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ETIAS: the EU travel authorization that isn’t live yet

Europe’s new €20 entry authorization has no start date, and websites are charging for it anyway. What does apply to Americans right now is a fingerprint check at the border.

By Edward Silva · 5 minute read · Checked against EU announcements and independent travel and legal reporting

If you have been reading about ETIAS — the European Travel Information and Authorisation System — you could be forgiven for thinking you need to apply this year. You do not. As of 1 October 2026 the system is not in operation, the European Union is not collecting applications, and it has not said when it will start.

ETIAS, at a glance
StatusNot in operation. The EU’s official ETIAS page states that no applications are being collected.
Start dateNone. The “last quarter of 2026” target was dropped from the official page in July 2026, and 2027 is now the likely year.
Fee, once it starts€20 per applicant, set by the European Commission on 17 July 2025 — up from the original €7.
Who paysAges 18 through 70. Applicants under 18 or over 70 pay nothing, but still have to apply.
ValidityThree years, or until the linked passport expires, whichever comes first.
Official sitetravel-europe.europa.eu (and the EU’s own app). Any other address is not the EU.

What it is

ETIAS is a pre-travel screening for people who do not need a visa to visit the Schengen area. It is not a visa. Nothing is stamped or mailed; an approval is a code tied electronically to your passport, good for short stays of up to 90 days in any 180. It is the EU’s version of what the United States already asks of European visitors through ESTA, and once it is running it will apply to Americans.

Why there is no date

ETIAS depends on eu-LISA, the EU agency that builds and runs it, finishing its technical work. Reporting in July said the agency had concluded that a 2026 start was not achievable, and the “last quarter of 2026” wording disappeared from the official page. A revised schedule was expected after eu-LISA’s September board meeting. None had appeared in the sources checked for this piece. The place a date will show up first is the official page itself.

The UK trade press had also reported that the EU was set to delay ETIAS after problems with long lines under the other new border system, covered below. The two are connected: ETIAS was meant to arrive after that system settled in.

The date has moved before. When Euronews reported the new €7 fee in August 2022, the headline said travelers would not have to pay until autumn 2023. By March 2025 it described the system as delayed until 2026. Then came the fourth-quarter-2026 target, and now its removal. A start date that has been wrong several times is a reason to read the official page rather than a headline.

The part that is already costing people money

A permit with no start date is an ideal product for anyone willing to invent one. Websites that sell ETIAS applications exist, and the EU has warned about fraudulent ETIAS sites. The logic is not complicated: no application can be submitted because none is being collected, so a site that takes a payment today is not selling an ETIAS authorization.

The real application will cost €20 on an address ending in .europa.eu. Anything that costs more, or ends in anything else, is not it.

The pattern is the familiar one: an official-looking page, a fee, a deadline that feels real. Why scammers need you to act right now covers why the deadline is always the tell.

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What does apply now: the Entry/Exit System

The change Americans will actually meet in Europe is not a form completed beforehand. The EU’s Entry/Exit System, EES, has been fully operating at the external borders of the Schengen area since 10 April 2026. For a short stay:

EES for a visa-exempt American
First entryA photo and four fingerprints are taken and linked to your passport. Children under 12 are exempt from the fingerprints.
Passport stampsGenerally no longer used for short stays the system covers. The record is electronic.
The 90-day limitThe system counts your days automatically against the 90-in-any-180 rule.
What you do beforehandNothing. There is no pre-registration and no fee.
What to expectLonger lines at some borders while countries adjust, as early travelers reported.

The 90-in-180 rule is the part that matters most to anyone who spends long stretches in Europe, and EES changes how it is enforced. The window rolls: on any given day the system looks back 180 days and counts the days you spent inside Schengen during that period, and the total may not exceed 90. If you spent 80 days there, left, and came back 20 days later, your 80 earlier days are still inside the lookback, so you would have only 10 days left until the earliest of them age out. The same arithmetic always applied; the difference now is that the system does the counting rather than a border officer reading stamps.

The age line is unsettled

Reporting is not uniform on the fee exemption for older travelers. The EU’s own wording, as quoted by AARP and others, is applicants under 18 or over 70. AARP elsewhere summarizes it as 70 and older. Those differ for exactly one birthday. Until ETIAS is open and the application spells out the rule, the age-70 edge is not worth treating as settled.

What is true today

  • ETIAS is not required for any trip because it is not operating. There is nothing to buy.
  • A site that takes payment for it now is not the EU. The real address ends in .europa.eu.
  • What applies at the border is EES: a photo and four fingerprints on first entry, no stamp, no pre-registration.
  • The fee, when it starts, is €20, with an exemption for under-18 and over-70 applicants who still have to apply.
  • Your passport still has to meet the entry rules. The passport rules that turn people away at check-in covers the ones that catch people.

For anyone planning a European trip in 2027 or later, the sensible note to keep is a short one: check the official ETIAS page before booking. It will say when the system is open, and it will be the only place that is certain to.

This is general travel information, not personal travel advice. Prices, eligibility rules and program terms change, and can vary by provider, country or season. Verify current terms directly with the agency, airline, park or consulate linked above before you rely on them.

Where these facts come from

Checked on 1 October 2026 against the sources listed below. Dollar limits and program rules change — if you're reading this well after that date, verify the numbers at the links below.

Edward Silva

Edward Silva

Edward spent more than forty years as a computer professional — long enough to pick up one useful occupational habit: when somebody hands you a summary, go and read the actual documentation. He started The Second Half Guide after noticing that most writing aimed at people his age was either talking down to him or quietly selling him something, and that the plain facts — the dates, the thresholds, the dollar figures — were somehow the hardest part to find.

He's married, with two grown sons, both married themselves. He is not a financial adviser, an attorney or an insurance agent, and this site doesn't tell you what to do with your money. It tells you what the rules actually say, and links to where he checked.

Next up

The passport rules that turn people away at check-in

The other entry rule, and the one that has nothing to do with ETIAS: what a passport has to look like at the gate.

Read it →
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