Europe’s new $23 travel fee for Americans just got delayed again — and scammers are already cashing in
Europe was supposed to start charging Americans a new travel fee sometime before the end of 2026. In mid-July, the EU quietly deleted that deadline from its own official website — no new date, no announcement, just gone. If you’ve been rushing a trip to “beat the fee,” you can relax.
This is ETIAS, the European Travel Information and Authorisation System, and it’s now missed its own launch target so many times that even the travel press has started losing count. First slated for 2021, it’s slipped nearly every year since. The part that should actually get your attention isn’t the delay itself — it’s who’s cashing in on the confusion while you wait.
What ETIAS actually is (and isn’t)
ETIAS isn’t a visa. It’s a screening step for the roughly 30 European countries in the Schengen area, similar in spirit to the US’s own ESTA program for foreign visitors. Americans, along with UK, Canadian, and Australian passport holders, will apply online before a trip, pay a small fee, and get an approval back electronically.
Once it does launch, it won’t replace your 90-day visa-free tourist allowance — it’ll sit on top of it. You’ll still get the same 90 days in any 180-day period you already get now; you’ll just need to be pre-approved to use them.
The deadline that keeps sliding
ETIAS has been “almost here” since 2021. It slipped to 2022, then 2023, then 2024, then 2025, then landed on “last quarter of 2026” after a European Council announcement in March 2025.
As of mid-July 2026, even that target quietly disappeared. The official ETIAS site now says only that the system isn’t operational yet, with reporting pointing to a 2027 launch instead. Six slips in five years is less a rollout schedule and more a running bit at this point — yes, really.
The part that should actually worry you: fake ETIAS sites
Here’s where it stops being funny. Frontex, the EU’s border agency, has flagged more than 100 fake websites posing as official ETIAS portals — sites charging Americans anywhere from €50 to €178 to “pre-register” for a system that doesn’t exist yet.
Some of these sites borrow official-looking EU logos and language, and a few even promise “early access” or “faster processing.” Neither is real, because there’s nothing to access. If a website is charging you money for ETIAS right now, in 2026, it isn’t legitimate — full stop.
It doesn’t help that ETIAS keeps getting mixed up with the EU’s other new border system, the Entry/Exit System (EES), which actually did go live this year. EES swapped passport stamps for fingerprints and facial scans at the border. ETIAS is the separate pre-trip paperwork that’s still stuck in limbo — different system, same acronym soup, and scammers are happy to let the confusion do the work for them.
What it’ll actually cost when it does launch
When ETIAS eventually goes live, the fee will be €20 — about $23 at today’s exchange rate — not the €7 you’ll still see quoted on older articles. The European Commission approved that increase back in July 2025, specifically to cover the system’s operating costs.
Travelers under 18 or over 70 won’t pay the fee at all, though they’ll still need to apply. Once granted, approval is good for three years or until your passport expires, whichever comes first.
What to actually do right now
Nothing. That’s genuinely the whole move. Don’t apply, don’t “pre-register,” and don’t hand your passport number to a site that showed up in an Instagram ad promising to lock in your ETIAS before some imaginary rush.
When ETIAS finally does launch, applications will only go through the official EU portal — bookmark that, not a third-party site. Until then, keep your passport handy, ignore the countdown timers, and enjoy one more trip to Europe under the same rules you’ve always used. Anyone else feel like this fee has been “coming soon” since before the pandemic?
