New EU Entry System (EES): What travelers at Frankfurt Airport need to know now
A rich, mechanical sound. The short, firm press as the stamp hits the paper, sealing the passage into another world with violet ink. This sound, this small act of crossing borders, will soon be history. It will be replaced by the sterile silence of a machine, cool glass against which one presses one's fingers, and a red beam of light measuring one's face. Europe is digitizing its borders—and Frankfurt Airport is at the forefront.
What Brussels calls the “Entry/Exit System” (EES) in its typical prose is, in fact, one of the most profound changes to travel since the introduction of the Schengen Agreement. Starting October 12, the era of passport stamps will end for all travelers who are not citizens of the European Union.
The technology behind biometric border controlThe official justification for this enormous effort is to make identity fraud more difficult and maintain control over the external borders. But the technical reality goes far beyond that. The system is more than a digital guest book. It's a watchful eye that checks the traveler's history upon each entry and calculates the remaining days of stay in real time.
Unlike the analog stamp, it doesn't miss a beat: The 90-day visa-free stay is monitored down to the second. If the time limit is exceeded, the system automatically alerts national security authorities. What's more, the captured biometric data—four fingerprints and a facial image—are compared with numerous European security and wanted persons registers, as well as Interpol databases. This makes every entry a comprehensive security check.
The procedure for entry at Frankfurt AirportThe process itself is standardized: passport, fingerprint, and face are scanned at the machine. But the drastic changes aren't happening. Brussels has planned a six-month transition period to avoid chaos. The good news: the familiar stamp in the passport will initially continue to exist in parallel while the system is gradually ramped up. The farewell to the old ritual will therefore be a smooth one.
Nevertheless, the transition will initially be a test of patience for the millions of business people and tourists who arrive in Europe via Frankfurt each year. Authorities expect delays, as initial contact with the system takes longer than the routine swiping of a passport.
The first contact: Four steps at the machine
The process at the new self-service terminal is divided into a few clear steps, which take a few minutes the first time.
- Scanning your passport: First, place the opened, biometric passport on the designated glass surface. The system automatically reads your personal data.
- Submit fingerprints: The device then asks you to place the pads of four fingers of your right hand on another sensor until the scan is confirmed.
- Taking a facial image: For the biometric photo, you look directly into the machine's camera. Those who wear glasses should briefly remove their lenses to avoid reflections.
- Final check: After the machine has recorded all the data, you go to a border guard's counter for a final, in-person check. The guard checks the recorded data and makes the final decision on entry.
And the EES is just the beginning. The next building block is the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS). is in the starting blocks, with its launch expected at the end of 2026. Similar to the American ESTA procedure, all visa-free travelers will then have to register online before their trip and pay a fee. The digital trawl will become tighter, the traveler more transparent. And the rich sound of the stamp will finally fade into the silent infinity of a database.
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