By the end of this year, travellers from over 60 countries worldwide, who can currently travel to the Schengen Area without a visa, will need to apply for a travel authorisation in order to be able to enter any of the Member States. This means that travellers should prepare to apply for a European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), as it is being launched in 2024.
While the EU has undertaken a few steps to inform citizens of third countries, including the UK, who will need an ETIAS, regarding the system, application procedures, fees, and more, travellers still remain confused about how ETIAS is going to affect them, and what’s its purpose is.
Based on the most frequent questions regarding ETIAS, SchengenVisaInfo.com have clarified the top nine things one needs to know, before the system launches next year.
1 ETIAS Is Not a Visa.
While the EU was still working on the regulations, many media and suspicious websites had claimed that the ETIAS was a new type of visa, making travellers from over 60 world countries believe that they would soon need a visa in order to travel to the Schengen Zone.
In fact, ETIAS is not a visa. ETIAS is a visa waiver pre-screening program for all travellers under the EU visa-free program, including Britons, Americans, Kiwis, Albanians, Bosnians, etc.
In March 2019, the EU delegation to the United States responded to a tweet of a well-known American medium claiming that Americans will soon need a visa to travel to Europe, denying that the ETIAS is a visa, and rather pointing out that it is the equivalent of the US ESTA.
The ESTA is also a pre-screening program of travellers from over 40 countries that can enter the US under its Visa Waiver Program (VWP)
“Neither the ESTA nor the future ETIAS (EU equivalent) are visas. They carry out pre-travel screening for travellers benefiting from visa-free access,” the delegation said in its tweet.
Similarly, over the past few years, EU officials have refuted claims that the ETIAS is a visa. There are many differences between an ETIAS and a Schengen Visa, and amongst the most important ones is that in order to obtain a Schengen visa you need to make an appointment, collect a long list of documents, attend an interview, and pay quite a high fee.
In contrary, the application for a travel authorisation takes only about ten minutes, and there’s no need to attend an interview or make an appointment, or even collect the documents required for a visa. In addition, the fee for it is very cheap compared to Schengen visa fees.
2 ETIAS Website Is Not Up Yet, But Will Be Under europa.eu Domain.
There are currently lots of websites pretending to be the official ETIAS website, or others that don’t directly claim that, but appear as an official EU site. In addition there are others that claim to be intermediaries for obtaining an ETIAS, which is an absolutely unnecessary service.
In fact, the website through which applicants will apply for an ETIAS has not been launched yet, but the EU authorities are working on it. The ETIAS website will be under the Europa.eu domain, which means that every other existing website, and others that will for sure pop up soon ending with “.com” “.net” “.eu” etc., are not legit.
The domain was confirmed in October 2020 by an EU press officer. “This website will be part of the europa.EU domain and will use the EU visual identity, making it easy for Internet users to identify it as an official EU website. We are also working on an SEO strategy to make sure the ETIAS website is easy to find in online searches.”
3 Schengen Visa Applicants Will Not Be Affected by ETIAS.
Travellers from over 100 countries who currently need a Schengen visa to travel to any of the 27 Schengen Area countries for short-term periods for holidays, business, visiting family members, etc., will not need an ETIAS.
Yet, in case a country gets visa liberalization after the ETIAS becomes effective, that’s when applicants from that country will start needing the ETIAS, instead of Schengen visas. This will be the case for Kosovo, to which the EU Council has promised visa-free entry after the ETIAS becomes effective.
4 ETIAS Is Not a “Brexit Revenge” But Is A Security Measure.
Many British tabloids had tried to colour the creation of the ETIAS as a revenge action of the EU for Brexit, but this is not true. Although the proposal for the creation of the ETIAS and the Brexit referendum in the UK for leaving the EU both took place in 2016, they are not related.
The idea to create the system is an attempt of the EU to secure its borders, after the wave of migrants that reached them in previous years, and several terrorist attacks that took place all over the block, resulting in tens of Europeans losing their lives.
“We need to know who is crossing our borders. This way we will know who is travelling to Europe before they even get here,” the then-EU Commission’s President Jean-Claude Juncker said when presenting the proposal.
It is also expected that the scheme will assist the EU countries to reduce entry procedures at the external borders and reinforce the visa liberalisation policy.
5 Many Other Countries Have Similar Schemes.
The EU is not the first, nor the last to introduce such a scheme. Other countries have operated similar systems, for almost identical purposes, for years now, and even decades.
The United States have operated the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA) since 2007, which is also an online scheme for applications for travellers from countries under the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP).
The fee for an ESTA application is US $4, and if approved, an additional fee of US $17 is charged, for a total of US $21. Which makes it three times more expensive than an ETIAS.
Australia, on the other hand, has been operating a scheme called the Electronic Travel Authority (eTA), since 23rd March 2013, which costs AU$20.
The UK is also working on a similar system, which for now is being called Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), and will serve the same purpose as the ETIAS. This means that once the UK ETA becomes effective, travellers from the EU will need to obtain one to enter the territory of the United Kingdom.
6 Application Procedures Will Only Take About 10 Minutes.
As emphasised above, applying for an ETIAS is so much easier than for a visa. Travellers will need to fill in some information, upload a scan of their passport, and their photo, and be done. The whole application process is expected to take about ten minutes.
7 It Costs Only 7 Euros.
Despite what some tabloids have tried to portray, the ETIAS is quite cheap. It will cost only €7, which is at least half the cost of all other travel authorisations operated by other countries. Moreover, travellers won’t have to obtain a new ETIAS every time they travel, as they can use the same one over and over again, as long as it is valid.
8 You Can Use The Same ETIAS, As Long As It Is Valid.
As said above, despite the attempts to make it look as if travellers will need a new ETIAS every time they travel to Schengen Area countries, this is also untrue.
An ETIAS will be valid for two years at first. If the traveller’s passport expires within two years after application for an ETIAS, then the validity of the first-obtained ETIAS will be until the expiration of their passport.
Travellers who apply with passports that are valid for more than two years will obtain an ETIAS valid for two years.
Those who after their first ETIAS expires, apply for a second ETIAS, will receive it with a validity of up to five years, and then ten and so on.
9 Operation of ETIAS Is Linked to the Entry/Exit System.
The operation of the ETIAS is deeply linked to the launch of the Entry/Exit System (EES). The latter is another lately developed system by the EU, in a bid to enhance security in the Schengen Zone.
The EES is a large-scale IT system which amongst others will replace visa stamping. It will be implemented as a part of the Smart Borders Package introduced by the EU in 2016, part of which is also the ETIAS.
It will also play an important role in Schengen visa applications, as once it becomes fully operational, authorities responsible for issuing Schengen visas shall consult the EES when processing visa applications, as well as before decisions to annul, revoke or extend the period of validity of an issued visa.
