EU Delays €20 ETIAS Again as EES Logs Nearly 90 Million Border Crossings
Updated
Updated · USA TODAY · Aug 19
EU Delays €20 ETIAS Again as EES Logs Nearly 90 Million Border Crossings
3 articles · Updated · USA TODAY · Aug 19
Summary
Aug. 17 left ETIAS still inactive, so Americans and other visa-exempt travelers do not need the planned €20 pre-authorization for Europe yet.
April 10 made the separate Entry/Exit System fully operational across Schengen, requiring non-EU short-stay visitors to register facial images and fingerprints instead of getting passport stamps.
Nearly 90 million entries and exits have already been recorded under EES since its October rollout, and the European Commission said about 1,000 people were identified as security threats.
Some airports have reported long lines and missed connections during the biometric transition, though Sweden and Portugal now let travelers pre-register passport data and a facial image within 72 hours via an app.
ETIAS, first proposed in 2016 and repeatedly postponed since 2022, was last slated for a late-2026 launch and would be valid for up to three years once introduced.
Europe's biometric border system promised speed, but with missed connections soaring, how much time will your next Schengen trip cost?
As Europe's ETIAS travel fee faces another delay in 2026, could diplomatic tensions over visa reciprocity be the real reason behind the curtain?
With 145 million biometric profiles already collected by Europe's new border system, just how secure is the massive database holding your fingerprints?