EU delays ETIAS enforcement for visa-exempt travelers until 2027

Visa-exempt travelers heading to Europe in 2026 still won't need ETIAS at the border, and the EU has started withdrawing the system's official start date.

The border reality through 2026

Nothing changes at Schengen entry points for visa-free nationals this year or next. Americans, Britons, Canadians, Australians, Japanese and other visa-exempt passport holders continue to enter without ETIAS, subject to Entry/Exit System biometric registration and the 90-days-in-180 rule.

EU-LISA, the agency building the system, acknowledged that launching ETIAS by the end of 2026 is no longer feasible, citing technical problems and the slow rollout of the Entry/Exit System it depends on, Euronews reported. Financial Times sources put practical enforcement somewhere in 2027.

The official ETIAS website began removing its last-quarter-2026 start date on July 14. The EU says it will announce the date several months before launch.

How the phased rollout will actually work

When ETIAS does go live, it doesn't flip on overnight. The European Council set a staged sequence:

• Transitional period, first 6 months: ETIAS is optional. Travelers can enter without it if they meet standard entry conditions. Airlines can't deny boarding for a missing authorization.
• Grace period, months 7 to 12: First-time arrivals since the transitional period ended can still enter without ETIAS. Everyone else needs it.
• Full enforcement, roughly 12 months after launch: ETIAS becomes mandatory. Carriers will deny boarding to passengers without it.

That pushes full compulsion to late 2027 at the earliest. The fee is set at €20 for applicants aged 18 to 70 under current law.

What to do before booking

Nothing, for any trip landing in 2026. Holders of an EU long-stay visa or residence permit are exempt from ETIAS regardless of timing, and they aren't registered in EES either.

Anyone planning 2027 travel should watch for the official launch date announcement, which the Commission has committed to publishing several months in advance. Country-by-country entry rules are tracked in our destination guides.

Correction, Sept. 23, 2026: An earlier version of this article gave the ETIAS fee as 7 euros, called the 20 euro fee unconfirmed and said the official ETIAS website still listed a last-quarter-2026 start. When this article was published, the fee had been €20 under EU law since Nov. 18, 2025, and the website had begun removing the 2026 date on July 14. The article also said visa-exempt travelers entered with passport checks only and that long-stay visa and residence permit holders would go through EES; the Entry/Exit System had been fully operational since April 10, 2026, registering visa-exempt travelers' faces and fingerprints, and it exempted long-stay visa and residence permit holders.