EES is Here and ETIAS is Coming: What UK Sailors Need to Know Before Heading to Europe
On 13 April at Milan Linate, a Manchester-bound easyJet flight pulled away from the stand with 34 passengers on board. The other 122 were still in passport control. The aircraft had held at the gate for nearly an hour, but crew duty time limits made waiting any longer impossible.
That’s EES. The EU’s new Entry/Exit System went fully live across all 29 Schengen countries in April, and the rollout has been genuinely chaotic. If we’re sailing to Europe this summer, or flying out to join a charter anywhere in the Schengen Area, here’s what we’re dealing with.
How EES works
Post-Brexit, UK travellers are treated as third-country nationals at EU borders, which means we no longer get waved through on a passport stamp. EES replaces stamping with a digital record. The first time we cross a Schengen border under the new system, our biometric data (fingerprints and a photograph, though children under 12 need a photo only) is captured and stored. After that, future crossings should be faster because the system just needs to verify who we are rather than register us from scratch.
The problem is that first registration is where all the trouble is.
Where it’s gone wrong
At major European hubs such as Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Madrid, and Barcelona in particular, queues of two to four hours are being reported. The Milan Linate incident above isn’t a one-off. Airline industry groups have formally called the rollout a “systemic failure” and are pushing the European Commission to let border authorities suspend EES checks when queues become unmanageable, particularly through the summer peak.
Some countries have already taken matters into their own hands. Greece has temporarily exempted UK passport holders from biometric registration, reverting to traditional passport stamps, presumably because border infrastructure at its island entry points couldn’t cope with summer volumes. Portugal suspended EES at Lisbon, Porto, and Faro departures during the worst of the congestion. Spain, Italy, and France are applying it inconsistently across different airports and border points.
The situation is changing week by week, so it’s worth checking the current status for our specific destination before we travel.
Flying out to join a charter
This is where we need to plan most carefully right now.
The current advice from airline industry groups is to allow an extra 90 minutes to two hours at any major European hub, on top of what we’d normally budget. At the busiest airports, some travellers are allowing even more. If our schedule gives us any flexibility at all, the simplest move is to fly out the day before the charter starts. It removes the airport stress entirely and means we arrive on the boat settled, with time to get across the boat before the first morning’s sailing.
Greece is currently the most straightforward option for UK passport holders, given the temporary exemption. Portugal suspended EES at its three main airports during peak congestion. Spain, Italy, and France vary by airport and by day. If we’re booking flights, a flexible fare is worth the small extra cost right now, because most airlines are treating EES delays as outside their responsibility for rebooking.
Check the current EES status at our specific airport before booking, not just before we travel. Things are moving quickly.
Sailing our own boat to EU waters
EES applies at maritime borders as well as airports, so arriving by sea doesn’t get us around it. But the practical process for UK-registered pleasure vessels clearing into smaller EU marinas and harbours is not yet fully established, and the picture here is less settled than for air travellers.
The best source of guidance before any Channel passage is the RYA’s boating abroad pages at rya.org.uk/boating-abroad, alongside GOV.UK. Check both before departing, particularly if we’re planning to clear customs at a French, Spanish, or Portuguese port.
One specific thing worth verifying before assuming: if our trip is a round-trip from a UK port with EU port calls but without passengers boarding or disembarking at an EU port, day visitors are generally understood to be exempt from EES processing. That covers a lot of standard leisure sailing scenarios, but it’s worth confirming against official guidance for our specific situation rather than taking it as read.
ETIAS: the scheme that hasn’t launched yet
ETIAS (the European Travel Information and Authorisation System) is a separate system entirely. Where EES is a border registration process, ETIAS is a pre-travel screening check. The idea is that the EU checks our credentials against security databases before we board the plane, rather than when we show up at the border. Think of it like the US ESTA.
It hasn’t launched yet. The EU expects it to go live in the final quarter of 2026, though no specific date has been confirmed. When it does, UK passport holders will need to apply online before travelling to any Schengen Area country, plus Cyprus. It costs €20 per person, is free for under-18s and over-70s, and once granted, it’s valid for three years covering unlimited trips, subject to the 90-days-in-180-days rule that already applies to us in the EU.
One thing to be aware of now. Fake websites claiming to sell ETIAS authorisations are already appearing. We cannot apply for ETIAS at the moment, the system is not taking applications. When it does launch, apply only through the official EU site at travel-europe.europa.eu/en/etias. No third-party site, however official it looks.
Where we stand
None of this needs to put us off a summer trip to Europe. But it does need a bit of extra thought on the getting-there side.
If we’re flying to meet a charter boat, allow more time at the airport than we normally would, or fly out the day before. Check the current EES status for our specific destination, because countries are applying exemptions differently and the situation is changing fast.
If we’re sailing our own boat to EU waters, check the RYA boating abroad guidance and GOV.UK before we set off. And for ETIAS, nothing to do yet. When it launches, we’ll update this article with exactly what we need to do.
The ICC, European paperwork, and passage planning requirements for sailing to Europe are all covered in our Day Skipper Theory and Coastal Skipper/Yachtmaster Theory courses.
