What's new at airports: what's changing for travelers

The new biometric control at borders (EES)

The Entry/Exit System records facial photos and fingerprints of non-EU citizens at every entry and exit from the Schengen area, replacing the passport stamp with a digital register. The rollout started on October 12, 2025 and became fully operational on April 10, 2026 in all 29 Schengen countries (including Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), with two exceptions: Cyprus and Ireland continue to stamp passports manually. At the busiest border crossings, until September 6, 2026, a waiver remains active that allows temporarily suspending biometric collection to manage queues — a useful detail to know if your flight arrives at a peak time.

Liquids without bag: where it already happens

The general rule of 100 ml remains in force in most of Europe, but where the latest generation CT scanners are installed, some security lanes already allow keeping liquids in luggage, in containers up to 2 liters: this is the case at Frankfurt, Munich (which as of September 18, 2026 extends the rule to all checkpoints, not just some lanes), Krakow, Poznań, Vienna, and at London Heathrow and Gatwick. In July 2025 some of these airports had temporarily returned to the 100 ml limit due to a technical issue with the scanners, later being resolved: useful then to check the instructions posted at your airport's checkpoint, instead of assuming the rule applies the same way everywhere.

The other trends underway

Alongside these two concrete changes, the use of automatic gates (e-gates) for passport control is growing, and some airports are expanding biometric identification also for boarding, allowing some checks to pass without physically showing your boarding pass at each stage.

If you often fly to Europe, it's worth checking in advance whether your arrival airport already applies EES or the new liquid scanners: adoption remains very uneven from airport to airport, and knowing what to expect avoids surprises at security.