EES Monaco 2025 : towards 100 % digital frontiers
Publié par Paolo Petrini le 10/10/2025
Temps de lecture
9
min.
Taxation and Legislation
From 12 October 2025, every entry or exit from the Schengen area will be digitally registered via the new EES (Entry/Exit System). This European system replaces the stamp on the passport with automated verification and will make travel outside the Schengen zone visible. For Monaco residents, this will not change anything on a daily basis, their residence permits remain recognised and exempt them from this system, but those who declare that they live in Monaco without fully residing there will have their departures outside the Schengen automatically traced. A discreet but major development, which could eventually strengthen controls on the real residence and taxation of semi-residents.
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A new fully digital European control
Before measuring the effects in Monaco, it is essential to understand the functioning of the new Entry/Exit System, the automated platform created by the European Union to strengthen control at the external borders of the Schengen area. The SEA in force since October 12, 2025 , will be gradually deployed at all border crossings, airports, ports, train stations and international routes, to be fully operational by April 10, 2026. This will replace the manual stamp on the passport with a digital record at each crossing, recording identity, travel document, date and place of entry or exit, as well as the authorized duration of stay. It will also collect biometric data, face photos and fingerprints, of each visitor concerned. In other words, any crossing of an external border by a third-country national will now be archived in a database common to the 29 Schengen countries.
From the point of view of the European institutions, the objectives of the system are clear: to make border controls more reliable, to strengthen the fight against illegal immigration and to improve the Union's internal security. In practice, it will make it possible to identify visa overruns more quickly, to identify illegal entries and to speed up checks for registered travellers thanks to biometric recognition. Ultimately, this infrastructure will promote increased information sharing between Member States, while complying with European regulations on the protection of personal data.
Monaco exempted, but beware of the Schengen exit
Good news for the residents of Monaco. The EES Monaco system will not change anything about their travel formalities. The Prince's Government has confirmed that neither Monegasques nor foreign residents will be subject to biometric registration when crossing the Schengen borders. This exemption is a direct result of European texts. The Schengen Borders Code and Regulation (EU) 2017/2226 exclude from the system persons holding a valid residence permit issued or recognised by a member country.
Although Monaco is not part of Schengen, its residence permits, temporary (1 year), ordinary (3 years), privileged (10 years) or for the spouse of Monegasques (5 years), have been recognised as equivalent since an agreement concluded in 1998.
In practice, anyone legally residing in Monaco is treated as a resident of the European Union: no visa is required to travel to France or Italy, and no passage through the EES terminals is necessary.
"The introduction of this system will therefore have no impact on Monegasque nationals or residents holding a valid residence permit," says the Prince's Government (source: official press release of 8 October 2025, gouv.mc).
The inhabitants of the Principality will therefore continue to travel as they do today, without fingerprinting or facial scanning. Their Monegasque residence permit will be sufficient to prove their status and avoid any EES registration.
Even if the situation remains favourable for residents, the gradual implementation of the system will lead to a short adaptation period. The Monegasque authorities have also informed neighbouring states so that this exemption can be properly applied, in particular at the border crossings of Menton on the French side and Ventimiglia on the Italian side.
During the deployment phase (October 2025 – April 2026), some slowdowns are possible at the checkpoints while the system stabilizes.
Non-Schengen travel: a new traceability to anticipate
Before the implementation of the EES system, when a Monegasque resident of Japanese nationality, for example, left the Principality to go to Japan (a country outside the Schengen area), he or she passed through an external border, most often at Nice airport. His passport was then stamped manually on the way out, and then on his return. But these stamps remained purely administrative: they were neither centralized nor digitized, and their verification depended on a visual examination of the document. In practice, as long as no authority physically controlled the passport, it was impossible to know the exact duration of the absence. In addition, in the event of a lost, replaced or degraded passport, these stamps disappeared, making any reliable reconstruction very difficult.
Since 12 October 2025, the date of entry into force of the new system, every entry and exit from the Schengen area is now registered electronically. A Japanese resident leaving Monaco for eight months now leaves a time-stamped digital trail that can be consulted by the European authorities. The system does not consider him a "tourist", but it objectively documents the duration of his absence through a unified database.
Theoretically, this information could, in the future, be taken into account to assess actual residence, in particular during a renewal of a residence permit or an administrative check. However, it should be recalled that to date, there is no official indication that the EES data will be used for this purpose. This is simply a possible scenario, mentioned by several of our customers who have consulted us on this new regulation.
For residents living in Monaco or moving freely within the Schengen area (France, Italy, Spain, etc.), nothing has changed: their internal movements are not recorded in the system. But for so-called semi-resident profiles, who are often absent from Europe for several months a year, the EES brings a new transparency that did not exist before.
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