- The EU will temporarily ease biometric checks to manage severe airport congestion during peak travel periods.
- National border authorities may skip fingerprint capture while maintaining mandatory entry and exit record logs.
- Flexibility is granted for up to 150 days to cover the 2026 summer holiday surges.
(ITALY) — The European Commission granted member states on May 2, 2026, temporary flexibility to skip some biometric border checks under the Entry/Exit System (EES) during severe congestion, after Italy pressed for relief ahead of the summer travel peak.
The guidance lets national authorities keep the system running while dropping the slowest steps at busy moments, chiefly fingerprint capture. Arrival and departure records will still go into the central database.
Markus Lampert, a European Commission spokesman, said in a statement issued late on May 2, 2026: “This measure is built-in flexibility, not a suspension of the system. The core database will continue logging all arrivals and departures, but national border authorities may temporarily skip the most time-consuming steps—chiefly fingerprint capture—whenever passenger volumes risk overwhelming staffed booths or self-service kiosks.”
Lampert said the flexibility is intended to last for 90 days from the system’s full operational date of April 10, 2026, with a possible 60-day extension to cover the summer holiday peak through early September.
Italy had sought a workaround after reports of three-hour queues at airports in Rome, Milan and Pisa over the Liberation Day weekend. ENAC Director General Pierluigi Di Palma had said the system was designed to “reduce queues by up to 40%,” but the first weeks required “unprecedented adjustments” during peak surges.
The move amounts to an operational safety valve rather than a rollback of the new border regime. Border guards can revert to fallback procedures by scanning passports and deferring fingerprints and facial images when wait times hit critical levels.
The EES became fully operational on April 10, 2026 after several years of delays. It applies to all third-country nationals entering the participating zone, including citizens of the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
That places a wide share of summer traffic inside the system’s reach, from tourists to executives on short business trips. Procedures can now differ from one airport gate to another, or even from one hour to the next, depending on traffic.
The U.S. Embassy in Rome told Americans when the system launched: “As of April 10, 2026, U.S. citizens will be required to go through the EU’s new Entry and Exit System (EES) when traveling to 29 European countries. Your fingerprints, facial image, passport details, and entry and exit dates will be collected upon entry. No fee is required for this registration.” The advisory appears on the embassy’s Visiting and Living in Italy page.
Under the new Commission guidance, that full enrollment can be delayed during heavy crowding. At some checkpoints, passengers will still complete facial and fingerprint registration; at others, officers may rely on a passport scan and collect the missing biometrics later.
Italy is also testing a separate way to shorten lines. Authorities are trialing an EU smartphone app that allows travelers to pre-register facial images and passport data up to 72 hours before arrival.
Rome aims to make the app mandatory for visa-exempt business visitors, including U.S. citizens, by the 2026 winter trade-fair season. The trial points to a broader push to shift part of the enrollment process away from airport counters and self-service kiosks.
Even when biometric border checks are eased, enforcement does not pause. Entry and exit data still go into the log, and overstays are calculated automatically.
Once captured, biometric profiles remain valid for three years. The digital record also enforces the Schengen rule that permits stays of 90-days-in-180-days, which the Commission said has already flagged approximately 4,000 overstays since the phased rollout began.
That means EU Grants Flexibility does not alter the legal stay limit for visitors. It changes the order and timing of data collection at crowded borders, not the underlying obligation to register travel under the EES.
U.S. travelers are likely to see the most visible effect in airport processing times. First-time biometric enrollment typically takes 2–4 minutes per person, and officials see deferral during congestion as a way to cut the risk of missed onward flights or business meetings.
Corporate mobility teams have been watching the rollout closely because the delays arrive during one of Europe’s busiest travel periods. A passport-only pass-through at one airport and full biometric capture at another can complicate arrival planning for companies moving staff on tight schedules.
Airports, meanwhile, must run a hybrid system during the flexibility window. They still need to feed arrival and departure data into the core database while deciding, in real time, whether passenger volumes justify suspending some of the biometric steps.
That leaves the system in full legal force but with uneven front-line procedures. The Commission’s approach gives member states room to absorb traffic spikes without shutting down the new border regime that Europe spent years preparing.
Travelers seeking official guidance can consult the U.S. Department of State Schengen Area FAQ and the European Union’s Travel to Europe portal, which explains the Entry/Exit System and its biometric border checks. Through the summer, the practical test for airports in Italy and elsewhere will be whether that flexibility keeps queues moving while the database continues to record every crossing.
