Travelling to Europe? ETIAS alone will not be enough

After ETIAS is launched, if you come from any of the visa-exempt countries, you will be required to apply for an electronic travel authorisation before starting your trip. However, a successful application alone will not guarantee that you will be allowed to enter the European countries requiring ETIAS. What else is needed? Find out below.

In order to be allowed to cross the EU’s external borders, you will need to meet the entry conditions for visa-free travellers. Besides verifying that you have a valid identity document and ETIAS during the border check, border guards may ask you to provide the information on:

• the duration of your stay in Europe,
• the reason of your visit,
• the explanation of your means supporting your trip.

Border authorities will also verify that your travel document is valid for at least three months after your intended date of departure from the territory of the 30 European countries requiring ETIAS and that it was not issued more than 10 years ago. The authorities can conduct a thorough scrutiny of the travel document for signs of falsification or counterfeiting. They could also verify if a third country national is not a threat for public security.

When you cross the border, your details will be registered in the Entry/Exit System, which will replace the manual stamping of passports at the EU’s external borders. The system will record the time and place of your entry and store your facial image and fingerprints.

Those travellers who do not meet the entry conditions will be refused entry, unless an exception provided by the law applies.

Once you enter one of the 30 European countries requiring ETIAS, you will be allowed to travel freely to any of them as there are no border checks within the area. You will, however, need to make sure that you do not exceed the period of your authorised stay – up to 90 days in any 180-day period.