Greece ends EES exemption for British travellers

If you are flying to Greece this summer and you hold a British passport, you will face the full EES biometric registration at the border. Greece tried to exempt UK visitors after the system launched on 10 April 2026, but the European Commission stepped in, and Athens reversed course on 31 May 2026. No nationality is exempt.

What happened: the short version

When EES went live, Greece made an announcement that surprised many travel industry figures: British passport holders would not need to provide fingerprints or a facial scan at Greek airports. The stated reason was economic. Greece’s tourism minister said the decision was meant to protect the estimated one million UK tourists who travel there each summer and to avoid the long queues that other airports were already experiencing.

The European Commission was not impressed. Officials in Brussels confirmed publicly that no permission had been granted for Greece to stop collecting biometric data from British visitors. Under the EES regulation, a member state can only suspend the biometric checks at a specific border crossing during a genuine, temporary period of exceptional congestion. A blanket nationality exemption is not in the rules. The Commission contacted Athens to remind it of the legal position.

Greece backed down. On 31 May, Greek authorities confirmed that no nationality, including British passport holders, is exempt from EES. The system is operating as required across all Greek border crossings.

What EES registration actually involves

The Entry/Exit System records your facial image, fingerprints and travel-document data at the border on your first Schengen crossing. Subsequent entries are faster, because your data is already on file. The whole process takes a few minutes at a staffed desk, or slightly less at a self-service kiosk if your airport has them. It is not dramatically different from the process at US or Australian border control.

What EES replaces is the passport stamp. Your entry and exit dates are now logged digitally rather than inked into your passport. Crucially, this is how the Schengen 90/180-day limit is now enforced. Border officers can see your remaining days instantly, and overstaying is caught at the exit crossing.

Why Greece wanted to skip it

Tourism is not a small line item for Greece. UK visitors spent roughly £3.7 billion there in 2024, and Greek island airports are among the most constrained in Europe. Rhodes, Mykonos and Santorini operate out of terminals that were built for a fraction of the volumes they now handle in summer. Adding a new biometric step to every first-time arrival, at those airports, at peak hour, produces real queues.

Athens presumably hoped the Commission would quietly look the other way. It did not. And that matters beyond Greece: it signals that the EU is not going to allow member states to carve out bilateral tourist-friendly exemptions, however understandable the commercial motivation. EES is a bloc-wide system, not a menu of options each country can tweak.

What should travellers heading to Greece this summer do?

• Plan for the queue. First-time registrations take longer. At island airports in July and August, plan an extra hour beyond your normal baggage-and-customs buffer.
• Have your passport ready. You will hand it to a border officer or scan it at a kiosk. Biometric passports work with the self-service kiosks; older non-chip passports require a staffed desk.
• Check your 90-day count. EES tracks every entry and exit. If you have already used Schengen days elsewhere this year, make sure your remaining total covers the length of your trip. Use the 90/180-day calculator if you are unsure.
• No exemptions, no workarounds. There is no way to skip the biometric step. Any site claiming to help you avoid it is not legitimate.

And for ETIAS?

ETIAS is a separate pre-travel authorisation system, not yet live, expected in the last quarter of 2026. It will apply to British, American, Canadian and Australian travellers, among others. Unlike EES, which happens at the border, ETIAS must be obtained online before you travel. Applications are not open yet, and you do not need to do anything now. For the full picture of how the two systems relate, see the EES vs ETIAS guide.