Every summer, hundreds of thousands of Moroccan families living in Europe pack their cars and head home as part of the Marhaba operation; one of the world’s most logistically demanding seasonal migrations.
This year, those travelling to Morocco meet something new at the border. The EU’s Entry/Exit System, known as the EES, became fully operational on April 10, 2026, replacing the decades-old practice of stamping passports with a digital biometric system that records fingerprints and a facial image for every non-EU national crossing a Schengen external border.
The timing places it directly in the path of Operation Marhaba 2026, which runs from June 15 to September 15 and is expected to surpass last year’s record figures by 3%, moving over 3.5 million people and 800,000 vehicles between Europe and North Africa.
What the EES actually does
Launched in phased form on October 12, 2025 after delays that pushed it back from 2022, then 2023, then 2024, the EES is an EU-wide database that logs every entry and exit of a non-EU national crossing into the Schengen Area for short stays.
Instead of a border guard leafing through pages looking for a stamp, the traveler’s face and fingerprints become their travel record. The system automatically tracks compliance with the 90/180-day short-stay rule, flags overstays, and, according to EU authorities, has already detected hundreds of travelers using fraudulent documents or multiple identities.
There is no app, no pre-registration, no fee. The biometric enrolment happens at the border, in person, every time a traveler crosses for the first time in a given period. On subsequent crossings within that 180-day window, a quick biometric verification suffices.
But for the Marhaba diaspora, the vast majority of whom last crossed into Spain in summer 2025, before EES was fully live, nearly everyone faces full first-time enrolment this June.
The rollout of EES has not been smooth. Processing times at airports increased by up to 70% during EES’s initial phased operation, with some travelers waiting as long as three hours at peak moments, according to a report from Airport Council International (ACI) Europe.
In December 2025, Lisbon Airport suspended EES for three months after “serious deficiencies” produced waiting times reportedly reaching seven hours.
On May 23, 2026, French border authorities at the Port of Dover temporarily halted biometric data collection entirely to prevent hours-long queues from building during a busy UK holiday weekend.
France, through which a large share of Marhaba travelers will exit the Schengen Area via the port of Sète, faces a documented shortage of border staff and operational EES kiosks, and has not adopted the Frontex-developed “Travel to Europe” pre-registration app. Only Portugal and Sweden have so far embraced the app.
Greece announced in April that it would halt EES checks for British tourists this summer, citing the economic weight of UK visitor spending. Portugal is reportedly relaxing enforcement informally when airport queues become severe. Spain, which will bear by far the greatest Marhaba traffic volume, has not announced any equivalent suspension.
The crossing points: where delays will concentrate
The Marhaba operation is not a single crossing. It is a network of sea routes, most running between southern Spanish ports and the Moroccan coast, each with its own capacity profile and EES exposure.
Tanger Med has historically generated severe congestion in the surrounding Fahs-Anjra road network during Marhaba peaks. Adding EES enrolment queues on the Spanish side of the Strait creates pressure at both ends of a crossing that, even in ordinary years, asks families in packed cars to wait for hours in high summer heat.
Who needs to go through EES, and who doesn’t
This is the most urgent practical question for Marhaba families, and widespread misinformation is circulating in diaspora WhatsApp groups and online forums. The answer depends almost entirely on what documents a traveler carries.
A large share of the Moroccan diaspora in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands holds long-term residence permits, and those individuals are entirely exempt from EES biometric collection, provided they present that permit at the border.
Dual nationals who hold both a Moroccan passport and the passport of an EU member state should always present their EU document at the Schengen exit or entry point; they will be directed to the EU/EEA citizen channel and EES will not apply.
The confusion arises from mixed-document families where some members are EU nationals or permit holders and others are not, and from travelers who are uncertain about their status. Moroccan consulates across Spain will operate seven days a week, including weekends and public holidays, throughout the summer to provide guidance.
What authorities have prepared
Spain and Morocco finalized Marhaba 2026 preparations at the 37th Joint Moroccan-Spanish Transit Commission in Tangier in early May. Spain is deploying over 31,500 personnel, a nearly 10% increase on 2025, including Guardia Civil, health workers, social workers, translators, and volunteers.
Morocco has committed several million dirhams to port and airport infrastructure upgrades. The Port of Almería invested €141,830 in new shaded vehicle waiting areas covering 7,525 square meters ahead of peak season.
Neither government has announced a Marhaba-specific EES suspension or a dedicated biometric fast-track for diaspora travelers, in contrast to Greece’s decision to exempt British tourists.
The EU has acknowledged the EES carries “built-in flexibility” for temporary suspension during peak congestion, but has resisted formalizing this as a summer-wide policy.
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