A Big Change Is Coming for International Travelers Visiting Europe

I can still remember my first international trip, and the absolute novelty of getting stamps in my passport corresponding to various international destinations. There’s something inherently charming about the way that a passport functions as both an official document and as a personalized memento of international travel. At least, that’s how passports have traditionally functioned — but now, change is on the horizon, at least for some destinations.

As Senitra Horbrook reports at The Points Guy, Europe is in the process of introducing a new border control system, which will be fully in place by April 2026. One of the side effects of the arrival of the Entry/Exit system is the end of stamped passports. Instead, the Entry/Exit system will collect biometric data from non-E.U. travelers arriving in the Schengen area, which encompasses 29 European countries.

“It is crucial that we maintain effective control over third-country nationals entering the Schengen Area, so that we can strengthen security at the external borders,” said Denmark’s Minister for Immigration and Integration, Rasmus Stoklund, in a statement. “With an E.U.-wide IT system, it will become easier to monitor who is crossing our borders.”

The data collected as part of this system will include photographs of travelers and scans of their fingerprints. Presently, the E.U. expects that this system will be fully in place by April 10, 2026. So if you’re looking to get some passport stamps from a European trip recorded, your window to do so is getting narrower.

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Horbrook’s article has more details on how the Entry/Exit system will work, including details on how and when various airports across Europe will implement the system. The new system is in place in destinations like Duesseldorf Airport and Václav Havel Airport Prague, and it is set to go into effect at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol — and, presumably, other European airports as well — on November 3, 2025.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…