EES queues: 41 million trips and $45bn at risk, WTTC warns

The World Travel and Tourism Council published a stark number in June 2026: if EES queues at Schengen borders regularly reach three or four hours, around one in three potential visitors from the UK, US, Canada and Australia would choose not to travel to Schengen at all. Applied to 2026 visitor forecasts, the council estimated up to 41 million arrivals and $45.4 billion in spending could be at risk. Not a worst-case model. A deterrence figure, calibrated to when waits cross a specific threshold and stay there.

What the research actually found

WTTC commissioned the GSIQ European Entry/Exit System Consumer Research Study, surveying 2,512 international travellers from the UK, US, Canada and Australia in May 2026. The survey tested how deterrence varies with wait time. Most respondents said they would absorb a short delay and travel regardless.

The shift happens at the three-hour mark. Regular waits of three to four hours pushed roughly a third of respondents into the “much less likely to visit” or “would not go” categories. Those four source markets together account for a significant slice of all non-EU arrivals to Schengen Europe, which is why the deterrence rate produces such a large absolute figure when applied to projected arrivals.

For context: European Travel and Tourism contributed around $3 trillion to the continent’s economy in 2025 and supported 40.7 million jobs, according to WTTC’s own sector data. The EES risk is framed not as an airport-operations issue but as a macroeconomic one.

Has the deterrence threshold actually been crossed?

Not systematically. A YouGov survey of British travellers, conducted at the end of June 2026, found that most who had already crossed a Schengen border since EES went live in April said the system had no meaningful impact on their trip. Experiences varied sharply by airport and time of day. Some routes saw two-to-four-hour queues at peak moments; many did not.

Summer 2026 brought genuine congestion at leisure airports handling high volumes of first-time EES enrolments. Tenerife South, Palma de Mallorca, and several Greek island airports were among the worst affected. Schiphol and Paris Charles de Gaulle saw pressure at morning peaks but have more self-service kiosk capacity. The congestion was concentrated rather than uniform.

The WTTC deterrence scenario requires persistent three-plus-hour waits to materialise. Right now, waits that long remain the exception rather than a reliable feature of any specific route. The autumn picture is expected to improve as passenger volumes fall and the share of already-enrolled travellers at the border grows.

What WTTC wants member states to do

The council set out three priorities in its June statement. First, member states should accelerate adoption of the Travel to Europe app, which lets travellers pre-register biometric data online before reaching the border desk. Uptake across Schengen countries has been uneven. Pre-registered travellers move faster; the desk interaction becomes a verification rather than a fresh enrolment.

Second, a coordinated communication campaign across the UK, US, Australia and Canada should prepare travellers for what the border actually involves and how to use the pre-registration option. Third, member states need consistent staffing, working equipment and clear operating procedures so that the system runs as designed. The bottlenecks this summer often reflected understaffed desks or kiosk failures rather than the core system being broken.

Why the number matters even if the risk hasn’t peaked

The 41 million figure is the benchmark against which EU border policy is being judged. When airlines called for continued flexibility on biometric checks, when the European Commission weighed whether to extend the biometric pause mechanism, when Schiphol decided how many Marechaussee counters to staff: all of those decisions were made knowing that a sustained congestion problem carries a specific economic cost.

For travellers, the practical read is straightforward. The deterrence threshold has not been crossed. Queue times are real and worth accounting for in your plans, but the majority of Schengen crossings this summer have not reached the level that would put someone off visiting Europe in future. The risk is that a concentration of severe congestion events tips enough travellers into the “not worth it” column to affect booking patterns going into 2027.

If you have already completed your first EES enrolment at a Schengen border since October 2025, your biometric data is stored for three years. Return trips will be faster. The queue at your first crossing is the slow part; subsequent crossings skip the full enrolment step.

ETIAS is separate from all of this

ETIAS, the EU pre-travel authorisation expected in 2027, will be completed online before you leave home. It does not add to border queue time. Applications are not yet open. No action is required yet. Applications are not open. For how EES and ETIAS work alongside each other, the EES vs ETIAS guide covers both systems. For the current launch position, see the ETIAS status page.