The EES at the EU Border – What It Means for Travellers
Since April 2026 the EES has registered non-EU travellers biometrically. Who it covers, what first registration involves and how it affects queues.
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What the EES is
The EES (Entry/Exit System) is a shared electronic register of crossings of the Schengen area’s external borders. It has replaced the manual stamping of passports of non-EU nationals arriving for a short stay. Instead of a stamp, the system records the data from the travel document, a facial image, fingerprints, and the date and place of every entry and exit. It also records refusals of entry.
The system operates in 29 European countries. It was rolled out gradually: the first crossings switched on the EES on 12 October 2025, and since 10 April 2026 it has been fully operational at all external borders of the countries that use it. In Poland the rollout began at the Medyka road crossing and the Przemyśl – Mostyska rail crossing, and ended at Kraków-Balice airport.
Who it covers – and who it doesn’t
The EES covers non-EU nationals entering the Schengen area for a short stay – up to 90 days in any 180-day period. This applies both to people who need a visa and to those who travel visa-free, such as Ukrainian citizens with a biometric passport or Serbian citizens.
The system does not apply to citizens of the EU and the other Schengen countries. A Pole travelling to Ukraine or Serbia and returning to Poland doesn’t give fingerprints and isn’t registered in the EES – their border check stays the same as before. Many people who live in the EU on the basis of residence documents, such as a residence card, also remain outside the system. The detailed rules for a specific situation are best checked on the European Commission’s official EES website.
What first registration involves
On their first border crossing after the system’s introduction, a non-EU traveller must be registered. An officer or a self-service device scans the travel document, takes a photo of the face and records four fingerprints. Children under 12 don’t give fingerprints, but their facial image and document are recorded.
On later trips it’s usually enough to confirm your identity – the data is already in the system, so the check is quicker. As a rule, EES data is kept for three years from the last trip. Refusing to provide biometric data means being refused entry.
By recording entries and exits, the EES also makes it possible to detect people who have overstayed their permitted period, and it makes it harder to use someone else’s or a forged document – biometric data is compared at every subsequent check.
An important practical change: since the system became fully operational, passports are no longer stamped. So you don’t need to keep track of stamps, but you also can’t prove anything with them – the EES calculates your remaining stay automatically. The European Commission provides an official short-stay calculator that lets you check the 90-in-180-days limit before you travel.
Impact on border queues
Biometric registration adds extra minutes for every person going through it for the first time. This is felt most at crossings used by many non-EU nationals: the Polish–Ukrainian border (Medyka–Shehyni, Korczowa–Krakovets, Hrebenne–Rava-Ruska), Terespol–Brest on the Belarusian border, and, on the Balkan route, entry into the EU from Serbia into Hungary and Croatia and from Turkey into Bulgaria.
Because EU citizens and non-EU nationals often travel together in the same car or coach, a longer check for one passenger lengthens the stop for the whole vehicle. For a driver with a Polish or other EU passport, this means the EES can affect them indirectly even if they aren’t registered in it themselves – they’re standing in the same queue.
On our crossing pages we show a typical week calculated from data for the last 60 days. The effect of the EES alone can’t be isolated from it, because many factors act on queues at once: the season, holidays, roadworks, the number of open booths. What is clear, though, is that on entry into the EU from non-EU countries the longest waits are on Fridays, Saturdays and in the afternoons – we go into detail in our guide on when to cross the Ukraine border.
How to prepare for your trip
- If you’re travelling with non-EU nationals, let them know that on their first entry their fingerprints and photo will be taken – it’s a normal procedure.
- Make sure passports are valid and undamaged; the system reads the document data electronically.
- Don’t exceed the limit of 90 days in any 180-day period – the EES counts the days automatically and an overstay shows up at every check.
- Allow extra time for the first entry after the system’s introduction, especially at weekends and in high season.
- EU citizens don’t need to do anything, but it’s worth having a physical ID card or passport in the car, not just a document on your phone.
Frequently asked questions
Does the EES also record exits from the EU? Yes. The system records every entry and every exit of a non-EU traveller, which lets it calculate automatically how many days of stay have been used. A non-EU national leaving Poland for Ukraine or Serbia is also recorded.
Do you need to register before travelling? No. Registration takes place at the border, with an officer or at a self-service kiosk. Some countries offer apps in which you can enter your passport details and photo in advance, which speeds up the first check – but this is not compulsory and does not replace the border check.
What about people who hold both EU and non-EU citizenship? EU citizens are not registered in the EES, so a dual national should cross the Schengen border on their EU document.
Does the EES apply at internal borders, e.g. with Germany? No. The system operates at the Schengen area’s external borders. Checks at the borders with Germany and Lithuania are a separate matter – we cover them in our guide to checks at the German and Lithuanian borders.
And what about ETIAS?
The second part of the same “smart borders” package, often confused with the first, is ETIAS – a travel authorisation system for nationals of visa-exempt countries. Unlike the EES, it is not yet in operation. The European Commission says it will announce the ETIAS launch date several months in advance, so for now there is no need to apply. ETIAS will not apply to EU citizens, including Poles.
If anyone offers you paid “ETIAS registrations” or “EES visas”, these are not official services. The EES requires no prior application or fee, and the launch of ETIAS will be announced on official European Union websites.