Holiday-makers and business travellers departing Prague or Brno next week will be among the first to experience the European Union’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) in full. After a six-month transition, Czech border police must record 100 % of non-EU passport holders’ fingerprints and facial images by 9 April 2026. Airlines are urging passengers on long-haul flights to arrive at Václav Havel Airport at least 30 minutes earlier; Ryanair and other carriers have updated help pages warning that automated kiosks can create bottlenecks until travellers complete their first biometric enrolment. Once registered, repeat visitors should pass more quickly because their data are stored for three years, but the initial capture adds roughly two minutes per person, Prague Airport estimates. For Czech companies that frequently host customers or technicians from the UK, US, or Asia, the biggest operational risk is missed connections at the first Schengen entry point. Mobility managers are advising visitors to book longer layovers—90 minutes instead of the typical 45—especially if transiting through Paris, Frankfurt or Warsaw, where EES hardware rollout is still patchy. The National Police Presidium says it has doubled the number of e-gates at Terminal 1 and trained 150 officers to handle manual fallback. However, unions warn that Easter traffic will coincide with the deadline, and any software glitch could cascade through the system. Czech tourism bodies back the security goals but have asked the Interior Ministry to consider a “light-touch” period until after the May Day holidays to avoid deterring Asia-bound tour groups. Longer term, EES creates a digital record that will feed into ETIAS, the travel-authorisation system expected later in 2026. Employers sending staff on short assignments must therefore track days in Schengen more diligently; overstays will be flagged automatically, and fines can reach EUR 3,000 at on-the-spot inspections.
Source: Expats.cz / Ryanair Help Centre
