality, EES rollout is already well underway but there is a legitimate concern about how quickly it is being deployed and whether biometric enrolment should be scaled back at busy European tourist border crossings this summer.

How EES works at the border

EES replaces passport stamping with a digital travel record. Each time an eligible traveller enters or exits Schengen, the system records the date and place of the crossing and links it to the travel document and identity record. The European Commission describes EES as a central system that records entries and exits for short stays by non-EU nationals, introduced progressively from 12 October 2025 ².