Travellers to Germany and the wider Schengen Area have gained breathing space: the European Commission confirmed on 25 February that the long-awaited European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) will not be operational until 2027 at the earliest. According to officials quoted by The Portugal News, the decision follows continued technical setbacks with the interconnected Entry/Exit System (EES), whose biometric kiosks must run for at least six months before ETIAS can launch. The postponement means that business visitors from visa-exempt countries—including the United States, the UK and Australia—can continue to enter Germany without the €20 pre-authorisation previously slated for late 2026. German airports such as Frankfurt and Munich had warned of potential four-hour queues if both EES and ETIAS were introduced in the same summer holiday period. For German employers the reprieve reduces short-term compliance costs. Lufthansa estimates that 17 percent of its intercontinental passengers would have been denied boarding for documentation errors during a simultaneous roll-out. Travel-management companies, however, caution that the delay is temporary: HR teams should still budget for the forthcoming fee and ensure that employee-passport data are clean in global mobility systems. German Interior Ministry sources say the extra time will help smaller regional airports install biometric kiosks and test data links with the EU’s central repository. A pilot of the EES facial-recognition gates at Hamburg Airport recorded a 92 percent first-time-match rate in January—below the 97 percent target. The European Parliament must still approve an amended timeline, but Brussels insiders expect swift consent, citing member-state pressure to avoid summer 2026 travel chaos. Companies should monitor further guidance, as the German government is expected to publish a revised implementation roadmap before the end of the second quarter.
Source: The Portugal News
