Alex Trelinski
UK holidaymakers travelling to Spain will not have to worry about signing up and paying for the EU’s new ETIAS travel system until at least early 2027.
It’s yet another delay for the much-vaunted automated checks that were meant to have started in early 2021.
“ETIAS will start operations in the last quarter of 2026,” states a new update on the European Union’s official ETIAS site.
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“No action is required from travellers at this point. The European Union will inform about the specific date for the start of ETIAS several months prior to its launch.”
The reality is that UK travellers or anybody from a non-EU country will not need registration until April 2027 at the earliest, as the system will have an initial ‘soft launch’.
The European Council met last week and established that the Entry/Exit digital border management system (EES)—a prerequisite for the launch of ETIAS—will be rolled out over a period of six months, but during the meeting no precise date was set for when the EES system would be deployed.
Last autumn, the EU said that the ETIAS entry system would go live sometime during the first half of 2025.
According to the European Council, EES was most recently set to begin service at the end of 2024.
“As this deadline could not be met—and because of concerns that a full start of the system could constitute a risk factor for the resilience of the IT system—the Commission proposed a gradual start.”
“Because the EES regulation requires all member states to start using the EES fully and simultaneously, a new regulation was necessary to make a progressive start possible,” the Council stated on March 5.
Once fully operational, the EES will collect travellers’ biometric data, such as facial images and fingerprints.
The Council explained that the system will allow EU member border security agencies to access international travellers’ data and travel history, letting them quickly see whether they are in compliance with the authorized period of stay in the Schengen area.
“As a result, the EES will significantly reduce the likelihood of identity fraud and overstay, strengthening the security of the Schengen area,” the Council stated.
Once it launches, UK travellers will need to register with ETIAS and pay an application fee of €7 prior to entering Spain or another EU country that’s part of the Schengen Zone.
Travellers under 18 or over 70 will be exempt from the fee, although they will still need to be registered with ETIAS.
UK citizens with Spanish TIE residency cards don’t have to sign up to ETIAS.
