Is three hours enough for departure passport control at Madrid Airport?

[Maggiethecat]

Teenage Dd leaves Madrid airport tomorrow after a short visit and is wondering if three hours is enough time to go through passport control.

The new digital entry exit system which came fully into force on 10/4/26, although operating prior at some airports, seems to be causing chaos at some airports and I wonder if anyone has any recent experience of the non EU queues at Madrid.

I went through Madrid a couple of weeks ago and it was fine. It's a big busy airport and there was a bit of queuing for the machines, but nothing outrageous

Yes, they weren’t responsive! Though this was entering the country, not leaving, so I suppose not the same stress in terms of catching flights. Though the space was very hot and crowded with lots of people overheated and sitting down on the ground.

I was there last month on 2 occasions and it was ok. 3 hours is plenty.
also on our way back on the last visit I was very late and told them I didn’t have time for the verification thing. They just let me straight through without completing it.

Dd just messaged me to say that she’s just gone through security (Terminal 1) and passport control is right next to it and it’s quite empty
so she’s going to go through.

She wonders if there are any more checks and potential queues before she gets to her gate?

No

Ok, great!

That was all we had at Tenerife but could see boarding gates at that point with seats by them. If she can't see boarding gates I would keep going towards them. I have seen people online saying they had passports twice and second queue was an hour. Though maybe ask a staff member if one around to be sure. It sounds like she is probably fine.

She’s on board. She moaned that she could have hung out in the centre for longer, didn’t need to arrive so early (3 hours) but better moaning about that than missing flight 😂

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences!