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AdobeStock/IvanSemenovych
8
October
2025

Entry/Exit System: Fundamental rights guidance for border guards

The Entry/Exit System (EES), launching in 2025, will register non-EU nationals crossing the EU’s external borders. This FRA guidance helps border guards apply the new rules in line with EU fundamental rights. It offers practical tips on informing people, collecting biometric data and supporting people with specific needs. Based on fieldwork at 10 border crossing points in 6 Member States, the guidance will ensure rights are respected under the new system. A separate guidance publication for managers accompanies this publication.

Based on research carried out between May and September 2024, FRA compiled fundamental rights considerations for the operation of the EES that were consulted by practitioners and experts at a workshop in September 2024 and at training events organised by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.

This guidance is for border guards in EU Member States who work at the operational level. It primarily addresses staff working at first-line checks. It aims to support a fundamental-rights-compliant operation of the EES.

The guidance for border guards focuses on four operational areas that were identified in the research as the most relevant for the protection of fundamental rights:

  • informing non-EU nationals;
  • processing personal data;
  • supporting non-EU nationals with specific needs;
  • treating overstayers.

Safeguards in other EU legal instruments, such as the Schengen Borders Code, remain applicable. Nothing in this guidance restricts or adversely affects applicable fundamental rights standards and safeguards.

The guidance complements FRA’s 2020 guidance Border controls and fundamental rights at external land borders, which applies to border management tasks in general and does not refer to EES-related tasks.

This guidance is published together with a separate guidance publication for EES managers and senior border management staff at border crossing points (BCPs), The Entry/Exit System: Fundamental rights guidance for managers, 2025. It includes selected key findings from the research.