Travel: Rules are changing for British travellers heading to non-EU countries

New rules for British travellers to European countries

Transcript

00:00Seamus, could you just start off by telling us the new rules that are coming into place

00:06for British travellers? Just kind of summarise what this new ETIAS, EES passport scheme is

00:13and what people need to know about it.

00:16Absolutely. There's two different schemes, the EES and the ETIAS, and they're both quite

00:20different. They've both been delayed by several years at this point as well. So there's quite

00:24a lot of confusion as to what's going on there. The EES is the entry exit system. It's the

00:29new system that rather than stamping passports, when you go to a European country, you'll

00:35be going through an automated fingerprint biometric scanning system that will record your biometrics,

00:41put them on a database, that'll then be associated with your passport. And therefore, rather than

00:46having to talk to a border security guard and stamp your passport, you should be able to

00:49go through the gates automatically and easily. So that's the EES. ETIAS is a separate system

00:55which will come in probably six months after EES is finished bedding in. And that's a visa

01:01waiver scheme, which will cost a little bit of money for anyone who's outside the EU to

01:06enter the EU and stay. So a British holidaymaker, anyone from the UK will need to buy the ETIAS

01:12scheme in due course.

01:15So what would it kind of be like, you know, when you go to America and you get a visa, is

01:19it going to be something a little bit like that when you go to EU countries?

01:23So the ETIAS is very much like the US ESTA, yes. If you've ever gone to the US and bought

01:29their visa waiver scheme, to go to the US, depending where you're flying in from, they

01:33will require you to have a visa. But if you're coming from the UK or a number of countries

01:37with which they have relatively cordial relations, you can simply buy the visa waiver, which is

01:42the US ESTA. And the EU ETIAS is very much modelled on that. It's a very similar scheme.

01:48Once you've bought it for a few pounds, it's currently going to cost about £6, £7. Once

01:52you've bought it, you'll be able to go in and out of the EU on that visa waiver, yes.

01:56I mean, the good news is they're going to phase this implementation and it will take a little

01:59while for any of it to bed in. So in October, they'll start to implement the EES. It will

02:05probably take six months of that implementation to be complete. Six months after that, they're

02:09likely to start implementing the ETIAS, which is the paid visa waiver scheme. So actually,

02:13there's going to be nothing to pay for anyone flying to the EU this year, probably nothing

02:18to pay for almost anyone flying to the EU next year. But when this starts to actually become

02:22a problem for people insofar as it does is likely 2027. So holidays this year, holidays

02:28next year entirely hassle-free.