Nine Schengen States Pause EES Scans After Airport Chaos

Nine Schengen countries have been allowed to keep limiting EU Entry/Exit System biometric checks after 6 September, with no new end date. The group is France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland, and they told the European Commission they cannot fully take fingerprints and face scans without serious disruption at the border.

EES remains in operation. Biometric enrolment is now applied unevenly, and the Commission has declined to comment on the informal leave those capitals say they have been given.

Nine Countries Will Not Fully Enforce the Checks

The 150-day summer valve that let border posts drop fingerprints and face images when queues blew out expired on 6 September. Brussels had said it would not prolong that arrangement. The same nine governments then said they would not run the biometric stage at full weight until the kit and the staffing held, and they have been allowed to keep limiting checks to “maintain border fluidity,” with no replacement deadline attached.

That is not a new law. It is a nod after the written flexibility ran out. Ryanair, airports and ferry firms had asked for the pause to be put back on paper. What they got is a practice that can change gate by gate, and a Commission that will not discuss it.

THE EES ROLL-OUT

1. 12 October 2025: EES enters operation and a 180-day progressive start begins under EU rules.
2. 10 April 2026: eu-LISA says all Schengen countries have deployed the system at external borders.
3. 7 July 2026: the same nine governments write to Internal Affairs Commissioner Magnus Brunner asking to keep the emergency mechanism past 6 September.
4. 1 September 2026: a Commission spokesperson says the system has “broadly worked well over the summer” and that “some adjustments are needed at certain border crossing points.”
5. 6 September 2026: the 150-day flexibility expires.
6. 7 September 2026: Ryanair asks the Commission to restore a formal pause until April 2027.
7. 13 September 2026: the nine states are reported to have informal leave to keep limiting biometric checks, with no new date set.

On 10 April, eu-LISA deputy executive director Marili Männik called full deployment a major technical achievement in a large, distributed information system. Five months later, nine of those countries say they still cannot run the biometric stage at full weight. Switzerland is in that group and is not an EU member, which puts a non-EU Schengen state inside the pause as well as France, Germany and Italy.

Madrid Still Scans, Paris May Wave You Through

The practical result is a split border. Spain, Poland, Austria and the Nordic and Baltic states were not in the nine and are still expected to take the full biometric process. France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the rest of the group may scale the scans back when halls fill. A traveller can clear one hub on a passport and a face check, then meet fingerprints and a long hall at the next.

That lottery is already visible. After 6 September, some arrivals at Charles de Gaulle have been processed on a passport and a face scan only. Geneva, which is inside the pause group, has still produced two-hour inbound waits with a large share of booths left shut. Spain has kept the full process, and summer arrivals there still queued for the scans the western hubs are now allowed to thin out.

WHO IS PAUSING THE SCANS

Belgium, Malta and the Netherlands complete the nine. Ireland and Cyprus sit outside EES entirely, so passports are still stamped there. The 29 European countries using the system share one 90-day limit in any 180-day window, which only works if every external gate writes the same kind of record.

The Overstay Record Now Has Holes

EES was built to replace the ink stamp with one digital file: travel-document data, a face image, fingerprints, and the time and place of each entry and exit, so a short stay can be counted across the whole zone and an overstayer can be flagged. eu-LISA still describes that file as the way to find people who stay too long. If nine of the busiest gateways, including France’s Channel ports and Germany’s main hub, skip or thin the biometric stage, the file is complete in Madrid and thin in Paris.

The Commission’s own volume claim sits beside that gap. On 27 July it said the system had already registered over 145 million entries and exits since launch. Those counts came in while the summer valve was still legal. They do not tell a passenger whether the next booth will take ten fingerprints or wave the passport through, and they do not repair a record that is biometric in one country and not in the next.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The nine: France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland are the states limiting full biometric enforcement.
• The paper status: EES is still the live border system; the pause is on how far biometrics are taken, not on the law that created it.
• The deadline: none has been set to replace 6 September, and the Commission has declined to comment.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The legal base: whether the informal leave sits inside the old flexibility rule or simply outside it.
• The file: whether every skipped biometric still leaves a full alphanumeric entry and exit record.
• The next date: when, or whether, a written derogation will replace the nod.

Re-entry matching is the piece that breaks first when the biometrics are optional. On a later trip the guard is supposed to check a face and fingerprints against the file from the first crossing. If that first crossing never captured them, the “faster return visit” the system promised does not exist, and the stamp-era guesswork returns at the very airports that handle the most extra-Schengen traffic.

How Long Do the New Border Checks Take?

The wait is not one number. IATA, the airline trade body, has said a standard non-EU check now takes about 90 seconds, up from 20 to 25 seconds before EES. That is the time at the desk, not the time in the hall. Frankfurt Airport has said travellers have waited up to 90 minutes. Ryanair, in its 7 September note, said border delays reached 2-3 hours this summer in Krakow, Lisbon, Milan and Rome.

Those halls mixed first-time enrolment with kiosks that failed and booths that were short-staffed. Subsequent visits are supposed to be quicker once the biometrics sit on file. That only holds where the first visit actually took them. In a pause country, a passenger may never lay down that file, then meet a full enrolment on a later trip through Spain or Poland.

WHERE THE WAITS LANDED

• Desk time: IATA puts a standard non-EU EES check at about 90 seconds, against 20 to 25 seconds before the system.
• Frankfurt: the airport has confirmed inbound waits of up to 90 minutes.
• Ryanair hotspots: 2-3 hours this summer in Krakow, Lisbon, Milan and Rome.
• Channel: Brittany Ferries warned of an extra three hours to leave port after a nine-hour crossing; Granville has seen waits of up to three hours off the Channel Islands.

Uku Sarekanno, deputy executive director of Frontex, told a travel industry meeting in June that EES could take a year to settle, or up to two. IATA senior vice president Thomas Reynaert argued after 6 September that the option to suspend parts of the process should run at least to the end of the winter season. The Commission’s 1 September line, that the system had broadly worked well, is the official counterweight, and it has not been updated in public since the informal pause became known.

Channel Ports Still Cannot Process a Full Load

Airports took the headlines. The land border is where the nine-country pause matters most for British traffic, because French officers run EES at Dover, Eurotunnel at Folkestone and Eurostar at London St Pancras. French ferry firms say the software still cannot clear a full ship at a pace passengers will accept.

Passengers could not be expected to wait an additional three hours to simply leave the port after a nine-hour Channel crossing.

Jean-Marc Roué, president, Brittany Ferries, to Le Marin

Olivier Normand, commercial director of Manche Îles Express, said waits of up to three hours at Granville after sailings from the Channel Islands are pushing English customers off the route. French airports have also flagged faults on self-service EES kiosks and on their link to PARAFE automatic passport gates, and they have warned about autumn and Christmas peaks. A UK government spokesperson said the checks are a matter for the EU, that Britain has put £10.5 million into infrastructure at Dover, Eurotunnel and Eurostar, and a further £20 million into passport-checking and vehicle-holding capacity at Dover, and that it is working with French officers on staffing.

If France keeps limiting biometrics at the ports, the UK spend buys space and staff for a process Paris may still thin out when the lanes fill. If France later turns the scans back on at full weight, those same lanes become the test of whether the kiosks that failed in summer can clear a freight and holiday peak together.

April 2027 Is the Date Airlines Want in Writing

Ryanair’s 7 September statement landed the morning after the valve closed. The airline said malfunctioning kiosks, staffing shortages and processing delays were still in place, and that letting the derogation lapse left states with no legal way to stop a hall filling up. It asked the Commission to extend the EES derogation until April 2027 so airports and border authorities could fix kit and hire before full enforcement returned.

The EU’s handling of EES has been a shambles from start to finish. Airlines, airports and border authorities repeatedly warned Brussels that the rollout was not ready, that it would increase processing times and that it would create excessive queues for passengers. Those warnings were ignored, with EU citizens the ones delayed and disrupted.

Neal McMahon, chief operational officer, Ryanair, 7 September 2026

IATA, Airports Council International Europe and Airlines for Europe had already asked, in summer, for a way to pause processing when volume beat the hall. Nine governments asked for the same thing on 7 July and were not given a public yes. The informal leave now in place is closer to what they wanted than a hard 6 September cut-off, and it is weaker than the written extension Ryanair is still demanding, because a nod can be pulled without a new regulation.

A Second Border System Is Waiting on This One

ETIAS, the pre-travel authorisation for visa-free visitors, was supposed to follow a working EES. eu-LISA’s board discussed its entry into operation on 17 June, and people briefed on those talks said a 2026 launch was no longer realistic while EES was still being cleaned up. The Commission has not posted a new start date. Industry briefings point to 2027. Until that date is announced, visa-free travellers do not apply and do not pay.

An EU-wide phone app that would let people pre-register biometrics before they reach the desk is not in general use either. The German Interior Ministry has said federal police and Frontex are preparing a start, with German tests in 2026 and a wider rollout in 2027. French airports have been trying to stand up kiosks and tablets for the same job and have not yet got a stable link to the automatic gates.

WHAT IS STILL OPEN

• Kiosks: airlines and French airports still report units that fail or will not talk to national e-gates.
• Staff: the summer shortage at booths has not been closed in public plans.
• The app: no EU-wide pre-register tool is live; Germany is aiming at tests in 2026 and a wider launch in 2027.
• ETIAS: no new official start date, and it is not launching on top of a biometric process that nine countries will not fully run.

For now the passenger faces a simpler, worse rule of thumb. The law still says EES is on at every external gate. The practice in nine countries, including the ones that handle most British and long-haul arrivals, is that fingerprints and a face scan may be taken, thinned or skipped, and nobody has said when that practice ends.