Want to get a European stamp in your passport? You'll have until early November to get one

Want to get a European stamp in your passport? You’ll have until early November to get one

Posted by Admin August 20, 2024 Travel

You’re running out of time if you want to get a European stamp in your passport.

The European Union’s commissioner for home affairs announced in a speech Friday the E.U. would switch on its new electronic Entry/Exit System (EES) on Nov. 10, which will remove the stamp requirement for most tourists.

“At every single airport, every single harbor, every single road into Europe. We will have digital border controls,” the text of her speech said. “When that happens, it will be goodbye to passport stamping, hello to digital checks.”

Under the new system foreign visitors entering the E.U. will have their fingerprints and face scanned digitally upon entry. (Visitors who already require a short-stay visa, which U.S. tourists do not, will only have their face scanned.) E.U. officials will then use those biometrics to confirm a visitor’s entry and exit from the union.

Once the EES is switched on, border officers will cross-reference a person’s biometrics with their passport on the first visit and will remain on file . For future visits, tourists’ biometric data will be verified on entry and exit.

To use the system, travelers will need a biometric passport. Since 2007, the U.S. State Department has exclusively issued biometric passports, which have a symbol of two rectangles with a circle in the center on their cover. Visitors to the E.U. who do not have a biometric passport will have to go through more thorough processing at the border and will not be eligible to use self-service passport control kiosks.

The E.U.’s EES system is separate from the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS), which will require most visitors to also preregister ahead of their trips.