The EES - what to do if one family member has EU passport?

[Ozgirl76]

We’re visiting Europe in the next few weeks. My husband has his Irish passport, the rest of us don’t (I never will, the kids’ applications are processing). When it comes to the EES, can we all go through, piggybacking on the Irish passport or will he go through by himself and us in the queue?

I think it depends on the airport. I was waved through into the EU line with Dh and dds who have French passports in Lisbon. I skipped the EES queue and did it at the desk with a border guard, it took about 5 minutes, I had mentally prepared for a long queue and absolute chaos!

Other than Irish passports, of you’re a British passport holder you must use that when going in and out of the UK even if you have another passport. This was brought in recently and there’ve been quite a few news stories of people who’ve ended up stuck.

I've always hitherto used the EU lane with a UK passport whilst travelling with DH and DD (dual EU-UK nationals) without issue. Travelling next month for the first time since the introduction of EES. I had assumed that whilst I would need to use the kiosk first to provide my biometrics, I could then still use the EU queue at passport control as I've always done since brexit.

Coming back from Italy on Friday, only British passport holders, we'd done the fingerprint scans and photos on way out and other hand on way back. The machine told us to go to the automated gates (which were signed as "All Passports") but the staff wouldn't allow us to and made us wait in a 1 hour queue. We did see a few British passport holders going through the automated gates - maybe they were family members in a group with EU passport holders? What was the point of the fingerprints though if not to use the automated gates?

We had a positive experience returning from Spain, an airport official beckoned me to join my DH in the EU queue. But Spain can be rather more laid back than some other countries, IME.

There is an unspoken rule that families should not be separated at borders - I’ve got married friends - travelling without children - who argued this when they were told to go into separate queues who were then able to pass through together.

A UK citizen with an EU spouse is also entitled to additional residence and free movement rights which aren’t necessarily going to be recognised if you pass through separately.

This me and the kids with the Irish passports and we wave good bye to the English Dad😆

Greece have suspended EES until next year. Enjoy OP!

Well I’m happy to report that although Greece did have the EES suspended there was still quite a queue for passport control. We asked if we could all go through on the Irish passport and the answer was yes! Reckon it saved us about 30 mins and there were quite a few families with one euro and the rest British passports.

A friend tried to go through with EU spouse at Majorca last week and was denied. Had to queue with the Brits for an hour.

Use the non-eu lane. As a family my dc have travelled, we've travelled. Never had an issue at all with immigration queues. Sometimes I wonder is it all made up? Like a 20 minute wait, sure. But the whole "waiting for an hour". When my DC left Italy, it was scan passport, scan finger, scan eye, go to boarding gate. Took a few minutes and that's it.

EES was only introduced this year.

We have just come back from a holiday in the EU. Both ways the non EU lanes were shorter, apart from the biometric queues which were universally long.

I've just queued an hour for EES at Palma in Mallorca while my husband and kids have gone straight through on Irish passports. There were at least 500 people in the EES queue and they suspended it after an hour and let everyone go through with an exit stamp in their passport otherwise no one travelling on a British passport would have caught their flights.

My DC had an EU holiday in January and in June. Smooth border process

EES became fully operational in April 2026 so only
one of those trips is probably relevant.

I like that your one anecdote based on your DC must mean everyone else must be making it up…

I’ve done 6 flights since April 2026 in the EU and have had a variety of experiences. In one I waited 90 mins and the flight was very delayed as a result, in another the flight was delayed 45 mins, again due to just one person checking passports. The others were all fine.

Dh and the DC have Uk and EU passports are I always used to go through the queue with them entering and leaving an EU country, in fact once when we had the DC's friends with us we were 4 EU/4 UK and were told we could use the EU queue
However, since the changes recently I can't do it any more. last time we went to Spain (no DC) DH used his UK passport to register his biometrics and when we go next week the DC will too. They will need to do it at some point so it might as well be when we aren't in a rush

They still had to scan at the kiosk in January, do biometrics, answer the questions and then got passport stamped.

In July the experience was smooth and quick for them. Entry was smooth, exit was smooth.

Oh thank God for that 😂 I was worrying about DS going on his first holiday with his mates. He's in Crete. But a bit annoying as he's going to Berlin for a city break later and I thought he'd be in the system!

Just seen this but yes can go through as a family of someone has an EU passport. We did this in Spain recently. My DH has spent ages bragging how he would be by the sunbed by the time I queued but the rules allow it, there are fingerprint things in the EU queue!

In our experience, it depends where you go. 2 out of 3 of us are dual EU passport holders, the other is UK only

Had no issue using the EU passport lane to get into Italy, Portugal and Switzerland. Denmark were very unhappy with the idea, told us off (which was fine) but still let us through

We’re in the same situation with one eu passport in the family.

we were directed to the EU queue at Geneva. When we said we were not all eu, they told us only one member of the party needs to be, provided everyone is related/a family.

same happened in zurich, rotterdam, lisbon, paris and geneva a second time.

we even managed it with a non family traveller in the mix on one occasion

maybe it depends on how stressed/busy the airport staff are and where the biggest queue is 🤷‍♀️

For what it’s worth: DC and I have EU passports, DH does not. But when we travel to EU as a family we always go in the EU queue as a group including DH and no one has ever stopped us or said anything.

The spouse of an EU citizen has the right to travel with him or her and exceed the Schengen restrictions. So you can travel together but you'll all have to go through "all passports" usually. Sometimes there is a family line.

That's because you're entitled to travel with him (although the e gates can't handle this in most places).