If you’re flying into Tenerife from outside the EU — the UK, US, Canada, Australia and dozens of other countries — passport control now takes noticeably longer than it used to. Travelers on the Tenerife and Arona forums have been describing multi-hour queues at this exact stage, before baggage claim, before the transfer bus, before any of it. If you’re picking up a rental car on arrival, that’s not just an annoying wait — it’s time being eaten out of your pickup window before you’ve even reached the car hire desk.
EES (Entry/Exit System) is a new biometric border-registration system for non-EU visitors from visa-exempt countries (UK, US, Canada, Australia and others). It adds roughly 1-2 minutes per person at first crossing, but at a busy airport that turns into queues of an hour or more at peak times. Local Canarian firms like Cicar and Autoreisen typically give around a 3-hour grace period for pickup, while international brands and budget agencies often allow only about an hour.
What is EES, in plain terms
EES replaces the manual passport stamp with an electronic record: your photo and fingerprints are captured once on your first entry, and after that the system simply matches you against what’s already on file. In theory it’s fast. The bottleneck isn’t the technology — it’s volume. The terminals can’t process everyone at once when several flights carrying large numbers of UK and other non-EU passengers land close together, which is exactly the traffic pattern at Tenerife South Airport.
One thing worth stating clearly: if you’re travelling on an EU passport (Irish passports included), EES doesn’t apply to you at all — you go through the separate EU lane, and the rest of this guide isn’t relevant to your trip.
Why this hits your car hire booking specifically
A border queue is a different problem from a flight delay. Your plane landed on time, your rental booking is active, but there’s now a queue between you and the pickup desk that the rental company has no visibility into and that flight-tracking software doesn’t account for. It’s a separate risk category from flight delays affecting car hire pickup, and most of the usual “give them your flight number” advice doesn’t help here — your flight wasn’t the problem.
Most airport rental companies work on a grace period: a window after your booked time during which your car is still held without penalty. That window is measured from your scheduled pickup time, not from when you actually clear the border.
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| Company type | Typical grace period | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Local Canarian (Cicar, Autoreisen) | ~3 hours | The most forgiving buffer on the island |
| International brands (Avis and similar) | ~1 hour | Can be even stricter at Tenerife North |
| Budget agencies / brokers | Varies, often shorter | Confirm the exact policy at booking |
If a border queue eats up an hour or more of your buffer, renters with international brands have far less room to spare than those who booked with one of the best-reviewed local companies.
Who EES actually affects
EES applies to travellers from visa-exempt, non-EU countries — that means UK visitors and Canadian visitors are directly affected, along with US and Australian citizens and several others. A separate system called ETIAS — a pre-travel online authorisation for the same group of travellers — is not yet mandatory. When that changes, this section will be updated, but for now it isn’t something you need to arrange before a Tenerife holiday.
South Airport or North — where the queues are worse
Most UK and other non-EU flights land at Tenerife South (TFS), so that’s where border-terminal pressure is heaviest, especially during busy morning and midday arrival banks. Tenerife North (TFN) mostly handles domestic Spanish and intra-European routes, so EES queues are rarely an issue there. If you have any flexibility over which airport to fly into, that’s one more point in favour of reading our North vs South comparison — though in practice your flight route usually decides this for you, not the other way round.
How much extra time to build in
- 🕐 Add at least 60-90 minutes to your usual baggage-claim estimate, especially on a morning or midday flight in peak season
- 📞 If the queue is clearly long, call your rental company before you reach the desk — don’t wait until you’re standing in front of them. Local firms are generally far more flexible about stretching the window than brokers are
- 🧳 Avoid booking a tight transfer, a same-day dinner reservation, or a first-night check-in right after landing — the same logic as our guide to flight delays and car hire pickup, just with a different cause
- 🛂 If this is your first trip since EES started, plan for the slower first-time process deliberately — registration is quicker on repeat visits since your biometric data is already on file
Frequently asked questions
Can I do anything in advance to speed up EES? There’s no app or pre-registration that speeds up the actual EES check at the airport — it happens at the border itself, not before you travel.
Does EES apply to children? Yes, biometric data is captured for children too, though there are age exemptions for fingerprint capture for the youngest travellers.
If I’ve already been through EES on a previous Tenerife trip, will it be faster next time? Generally yes — your data is already on file, so a repeat crossing is usually quicker than the first one. But the overall queue length still depends on how busy the terminal is at that moment, not just your own status.
Is this the same as ETIAS? No. EES is the border-registration check that happens when you enter or exit. ETIAS is a separate online travel authorisation you’ll need to apply for in advance once it becomes mandatory. It isn’t required for a Tenerife holiday at the moment.
