By: Annalee Gunderson
It is easy to get excited about your European vacation. You have picked out the perfect outfits, bought your plane ticket, and booked your hotel room. But those are not the only things you will have to do to prepare for your upcoming escape. Starting in 2025, non-EU citizen tourists and travelers will be required to apply for ETIAS authorization before visiting Europe’s Schengen Zone.
ETIAS stands for “European Travel Information and Authorization System” and is an automated IT system that grants travel authorizations. The authorizations connect to a traveler’s passport and lasts for the earlier of three years or the passport’s expiration. The authorization is applicable for short-term stays, no more than 90 days in a 180-day period, in 30 different countries. These countries include France, Germany, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, and more. Getting ETIAS approval does not guarantee entry though, as you will still have to go through passport and border control upon arrival, show your documents, and meet the entry requirements.
The entire ETIAS program will not go into effect until six months after the Entry/Exit System (EES). EES is another new system by the European Union that will register non-EU citizens each time they travel across the border for a short stay in of one of 29 participating countries. The EU implemented this system to modernize their border management, identify overstayers, combat identify fraud, strengthen security, and provide border authorities with the right information. EES is due to go into effect sometime in 2025.
This plan has been in motion since a legislative proposal in Nov. 2016. In a Press Release in July 2018, the Commission praised the new system, hoping that it will give police officers and border guards “the right tools to do their jobs,” provide more information on visa-free travelers, and identify security risks before they reach the border. The release emphasizes that the ETIAS authorization will be affordable, quick, and simple, have the ability to cross-check EU information systems and grant clear rules for refusal to authorize someone.
The process to get ETIAS approval starts at the ETIAS website. With only a passport, or other travel document, and a credit card to pay the €7 fee, you can get most of the application completed. Information you will have to provide on the application includes personal information, passport details, your level of education and current occupation, details about your trip and intended stay, and any personal criminal convictions. It can take anywhere from minutes to 30 days to receive your authorization, so preparing in advance is recommended.
The official implementation of ETIAS was established on September 12, 2018, through Regulation (EU) 2018/1240. In the regulation, the EU acknowledged the “information gap,” one of the purposes of the system in the first place, stating that “border authorities at external Schengen borders have no information on travelers exempt from the requirement of being in possession of a visa when crossing the external borders.” Other than to bridge the gap and provide relevant authorities with the necessary information, the goal is to help “the fight against terrorist offences and other serious criminal offences” and identify people that pose high epidemic or illegal immigration risk.
This new step towards safer borders in Europe might be a crazy or inconvenient concept to American travelers. Although, when compared to other countries’ immigration policies for tourists, ETIAS aligns with trends seen in countries like the United States, Canada, and Australia, all of which have implemented electronic travel authorization systems of their own. The U.S. ESTA, for example, functions very similarly, requiring travelers from visa-exempt nations to apply online, pay a fee ($21 as of 2025), and receive approval before arrival. Canada’s eTA (Electronic Travel Authorization) operates under a nearly identical framework. Meanwhile, countries like Japan and China have traditionally maintained more lenient visa-exemption policies for short-term stays, though global trends are shifting toward stricter pre-screening procedures.
Whether the motive is more about safety, or an attempt to digitize and modernize an important part of the international travel vetting process, Europe has a lot of money riding on the success of this program. France and Spain were the top two most popular countries for tourists in 2024, with Italy and Germany also rounding out the top-10. All four countries are part of the new ETIAS regulations, requiring authorization before any non-EU-national is allowed to visit. With tourism being a major economic industry for Europe as a whole, accounting for 10% of the Union’s GDP, and even more important to some of these participating countries, there is a lot of motivation to get the system running smoothly. With European tourism at an all-time high in 2024, it will be imperative that tourists can get in and out of the countries efficiently, and with no problems, to keep those record-breaking numbers up. It makes sense why Europe would want to increase their border security and know who is coming into their countries when they have more tourists than ever before. The timing is still up in the air, but based on the EU’s information, it looks like tourists might have one more summer before having to get permission to enter. That is also extra time for the EU to broadcast this change and inform travelers before they get on their flights and are turned away at the border. It will be interesting to see if this causes any decline in European tourism, and if it does, if the Union decides to change the policy. What is more important to them, the economic health of the Union or national security? Only time will tell.
