The EES applies to you if you are a non-EU national travelling for a short stay to a European country using the EES and you either:
- possess a short-stay visa; or
- do not need a visa to stay for a maximum of 90 days in any 180-day period.
Your travel document data and other personal data will be collected, including your entry and exit dates, and will be registered electronically in the system. This procedure will facilitate your border crossing.
If you overstay the period allowed in the European countries using the EES, the system will identify you and record this information.
In the event that the authorities refuse you entry, the system will also record this information.
The period of 90 days in any 180 days is calculated as a single period for all the European countries using the EES.
- Modernises border management across the European countries using the system; by electronically registering non-EU nationals’ entries and exits, or entry refusals;
- Makes border checks more efficient, gradually improving the experience for travellers;
- Effectively combats identity fraud by collecting biometric data;
- Improves security within the EU;
- Helps combat terrorism and serious organised crime by acting as an identity verification tool.
For most of the non-EU nationals, the EES:
- Provides precise information on the maximum duration of their authorised stays in the territory of all European countries using the EES;
- Replaces the need for passport stamping (unless exceptions apply);
- Gradually reduces waiting times in passport control queues by introducing automated border controls (where available and under the supervision of passport control officers).
The EES also makes it easier to identify people:
- Who have stayed for longer than permitted (overstayers);
- Who are using fake identities or passports;
- Who have no right to enter the European countries using the EES.
As a result, the EES supports the identification of terrorists, criminals, suspects and victims of crimes.
The EES will store different biometric identifiers depending on whether or not you need a short-stay visa.
- Do you need a short-stay visa to travel to the European countries using the EES?
In this case, the system will store only your facial image (your fingerprints were already registered when you applied for a visa).
- No need for a visa?
In this case, the system will store 4 of your fingerprints and your facial image.
Currently, the fingerprints of children below 12 years old are not scanned, even if they are subject to the EES.
Biometrics are a reliable method of:
- accurately identifying people – significantly reducing cases of mistaken identity, discrimination or racial profiling
- identifying undocumented travellers already present in the territory of the Schengen Area (irregular migrants)
- matching entry and exit data for ‘bona fide’ travellers.
Biometrics can increase security in European countries using the EES by:
- preventing children from going missing or becoming victims of trafficking
- reducing the risk of people being wrongfully apprehended and arrested
- helping fight serious crime and terrorism.
Although collecting biometrics can have an impact on travellers’ privacy, the technology used in the EES ensures that people’s fundamental rights are protected.
European countries using the EES may decide to further automate their processes. Automation means that, non-EU nationals are able to benefit from dedicated equipment – a “self-service system”. If available at the border crossing, the self-service system allows you to:
- register when crossing the border
- check if your data is still recorded in the EES and, if no data is present
- upload them for subsequent verification by a passport control officer.
After using the self-service system, you can go to a border control lane, where the passport control officer will have already received:
- information from the self-service system (including checks against other databases)
- confirmation of your identity
- the remaining duration of your stay
The passport control officer can then ask further questions before deciding to grant or refuse you access to the respective territory.
The automated border processes, before reaching the passport control officer, will help to gradually reduce queues. Automation replaces time-consuming manual checks.
You need to have a biometric passport - a passport containing a chip with your biometric information collected from you at the moment you applied for the passport.
If you do not have a biometric passport, you will not be able to use self-service systems.
No. In principle, both biometric and non-biometric passports will be accepted when crossing the borders, if valid and all the other entry conditions are fulfilled.
You only need biometric passport if you want to use automated ways to cross the borders (“self-service systems”), which are available at certain border crossing points.
EU countries generally accept most travel documents, including non-biometric passports,
No. Your entry will not be, in principle, refused based on this reason, as valid biometric and non-biometric passports are accepted for travelling in the European countries using the EES.
Most travel documents, including non-biometric passports are accepted by the Member States.
Family members include:
- a spouse, including a spouse of the same sex as clarified by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in its Coman judgment C-673/16;
- a registered partner, if the applicable legislation treats registered partnerships as equivalent to marriage;
- direct descendants who are under the age of 21 or are dependents, and those of the spouse or registered partner;
- dependent direct relatives in the ascending line, as well as those of the spouse or registered partner.
General EES data retention rules (see section on data retention) and the automated calculator will not apply to you if you meet the following conditions:
1. You are a family member of a European Union citizen and Directive 2004/38/EC applies to you, or a family member of a national of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, or Switzerland who enjoys the right of free movement equivalent to that of EU citizens.
Important: This only concerns family members of citizens of the forementioned countries travelling to or residing in a country other than that of their nationality.
2. You do not hold a residence card pursuant to Directive 2004/38/EC or a residence permit pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1030/2002.
Example 1
You are an American citizen, living in New York City. You are 17 years old and the son of a German national. You want to visit your father, who does not live in Germany, but in Spain.
In this case, you will be registered in the EES as a family member. Reduced data retention rules will apply to you, while the automated calculator will not.
Example 2
You are an American citizen, living in New York City. You are married to a French national, and you want to visit them in France, where they live.
In this case, you will be registered in the EES as a regular traveller and not as a family member. The general data retention rules and automated calculator will apply to you.
UK nationals and their family members who are beneficiaries of the Withdrawal Agreement will be exempt from registration in the EES only if they hold a specific residence document:
a) a valid Withdrawal Agreement residence document issued by the Member State that is their Withdrawal Agreement host State;
b) a valid Withdrawal Agreement frontier worker document issued by the Member State that is their Withdrawal Agreement State of work;
c) a valid special temporary Withdrawal Agreement residence document issued by the Member State that is their Withdrawal Agreement host State; or
d) a certain valid residence permit.
Withdrawal Agreement beneficiaries who do not hold any of the above documents will be registered in the EES. They can later ask to have their data deleted or amended in the system if they show that they hold any of the above documents.
Learn more about how the EES applies to the Withdrawal agreement Beneficiaries.
If you have been granted access to a national facilitation programme, the passport control officers in the respective territory may not need to verify:
- Your point of departure and destination
- The purpose of your intended stay and the corresponding supporting documents, if necessary
- Whether you possess sufficient means of subsistence for the duration and purpose of your intended stay, your return to the country of origin, or transit to a third country (or whether you are able to acquire such means lawfully).
Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), ‘purpose limitation’ is a requirement that personal data be collected for specified, explicit, and legitimate purposes and not be processed further in a manner incompatible with those purposes. The EES complies with this and other data protection principles, such as “data protection by design and data protection by default”, and the requirements of necessity, proportionality, and data quality.
Safeguards are in place to ensure the rights of travellers as regards the protection of their private lives and personal data. Their personal data will only be retained in the EES for as long as necessary and for the purpose(s) for which it was collected.
Read more on biometrics and data held on the EES.
In addition to the EES, there are currently 3 main centralised information systems that have been developed by the EU with respect to its borders:
- Schengen Information System (SIS)
- Visa Information System (VIS)
- European Asylum Dactyloscopy Database (EURODAC)
These 3 systems are complementary, and - with the exception of SIS - primarily target non-EU nationals. They also help national authorities fight crime and terrorism.
It is expected that a 4th centralised information system - the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) – will be launched soon after the EES and will concern visa-exempt non-EU nationals. Unlike the Visa Information System (which contains information related to Schengen visas), ETIAS will contain information dealing with travel authorisations for non-EU nationals travelling visa-free to the 30 European countries implementing ETIAS.
The Entry/Exit System and the abovementioned systems will be part of the interoperability between the EU information systems framework that will further help to correctly identify persons whose data are stored in these IT systems, therefore contributing to combating identity fraud.
According to Article 26 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement and Article 13.3 of the Regulation (EU)2017/2226, before boarding transport carriers are obliged to verify that:
- non-EU nationals requiring a short-stay visa have one
- the number of entries authorised by their visa have not been exhausted.
As passport stamping will no longer exist once the EES is operational, carriers must use an online interface to perform these checks instead.
For more information, please check the FAQ in support of carriers.