07-03-2023
By the end of this year, travellers from more than 60 countries who may presently enter the Schengen Area without a visa will be required to apply for a travel authorization in order to enter any of the Member States.
The debut of the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), which has been delayed multiple times, is unlikely to be delayed again, according to etiasvisatoeu.com
This implies that travellers should plan on applying for an ETIAS authorization beginning in 2024.
While the EU has made some measures to tell people of third countries who may require an ETIAS in the future, and more are planned in the coming months, travellers are still unclear about how ETIAS will effect them and what its purpose is.
Improper media reporting and interpretations of the ETIAS, frequently done on purpose, have caused uncertainty among travellers who have been trying to keep up with the system and the date it will go into force for a few years.
Based on the most frequently asked questions about ETIAS from our readers in the past, we have addressed the top nine things one needs to know before the system starts in 2024.
1. ETIAS Is Not a Visa
When the EU was still working on EU laws, many media and questionable websites stated that ETIAS was a new sort of visa, leading visitors from over 60 countries to assume that they would soon require a visa to enter the Schengen Zone, provoking not only concern, but also resentment among many.
ETIAS is not, in reality, a visa. ETIAS is a visa waiver pre-screening programme for all EU visa-free tourists, including British, Americans, Kiwis, Albanians, Bosnians, and others.
In March 2019, the EU envoy to the US reacted to a tweet from a well-known American media outlet suggesting that Americans will soon require a visa to travel to Europe, disputing that the ETIAS is a visa and instead pointing out that it is the counterpart of the US ESTA.
The latter is also a pre-screening procedure for visitors from over 40 countries who are eligible to enter the United States under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP)
“Both the ESTA and the forthcoming ETIAS (EU counterpart) are not visas. “They conduct pre-travel screening for travellers who benefit from visa-free entry,” the delegation stated in a tweet.
Similarly, EU authorities have frequently denied suggestions that the ETIAS is a visa in recent years.
There are several distinctions between an ETIAS and a Schengen Visa, the most significant of which being that in order to acquire a Schengen visa, you must set an appointment, gather a lengthy list of papers, attend an interview, and pay a hefty price.
On the contrary, applying for a travel authorization takes approximately 10 minutes, and there is no need to attend an interview, set an appointment, or even collect the necessary documents for a visa. Also, the charge is quite low in comparison to Schengen visa rates.
2. ETIAS Website Is Not Up Yet, But Will Be Under “europa.eu” Domain
There are presently a plethora of websites claiming to be the official ETIAS website, as well as others that do not expressly claim this but look to be an official EU site. There are also others that pretend to be mediators for acquiring an ETIAS, which is a completely unneeded service.
The website via which applicants would apply for an ETIAS has not yet been published, but EU officials are working on it. The ETIAS website will be under the Europa.eu domain, which implies that any other websites that finish in “.com,” “.net,” “.eu,” or similar characters are not legitimate.
An EU press official confirmed the domain to SchengenVisaInfo.com in October 2020.
“This website will be part of the “europa.eu” domain name and will employ the EU visual identity, making it easy for Internet users to recognise it as an official EU website. “We are also developing a search engine optimization plan to ensure that the ETIAS website is easily found in internet searches,” the press officer stated at the time.
The EU is also aware of the various fraudulent websites posing as the legitimate ETIAS website, according to the same source.
“We are aware of the proliferation of websites that offer information and/or services linked to ETIAS,” a eu-LISA press officer informed SchengenVisaInfo.com in an email exchange.
The eu-LISA is the agency in charge of supplying all of the technological solutions and functions for a website that can handle all of the ETIAS web services needs.
3. Schengen Visa Applicants Will Not Be Affected by ETIAS
Visitors from over 100 countries who presently require a Schengen visa to visit any of the 27 Schengen Area countries for short-term stays and purposes like as tourism, business, visiting family members, and so on, will no longer require an ETIAS.
However, if a nation receives visa liberalisation after the ETIAS becomes effective, applicants from that country will need the ETIAS instead of Schengen visas.
This will be the situation for Kosovo, to which the EU Council has guaranteed visa-free entry once the ETIAS is implemented.
4. ETIAS Is Not a “Brexit Revenge” But Rather a Security Measure
Several British newspapers attempted to portray the ETIAS as an EU retaliation for Brexit, but this is completely false.
Whilst both the proposal for the ETIAS and the Brexit referendum in the UK to leave the EU took place in 2016, they are unrelated.
In truth, the system’s development is an attempt by the EU to safeguard its borders following a rush of migrants who arrived at the EU’s frontiers in previous years, as well as a series of terrorist acts that occurred throughout the continent, killing tens of Europeans.
“We need to know who is entering our country. “This way, we’ll know who’s coming to Europe before they arrive,” stated then-EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker while introducing the plan.
The initiative is also intended to help EU nations decrease entrance processes at external borders and strengthen the visa liberalisation strategy.
5. Many Other Countries Have Similar Schemes, Including the US, Australia, & Canada
The EU is not the first or last to implement such a plan. Several countries have run comparable programmes for nearly identical goals for years, if not decades.
Since 2007, the United States has run the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), which is also an online application system for travellers from countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). An ESTA application costs US $4, with an extra fee of US $17 levied if granted, for a total of US $21. This makes it three times the price of an ETIAS.
From March 23, 2013, Australia has operated a programme called Electronic Travel Authority (eTA), which costs AU$20.
The United Kingdom is also developing a comparable system, which is currently known as Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) and will serve the same purpose as the ETIAS. This implies that once the UK ETA becomes operational, EU travellers will be required to get one in order to enter the UK’s territory.
6. Application Procedures Are Supposed to Take About 10 Minutes
As previously said, applying for an ETIAS is far easier than applying for a visa. Fill in basic information, submit a scan of their passport and a photo, and you’re done.
The entire application process is projected to take around 10 minutes.
7. It Costs Only €7
Notwithstanding what some newspapers have said, the ETIAS is actually relatively affordable. “Brits will have to pay to join the EU,” and “Travel to the EU will become more expensive,” have been two of the most popular statements in recent years, both of which are accurate to some extent, but not to the extent that they sound.
An ETIAS will cost €7, which is at least one time less than any other travel authorizations issued by other nations’ systems. Also, travellers will not have to get a new ETIAS every time they travel because they may use the same one as long as it is valid.
8. You Can Travel to Schengen Area With the Same ETIAS, As Long As It Is Valid
As previously stated, despite attempts to make it appear that travellers would require a new ETIAS every time they go to Schengen Area countries, this is completely false.
An ETIAS will initially be valid for two years. If the traveller’s passport expires within two years after applying for an ETIAS, the first ETIAS issued will be valid until the expiration of their passport.
Travelers who apply with passports that are older than two years will be issued an ETIAS that is good for two years.
Individuals who apply for a second ETIAS after their first expires will obtain one with a validity of up to five years, then 10, and so on.
9. Operation of ETIAS Is Linked to the Entry/Exit System
The ETIAS’s functioning is inextricably related to the debut of the Entry/Exit System (EES). The latter is another another method recently devised by the EU in order to improve security in the Schengen Zone.
The EES is a large-scale information technology system that, among other things, will replace visa stamping. It will be implemented as part of the EU’s Smart Borders Package, of which the ETIAS is also a component.
It will also play an essential part in Schengen visa applications, since once fully operational, authorities responsible for issuing Schengen visas must consult the EES when processing visa applications and making decisions to annul, revoke, or extend the validity term of a granted visa.
NOTE: An earlier version of this text suggested that the ETIAS will debut in November 2023. The EU has since moved the launch date to 2024, however the specific date is uncertain. To keep readers up to speed on the most current developments, the text has been updated.