Portugal's Airport Border Checks Since 6 September: The Biometric Switch-Off Is Gone

Since 6 September 2026, every non-EU passenger arriving for a short stay at a Portuguese airport from outside the Schengen area gives a photograph and fingerprints. The six-hour switch-off Portugal leaned on through the spring and into the summer expired the same day.

A week in, the PSP told Lusa that a Lisbon passenger who took 5 to 15 minutes when biometrics could be suspended now takes 15 to 30 minutes. Collection runs de forma fluida, smoothly, everywhere except Faro, which is under greater pressure.

If you live in Portugal on a residence permit, none of this is aimed at you: the Entry/Exit System does not register residence-permit holders. Show the passport and the permit.

If you arrive on a non-EU passport for a short stay, our July post told you to budget an extra hour. That still holds at Faro; Lisbon now looks like a half-hour problem. The hour is ours, not the PSP’s.

What changed on 6 September?

The relief valve had an expiry attached. Under Regulation (EU) 2025/1534, a member state could partially suspend the Entry/Exit System at one border crossing point for a maximum of six hours when the wait became excessive: the crossing was still recorded, only the biometrics dropped, and the Commission and eu-LISA notified. The power ran 90 days from the end of the phased start, plus an automatic 60-day extension. Portugal used it through the spring and into the summer; our July post has the record.

Nine governments asked for it: Portugal, seven other EU states and Switzerland wrote to the home affairs commissioner, Magnus Brunner, in July. The Commission did not extend it, and the flexibility lapsed on Sunday 6 September 2026. A Commission spokesperson, quoted by Euronews on 4 September, said the system had “broadly worked well” over the summer.

One narrower allowance is left, and it reaches us as the PSP’s account, not a published Commission decision. The force told Lusa that the Commission has allowed biometrics not to be applied, until December, where there are technological problems, because some EU states are still building EES capacity. João Ribeiro was careful with the wording: não de suspensão no conceito antigo, not suspension in the old sense.

IATA puts a standard passport check at about 90 seconds under the EES, against 20 to 25 seconds before. The valve for a busy morning is gone; the only one left is for a broken machine.

How long is the wait now?

One airport has a number.

Airport	PSP figure, 13 September 2026
Lisbon (Humberto Delgado)	15–30 min, against 5–15 min with the switch-off
Porto (Sá Carneiro)	none given
Faro (Gago Coutinho)	none given — named as the airport under greater pressure

That figure came from the PSP’s deputy national director, chief superintendent João Ribeiro, who heads its Unidade Nacional de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (UNEF), the national immigration and borders unit.

Ribeiro called 15 to 30 minutes bastante aceitável, quite acceptable. For Porto and Faro he gave no minutes, and we are not going to invent any. For Faro he gave an example: on Thursday 10 September 2026, more than 10 flights landed within 25 minutes, carrying a large number of passengers, essencialmente britânicos — essentially British.

The last wait times published for all three airports are the PSP’s maxima for 31 May 2026, in our July post. They were measured while the switch-off was available, so they describe a border that is gone.

Our planning assumption for September and October: 30 minutes at Lisbon or Porto, and an hour at Faro when a bank of UK flights lands together. The 15–30 range is the PSP’s; the hour at Faro is ours — what we would leave in a schedule, given one interview, one week in, and a named pressure point with no number attached.

Why is Faro the pressure point?

Start with who flies there. The United Kingdom remained the main country of origin and destination for air passengers in July 2026, ahead of France, Spain, Germany and Italy, on INE’s count of 7.7 million passengers at national airports, up 2.0% year on year. A British passport is a non-EU passport and a fortnight in the Algarve is a short stay, so every such arrival is registered.

Then the arrivals bunch. Ribeiro named weather and air-traffic delays, which push separate peaks into one slot, as on 10 September.

Faro is also the smaller desk. UNEF has 1,504 officers on airport security and border control: 706 at Lisbon, 325 at Porto, 215 at Faro, 115 in Madeira, 124 in the Azores and 19 at Beja.

Ribeiro puts the unit at 80% da capacidade recomendada, 80% of recommended capacity, and says the gap he wants closed is specialist rather than numerical: document-fraud detection and migration-risk analysis. For now, he said, they are comfortable.

On the PSP’s account, the slowest crossing in the country right now is a Faro arrival inside a British bank of flights.

Does this apply to you?

It applies if you are a non-EU national on a short stay — up to 90 days in any 180.

It does not apply to:

• nationals of EU countries, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland;
• non-EU nationals with a long-stay visa or residence permit from a country that operates the EES, Portugal included — Cyprus and Ireland permits are the exception;
• non-EU family members of one of those nationals, holding a residence card or permit;
• nationals of Andorra, Monaco and San Marino, and Vatican passport holders.

If you are registered, the first crossing is the slow one: it creates the record — name, travel-document data, fingerprints, a facial image, the date and place of entry and exit. Later crossings are a quick verification. The system had taken over 145 million entries and exits by 27 July 2026.

What waits past the border is in getting around Portugal.

Will the queues come back?

The PSP will not rule that out. Garantia absoluta não podemos dar — an absolute guarantee we cannot give — Ribeiro said, though every measure is being taken to minimise it. It depends on technology, national and European, and on staffing.

Airport waits ran to several hours for months earlier in 2026, mainly at Lisbon, and reversed from the end of May on three things: technology investment, rearranged passenger flows, and 360 extra officers at the air borders. No constraints followed through the summer months.

Ryanair wants the pause back until at least April 2027; its chief operating officer, Neal McMahon, quoted by Skift on 7 September, called the EU’s handling “a shambles from start to finish”. That is a request, not a rule change — and on the PSP’s account the cost so far is minutes, not hours.

What should you do next?

• Landing and moving on? Getting around Portugal covers the trains, coaches and travel cards on the other side of passport control.
• Still choosing dates? The best time to visit Portugal makes the case for the second half of September, and the arrival halls point the same way.
• Already booked? Build the days around our 7-day Portugal itinerary, and leave the first morning soft.
• Want the numbers from before the change? Our July post carries the PSP’s 31 May maxima and the law behind the valve.

Border arrangements are moving month to month. Verify the current position with the European Commission’s Entry/Exit System pages before you travel.