If you're planning a European trip and keep seeing headlines about a new "Europe visa," here's the short version: ETIAS is not live, there is no start date, you cannot apply for it, and any website charging you for ETIAS today is not selling you a government authorisation.
Status as at 3 September 2026
| Where it stands | |
|---|---|
| Can you apply? | No. No application channel of any kind is open. |
| Is there a launch date? | No. The "last quarter of 2026" target was removed from the official EU page in mid-July 2026. |
| When will we know? | A revised timeline is expected after eu-LISA's board meets in September 2026. Current reporting points to 2027. |
| What do you do meanwhile? | Nothing, and pay nothing. Travel to Europe works exactly as it did before. |
What ETIAS is
The European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) will require visa-exempt visitors — including travellers from the US, UK, Canada and Australia — to get an online authorisation before entering 30 European countries. When it launches, it's expected to cost €20, be valid for three years (or until your passport expires), and allow the usual short stays of up to 90 days in any 180-day period. It is not a visa, and it will not change who is allowed to visit Europe — only the paperwork that comes before the flight.
Why the date keeps slipping
ETIAS was originally meant to start in 2025. In March 2025 the European Council pointed at the last quarter of 2026 instead. Then, in mid-July 2026, that target quietly came off the official ETIAS pages — no press release, no replacement date. The reporting behind the change is consistent: eu-LISA, the EU agency actually building the system, had concluded internally that a 2026 launch was no longer feasible.
The dependency is the important part. ETIAS was always sequenced to start a few months after the Entry/Exit System was working, so every EES delay pushes ETIAS with it. The EU has said it will confirm the real date several months in advance, and that there will be a grace period after launch before it is strictly enforced.
Don't confuse ETIAS with EES
The Entry/Exit System (EES) is the one that is actually running: it began a progressive rollout on 12 October 2025 and became fully operational on 10 April 2026 across all Schengen countries. EES asks nothing of you in advance and costs nothing — it replaces the passport stamp with a digital record, plus a facial image and fingerprints taken at the border. The queues you may have read about at major airports were EES growing pains, not ETIAS.
| EES | ETIAS | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Biometric border registration | Pre-travel online authorisation |
| Apply in advance? | No | Yes (when live) |
| Cost | Free | €20 (planned) |
| Status | Fully operational since 10 April 2026 | Not launched, no date |
One practical consequence of EES being live: your 90-day allowance is now counted from a database rather than from ink. If you spend real time in Europe, the Schengen 90/180 calculator will tell you how many days you have left and when they come back — the same arithmetic a border officer's screen now does automatically.
Watch out for pre-registration scams
Every delay breeds a fresh wave of lookalike sites offering to "pre-register" or "waitlist" you for ETIAS for a fee. There is no such thing — the EU has not opened any application channel, so there is nothing to be first in line for. This mirrors what we see across the eVisa world: unofficial sites imitating government portals is the single most common way travellers lose money. Our visa-rejection guide explains how to sanity-check any travel-document website before paying.
What you should actually do now
- Check your passport's expiry date — every electronic authorisation system, ETIAS included, is linked to the passport, and most destinations want six months of validity beyond entry.
- Count your Schengen days if you travel to Europe often, because EES now does it for you. The 90/180 calculator is free and runs in your browser.
- Ignore anyone selling ETIAS today.
- If your travels this year go beyond Europe, check whether your destination needs an eVisa or eTA — Kenya, India, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and others all require one, and those systems are very much live. Our visa checker answers it for your passport in one click.