Algarve Hoteliers Sound Alarm Over EU Border System: 'This Could Mean Chaos This Summer'

With peak tourism season less than four months away, hotel associations in the Algarve have sent an urgent letter to Prime Minister Luís Montenegro calling on the government to suspend the rollout of the European Union's new Entry/Exit System at Faro Airport. Their warning: without a delay, the biometric border checks set to go live on April 10 could generate queues and processing delays that would damage Portugal's reputation as a smooth, welcoming destination for international visitors.

The Entry/Exit System — known as EES — is the EU's long-delayed digital border management overhaul, designed to replace the traditional passport stamp with a biometric record of each non-EU national's arrivals and departures at external Schengen borders. It will apply to citizens of non-EU countries, including British, American, Canadian, Australian, and other third-country nationals who currently move through Portuguese airports without fingerprinting or facial scan requirements.

The system has been in planning for years and has faced repeated implementation delays. When it eventually enters force, border officers will be required to capture fingerprints and photographs from eligible travellers at each entry point. For airports such as Faro — which handles a disproportionately high volume of short-haul leisure flights from Northern Europe during the summer months — the concern is that even a modest increase in processing time per passenger could cascade into significant queuing and congestion.

The Algarve hotel associations' letter to Montenegro specifically flagged the June-to-September window as a period of maximum risk. During those four months, Faro Airport handles a substantial portion of its annual traffic, much of it from non-EU countries that will be fully subject to the new checks. Hoteliers argue that if the system is not adequately prepared — with enough kiosks, trained staff, and a clear communications strategy for arriving travellers — the result could be delays that ripple outward from the airport and affect check-in times, tour departures, and the broader visitor experience.

The call from Portuguese hoteliers echoes similar concerns being raised across southern Europe. Hotel and airport authorities in Mallorca, Spain, have issued parallel warnings, and the broader travel industry has been lobbying Brussels for a phased or conditional rollout that avoids disrupting the summer season.

For the significant number of British visitors who represent one of Portugal's largest and most reliable source markets — particularly in the Algarve — the EES will mark the most visible change to travel since the end of free movement following Brexit. British nationals will need to be registered in the system on their first entry after it goes live. EU citizens and Schengen-area nationals will not be affected.

The government has not yet responded publicly to the hoteliers' letter. The question of whether Portugal will press for a suspension or carve-out at the EU level, or seek to mitigate the impact through national measures at Faro and Lisbon airports, is expected to come before parliament in the coming weeks. The Prime Minister has previously signalled that Portugal considers tourism a strategic sector, which may raise pressure on his administration to act before the summer window opens.

Portugal welcomed a record 31.8 million tourists in 2025. Any disruption to the arrival experience during the 2026 season would carry consequences not only for the hospitality sector but for the wider economy, where tourism-related revenues account for a significant share of GDP.