It’s finally here, you guys.
After years and years of back and forth, the European Union has officially started rolling out its controversial new Entry/Exit System, or EES.
As of April 10, 2026, Americans, as well as any other foreign tourists landing in an EU country will get their fingerprints taken, and their biometric data entered into the new system.
In case you’re wondering why this is even happening, Europe is planning on a major overhaul of its entry rules this year, and EES is merely the start. Towards the end of the year, Americans should prepare for another major blow.
Stay until the end of the article to find out what that is.
For the time being, though, there’s one black sheep in the EU family that’s notoriously sitting this one out. In fact, they won’t be joining in any of the latest reshuffling of entry requirements: for Americans, this means no fingerprinting or facial scans.
Ireland Is Sitting This One Out.
Despite being a full EU member, Ireland is not planning on enforcing EES anytime soon.
As a matter of fact, they’re not interested in the slightest.
If you fly to France, Spain, Italy, or Croatia this summer, you should prepare for long, and we mean loooong, delays at the border as the new system kicks in. Major roadblocks have already started traveling from Bosnia, a non-EU member, into Croatia, with drivers reporting being held at the border for 6+ hours as their data was entered into the EU’s new diigtal system.
In airports, where wait lines are already exceedingly-long, it’s no different.
Those landing in Lisbon Airport in Portugal at 6 am were yet to go through passport control at 11 am this week, and across several major European airports, the same plight is echoed.
Going to Europe this summer? Use the new Entry Requirement Checker to verify travel rules at your exact destination.
That is because, on top of undergoing the usual procedures, travelers must now line up first to register at an EES kiosk. The process typically involves scanning your passport, registering your fingerprints, undergoing a facial scan, and waiting until the system fully logs in the data.
Needless to say, summer vacays in Europe will be bumpy this year, but not in the Emerald Isle.
Why Is Ireland Breaking Rank With The EU?
In Ireland, Americans can still literally breeze through the border, oftentimes with no passport checks whatsoever.
They are eligible to use eGates at Dublin Airport (DUB), which means they get fast-track pass without speaking to a border agent first.
That’s a privilege they still hold, and will continue to regardless of what shenanigans mainland Europe gets into, and although we’d love to believe this is due to Ireland and the States’ kinship and historical ties, there’s a more practical, less-romantic reason for this.
So why is Ireland the odd one out, you ask?
The Opt-Outs
It’s simple: when it joined the EU all the way back in the 70s, it had the option to opt out of a bunch of treaties newer members who joined decades later, like Romania, Bulgaria or Croatia, did not.
For starters, it got to choose whether it would take up the euro as the national currency or not, which it did at the turn of the century.
It also got a say on whether it would be absorbed into Europe’s Schengen Zone, formed in the 90s, which it did not.
For those who don’t know what the Schengen Zone is, it’s a border-free area encompassing a majority of countries in the EU, as well as select non-EU countries like Switzerland and Norway.
Instead, Ireland chose to stay out, but not for the reasons you might think…
Enter The Common Travel Area
Prior to the Schengen Zone coming into force, Ireland had already signed a border-free agreement with the United Kingdom, with which it shares a land border via Northern Ireland. They called it the ‘Common Travel Area’, or CTA, and officially lifted passport checks for travel within it.
At the time, the U.K. was also a member of the European Union, but had similarly opted out of the Schengen Zone. For practical reasons, and let’s be real here, mainly in order to avoid tension flaring up along the Northern Irish border again, Ireland followed Britain’s lead.
The U.K. has left the EU as of 2020, yet Ireland remains a member.
In order to maintain its light-touch travel agreement with Britain, our Irish friends simply cannot enforce Schengen, and by default, EES rules.
In other words, Americans can continue traveling to Ireland hassle-free, without fingerprinting.
This makes Ireland the outlier in the EU, but Ireland is not the only country in the wider Europe dodging the EES mess this summer. Here’s 4 others.
Ireland is one of the 10 safest countries to visit in Western Europe. Here’s what travelers are saying:
Ireland Is Also Dodging Europe’s ETIAS
The EU’s border overhaul doesn’t stop there.
Remember we told you at the start of the article there’s a major change coming later in the year?
That’s the ETIAS, or Electronic Travel Authorization. That’s a lot of words for eVisa, but basically, towards the fall, unless you apply for this new mandatory online permit, you will not be allowed onboard your EU-bound flight.
No more sipping wine in the South of France, gorging on fresh pasta in the Amalfi Coast, or beach-hopping around Greek islands. Not unless you get approved to fly, anyway…
Well, guess what, folks? Ireland is infamously turning down ETIAS too. Once again, they can’t enforce ETIAS without compromising their CTA agreement with Britain.
Americans will still be welcome in Ireland completely visa-free, for stays of up to 90 days, and even better: irrespective of time spent in other European nations.
Yep, We’re Skipping The Med This Year
In case you didn’t know, Schengen Zone rules are much stricter. You get 90 days (out of a rolling 180-day period) across the entire 29-country block.
This means if you go to France for 15 days, you only get 75 days to explore all other countries in the bloc.
We’re not sure about you, but giving the mounting pile of bureaucracy, and the new harsh measures, we’re very much inclined to give the Mediterranean a miss this summer and go on a little coastal drive along Eire’s gorgeous Wild Atlantic Coast.
Medieval castles, towering coastal cliffs, cheeky Leprechauns lurking in every corner—or maybe just the average, redhead, big-bearded Joe…
What’s not to like?
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