ETIAS, the new requirement to enter the Schengen area, will start from next year 2025 as already announced by the European Union authorities. At the moment we are waiting for the EES system, which is the base system of ETIAS, to be activated in all airports, and the expected date is November of this year 2024. But while all this is taking shape… many doubts arise and among them one of the most recurrent is: How many times will I be able to enter with my ETIAS in any country of the Schengen area? Will I have to update, each time I enter, which country I am going to visit?

Everything is up in the air, and we still do not know exactly how it will work and what data we will be able to modify in the application form but, in several official communications we can read: unlimited entries without exceeding 90 days within a period of 180 days. What does this mean? We understand then that they are not unlimited entries, but will be a maximum of 2 per year, since each year has 2 periods of 180 days. To this we must add that if your passport expires before the three years of validity of the ETIAS – SEIAV, then your authorization will also expire and you will have to obtain another one with your new issued passport.

It is always advisable that the authorization is requested before paying for any other service of the planned trip, such as airline tickets, hotels or cars, as it is part of the main documentation together with the passport or travel document. Whenever we are going to travel the first thing we check is if our passport is valid, well now we will have to check if our ETIAS – SEIAV is also valid.

From November we expect news about the launching of EES at all airports. EES will be available at the airport premises with single-use kiosks, where we will have to scan our passport and digitize our fingerprints.