Schengen border checks: which countries, until when?

Eight Schengen countries have temporary checks at some of their internal borders: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland and Sweden. That is the position on the European Commission’s full list of notifications, dated 7 October 2026, as the page stood on 26 October 2026. The Netherlands ended its checks on 30 September 2026. These are national police document checks under the Schengen Borders Code, not EES biometric registration.

Which Schengen countries have border checks, and until when?

Each date is the end of the period the country has notified, not a promise that checks stop then. Countries usually renew shortly before a period runs out, and a renewal can change which borders are covered. We update this table in place from the Commission’s notifications page and note each change at the top of this page.

For the detail behind each country’s checks, see our pieces on Austria, Germany, France, Poland, Norway and Sweden, Italy and Spain and the Netherlands. The dates in this table are the current ones.

When do the Italy and Spain checks end?

On 19 October the Commission’s list showed Italy’s checks on flights and sea crossings with Spain running to 23 October 2026 and Spain’s checks on flights and sea crossings with Italy running to 22 October 2026. On 26 October neither appeared on the page any more. Italy cites the events in the Spanish city of Ceuta, and both cite the risk of people moving on within Schengen. Italy started on 1 August and Spain on 8 August, each with a block of about a month, and both renewed in blocks of roughly two weeks until the last notified dates. We have not found an announcement saying why they dropped off the list, so check the table again before you travel.

What has changed since June?

In mid-June 2026 the Commission’s list showed nine countries with ongoing controls: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Sweden. Since then:

• Germany and Austria renewed to 15 March 2027, and Poland to 30 March 2027.
• France notified a new period from 1 November 2026 to 30 April 2027, and Sweden, Denmark and Norway one from 12 November 2026 to 11 May 2027.
• Denmark renewed its checks on the German border to 11 November 2026, before its new period from 12 November.
• Italy and Spain added checks on air and sea links with each other from August.
• The Netherlands ended its checks on 30 September 2026. Since 1 October the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee has relied on mobile checks in a wider area around the borders with Belgium and Germany instead.
• Some checks were short and tied to events: Switzerland on its border with France from 10 to 19 June for the G7 summit in Evian, Italy on its border with France from 24 to 26 July for a festival in the Susa Valley, and Norway at all its internal borders from 4 to 14 September for the funeral of King Harald V in Oslo. Slovenia’s controls ended on 11 June.

How long can a country keep border checks in place?

The Commission’s page sets out the limits in the revised Schengen Borders Code. For a foreseeable threat, checks can run for up to six months at a time and normally no more than two years in all. In a major exceptional situation a country can add six months, and then a final six months, for up to three years. For an unforeseeable threat, a country can act at once for a month, up to three months in total. After six months of checks, every further notification must include a risk assessment.

What does a check actually involve?

It varies. At some crossings it is a brief glance at a passport before waving you through. At busier routes you will stop, hand over your document, and wait while an officer runs a quick verification. The Commission’s State of Schengen report notes that in most cases the reintroduced controls have been non-systematic spot checks, so many travellers cross without being stopped at all.

Unlike the EES registration you go through at an external Schengen border, none of this enrols your biometrics or creates an EES entry record. It is a document check: is your travel document valid, and does anything in police databases flag a concern? For the overwhelming majority of visitors, it takes a minute and you move on.

Why is this happening?

The Schengen Borders Code has always allowed member states to reintroduce temporary internal checks when there is a genuine security or public-policy threat. The notifications cite combinations of terrorism risk, irregular migration, migrant smuggling, organised crime and sabotage threats. France has renewed controls repeatedly since 2015. Germany extended checks to all its land borders in September 2024 and has since prolonged them.

The Commission’s 2026 State of Schengen report, published on 18 May, said ten Schengen states prolonged internal controls in 2025, and it urged countries to use the tools in the revised Schengen Borders Code to phase them out. Its argument is that EES, fully operational since 10 April 2026, and the EU’s new migration pact will significantly strengthen the conditions for progressively lifting internal controls. It also reported that detected illegal crossings at the EU’s external borders fell by more than 25% in 2025 compared with 2024.

That said, the report is a political signal, not a binding order, and the decision to reintroduce or prolong checks rests with each country. For now, most of the controls remain in place.

Does this affect me if I arrive on a long-haul flight?

Internal checks only apply at borders between Schengen countries, not at the external border where you first arrive. Flying into Paris or Frankfurt from outside Schengen, you will face the standard EES registration at the airport as usual. You might meet a document check only if your trip then crosses one of the internal borders in the table. Most are land borders, but France and Sweden cover air and sea crossings too, and Italy and Spain check flights and ferries between the two countries.

If your whole trip stays within one country you will not notice anything different. Busy tourist routes such as the Franco-Spanish crossings at Irun and La Jonquera and the Franco-Italian route through Ventimiglia sit on borders where France has notified controls, and Germany’s notified controls cover all its land borders, including those with Austria, Switzerland and France.

What should I carry?

Your passport (or a national ID card if you are an EU or EEA citizen) should be on your person any time you cross one of these borders, even on a flight within Schengen. A phone photo of your passport does not satisfy a document check. The physical document is what border police need to see.

Keep an eye on your Schengen day count as well. The 90/180-day rule applies to your total time inside the Schengen area, not to any single country. EES logs every entry and exit at the external border automatically, and crossing an internal frontier does not reset your count.

Does ETIAS change any of this?

No. ETIAS is a pre-travel authorisation for the external border. It covers whether you can enter the Schengen area at all, not what happens once you are moving between member states inside it. Internal border checks are a national decision under the Schengen Borders Code and will continue to be, regardless of whether ETIAS is live.

ETIAS is not yet live, and no official start date has been announced; press reporting points to 2027. No action is required yet. Applications are not open. For the current timeline, see the ETIAS status page. For a full explanation of how EES and ETIAS relate to one another, the EES vs ETIAS guide covers both systems side by side.