Where border control at Palma Airport stands today
Palma de Mallorca Airport switched on the European Union's Entry/Exit System (EES) for arriving non-EU passengers on 19 November 2025. The phased introduction across the Schengen area ended on 10 April 2026, and the European Commission confirmed that the EES became fully operational on that date. For a UK passport holder flying to Mallorca, this is no longer a change to prepare for: it is the standard procedure at the border, and it has been for months.
The practical consequence is simple. The ink stamp in your passport is gone. Entries and exits are recorded digitally instead, which is how the system now detects a traveller who has exceeded the 90 days in any 180-day period that a British passport allows in the Schengen area.
What actually happens when you land
Non-EU arrivals are directed to EES positions at passport control. A border officer or a self-service kiosk reads the chip and data page of your passport, takes a facial image and records fingerprints. The date, time and place of every entry and exit are stored alongside that record. There is one documented age exception: children under 12 are not required to give fingerprints.
The first crossing is the slow one, because the file has to be created. Once your biometrics are on record, later crossings are matched against the existing file rather than built from scratch, which is why the airport's own guidance says waiting times were longest during the introduction and shorten once travellers are registered.
How long the queue really is
Reported waiting times at Palma are worth knowing before you book an early connection. In late July 2026 the Majorca Daily Bulletin put the average wait for non-EU passengers going through EES checks at around 30 minutes, with one recorded case of 1 hour and 10 minutes. Over the same period the number of police officers assigned to border control at the airport was reported to have risen by 52.08 per cent.
The cause of the worst queues is not the per-passenger check but the timetable. Rory Boland, travel editor at the consumer group Which?, described the mechanism plainly: when four or five aircraft full of passengers leave in the same window, close to 1,000 people need processing at once, and a check that takes a couple of minutes each turns into a long line. Which? named Palma among the worst airports for EES border queues in a report published on 30 July 2026.
Two things follow from that. Arrivals are unpredictable because you cannot choose who lands beside you, and departures matter too: the EES records exits as well as entries, so the same bunching can happen on your way home.
How long your data is kept
The retention rules are set by Regulation (EU) 2017/2226, not by the airport. An entry/exit record is kept for three years from the date of the exit record. If there is no exit record after your authorised stay has expired — the overstay case — the data is kept for five years from the date that stay expired. When the period runs out, the record is erased from the central system automatically.
You may see other figures quoted locally; the regulation is the authority here. A four-year retention period appeared in one July 2026 newspaper report, and it does not match the text of the regulation.
ETIAS is not in force, and nobody can sell you one
This is the part where travel advice published in 2025 has aged badly, including earlier versions of this page. The European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) is a separate scheme from the EES, and it has not started. The European Commission's own page states it plainly: ETIAS "is currently not in operation and no applications for travel authorisations are collected at this point".
The timetable has moved more than once. A target of the last quarter of 2026 was removed from the official pages in July 2026, and no replacement date has been published. The Commission has said it will announce the start several months in advance, so there will be notice.
What is settled is the price: the authorisation will cost 20 euros, revised upward from the 7 euros first proposed. It will not replace the EES check at the border; it is a pre-travel authorisation that will be requested before you fly, once the system opens.
Practical warning: because no applications are being collected, any website currently taking payment for an "ETIAS application" is not processing anything official. If you are told you need an ETIAS to fly to Mallorca in 2026, that advice is out of date.
Who is not registered at all
The EES applies to non-EU nationals travelling for a short stay, and the Commission published the list of exceptions on 27 July 2026. Nationals of Andorra, Monaco and San Marino are exempt, as are holders of Vatican City State or Holy See passports. EU nationals and citizens of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland are not registered in the system either.
The exception that matters most on Mallorca concerns residents. A non-EU national who holds a long-stay visa or a residence permit is exempt from EES registration — with a stated carve-out for permits issued by Cyprus or Ireland, whose holders are registered. Non-EU family members of EU, Icelandic, Liechtenstein, Norwegian or Swiss citizens are likewise exempt when they hold a residence card or permit.
In plain terms: a British passport holder living in Spain on a residence permit is not being clocked in and out as a visitor, while a British passport holder arriving for a fortnight in Puerto Pollensa is. If you hold a permit, carry it — it is what takes you out of the visitor queue and out of the 90-day count.
What this means for a Mallorca trip in practice
Carry a passport that is valid for the whole stay and issued within the last ten years, since that requirement did not change with the EES. Allow real time at the border on both legs, particularly if several UK flights are scheduled close together. Keep your return or onward ticket accessible: proof of onward travel and accommodation can still be requested at the border, as it could before the EES.
Count your days. The 90-in-180 allowance is unchanged, but it is now measured from a digital record rather than from stamps a border officer has to add up by hand, which removes the margin for error that used to work in a traveller's favour as often as against.
Families should know about the fingerprint exemption for children under 12 before reaching the kiosk, and travellers with reduced mobility should ask staff rather than join a self-service queue.
Then and now, at a glance
| Aspect | Before 19 November 2025 | Now, since 10 April 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Identity check | Manual passport stamp | Facial image and fingerprints, matched to a digital file |
| Record of your trip | Ink stamp, added by hand | Digital entry and exit record with date, time and place |
| Children under 12 | Stamped like adults | Registered, but no fingerprints taken |
| Data retention | None beyond the stamp | Three years from exit; five years if no exit record |
| Typical wait at Palma | Short, manual check | Around 30 minutes on average, longer when flights bunch |
| ETIAS authorisation | Not required | Still not required — the system is not in operation |
The short version
The biometric border at Palma is done being new. It works, it takes longer than a stamp, and the delays that make headlines come from several UK flights arriving or leaving at once rather than from the check itself. The one thing you do not need to do before your next trip to Mallorca is buy an ETIAS: it does not exist yet, and the European Commission will say so months before it does.