My transit at Brussels Airport was marked by a horrifically slow-moving line with hundreds of people waiting to proceed through passport control at 9:00 am.
Passport Control Lines – Brussels Airport
I ate breakfast in the Brussels Airlines Schengen Lounge (A gate area) and then proceeded over to the non-Schengen part of the airport (B and T gates) for my flight to New York. As I turned the corridor, however, I was shocked to see hundreds of people simply standing around waiting in line, with queues stretching back way beyond the security checkpoint.
Thankfully, I fished out my Aufenthaltstitel (German residence permit) and used the EU lane, even though I am not sure if I was eligible for it.
It appears that since my late autumn trip, Brussels Airport has installed e-gates in this area, such that nationals from the UK, US, and Canada no longer have to wait in line to see an agent.
That’s the bigger point of this post…who has been through Brussels Airport recently and can report on their experience? Is it always that bad?
Because I’m not going through the airport again if I have to endure waits like that…it’s absurd inefficiency and just another reason why BRU is my least favorite major airport in Western Europe (still not as bad as Bucharest, though).
My data point is from Oct. 2019
It was as terrible as you experienced I have been avoiding it ever since… would be interested to know if the E gates have helped
My data point is from around 2018, I believe, and I have made it a point of avoiding BRU at all costs.
Hi Matthew.
On the 8th of November 2024, me and my family flew through Brussels on the way to Boston vis Chicago.
We were in the queue you’ve just mentioned for 1 hour and 38 minutes. When we finally got to the gate, the flight was already closed. Luckily United was aware of the situation, and re-booked us on a later flight via Washington. There was another 6 people in the very same situation.
Really, worse than Lisbon even?
For some reason, I like remote gates…but LIS is terrible too.
Nice to see nothing has changed since I was last there in 2018…same thing happened to me.
I have traveled regularly to/from Brussels and never saw such long passport queue. Generally very few people.
Likewise. I was there in mid/late-2024 for a work trip and stayed at the Sheraton on the airport property to catch a morning flight. The immigration queue was non-existent for my ~10AM flight. I would think this is likely the result of poor manpower management for the immigration desks compared to arrival/departure banks of the airlines.
Get used to it Boys and Girls from ‘Merica. I have been traveling on aerospace business globally for the last 40 years. There were times I experienced this, as well as pat-downs, interrogations as to intent in Country and bag searches when the US peed off a “friendly” country. In my case I dealt with this in Germany, Vietnam and especially Canada numerous times. Mexico may be next. The local CBP staff were not subtle as to why this was happening, it was a result of US policy/politics. It was intentional and malicious and precisely designed to send a message.
So as the US Polyester Pachyderm crowd waddles off the airplanes in places like Cancun, they should prepare for such and spreading to other Countries as well.
Not a great experience I agree. BUT as a European enterring the US via L.A. or N.Y. on numerous occasions, the waiting time can horrendous as well. And after a 9 or 12hrs transatlantic flight, not the greatest welcome to the US!
My data points are from 2019, 2021, and 2022. Horrible nightmare every time. Avoid BRU at all costs.
I flew out of BRU last summer and don’t recall it being bad. May depend on time of day. CDG T1 has the worst border control lines I’ve experienced. By the way, I see you went to an A lounge first. It is an oddity of BRU that the best lounges are not on the non-Schengen side, but I’ve been contented with the non-Schengen lounges. Some time you should review the SN business class product. Notwithstanding that it is not the best airport (I particularly dislike running their shopping mall gauntlet), you can get good deals and upgrades out of BRU.
May 2024, and yup, somehow with my Mexican passport I was able to use a much shorter line, but still, not a fan of the airport at all, especially the Star Alliance Gold lounge situation.
I flew through BRU on Feb 9th coming from Geneva arriving around 8:15AM. Walked right up to the e-gate with my US passport. There was no line and I was through passport control in under a minute.
Hi Matt,
I fly through BRU quiet frequently (about 2x per month) back to the U.S. so all my flight I have to clear passport control. It’s been very hit and miss, and there is usally no rhyme or reason of when it’s busy at least for me. My departing flights are always in the morning. I’d say about 50% I’m through within 5 minutes or less. But other times the line has been massive as you’ve said and I’d wait around 30, but have up to 90 minutes before. The new e-gates installed recently though have helped a ton since they accept U.S. passports. I am not sure why some mornings it is extremely busy and others it is super efficient. I do know that BRU airport serves as a big star alliance hub for flights to Africa, so maybe it has to do with the timing of those flights? Other than that I can say I’ve had your experience many times before and never know what to expect at BRU airport so always err on the side of caution and show up 2 hours early, and relax in the Schengen lounge.
Just traveled through BRU (WAW-IAD) last week. Passport line for non-EU was less than 30 minutes. Didn’t see e-gates so would be curious where they are.
I DETEST the passport control lines at Brussels Airport, particularly for non-EU passport holders. So much so, I’d rather transit ANYWHERE ELSE in the Schengen area the next time I visit Brussels. The last time I went was August 2019, though. Can US passport holders use the e-gates these days?
“BRU is my least favorite major airport in Western Europe” Dittos. Frequent traveler to Africa and I avoid going through BRU, either direction because of that airport.
Was there in Nov and missed my flight to EWR by minutes because of passport line. They said they could put me on the flight to IAD but going from Polaris to an economy middle seat…did not take that option
Two things to note:
1. This is nothing compared to what we European face when entering the US. I’ve stood in line at Dulles for almost 2 hours before being seen by CBP.
2. In most European airports (certainly BRU and London, to name just a few), e-gates are available to US citizens – with or without a European residence permit. Not sure if the queues you’re referencing in BRU are for the manned passport control (those can indeed be brutal, I’ve witnessed them and it’s beyond my comprehension how bad they are), or for the UK + US + CAN e-gates, which are separate from the EU e-gates. If the latter, this would be quite unusual. In fact, as a European citizen I’ve occasionally been redirected by staff to use these e-gates when the dedicated EU ones have more than a dozen people waiting in line (which doesn’t happen often), that’s how empty they usually are. Datapoint is from Dec 2024, and I’ll be travelling to/from BRU again next week, so I can report back.
Mike, I acknowledge how bad the USA is…no one is defending the disgusting US approach to passport control for foreign visitors, but that is not the issue here…
Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that what happens in IAD, SFO or LAX should have a bearing on happens in BRU. Just that a problem shared is a problem halved (well, kinda ), and, when put into perspective, this is a widespread issue that seems difficult to solve, whether in the US or in Europe, especially at peak arrival times. For example, I was in Madrid two weeks ago, and had to endure a one-hour long queue to get through passport control as an EU citizen in the oft-praised yet nightmarish Terminal 4. By the time I’d cleared it, there were just two dozen people behind me, so clearly things aren’t always as terrible, yet they can spiral out of control pretty badly.
As to the usual situation in BRU, I just got back from there and, at 4pm local time today, there were three people using the e-gates for EU citizens, one person using the manned EU lanes, and around 30 people in the manned non-EU lanes – I didn’t linger, but from what I saw the line was moving at a steady pace. I was through in under a minute (yes, I timed it ).
It’s so amusing when US citzens whine and whinge about passport lines in other countries. I would open a special desk for you, one per airport staffed by the most miserable and objectionable passport officer that could be found and it would then be for you, just like the welcome we’ve all been getting in the US for decades. If US numbers were slack we could mix in a few visa dependent people selected because processing them will take a long time. A wait of about two hours for you should be the minimum.
You never miss a beat attacking the US, James. I detest Trump too, but just because the US passport experience is so bad does not justify the poor passport experience in Brussels, especially when it is so much better in other European airports.
Stop making a false equivalency. No one is defending the US here…
Don’t you think that any country electing Criminal Trump to a position of power deserves to be ridculed and laughed at?
No, because more than half the country did not vote for him. And I think as the days and weeks go by, more will turn against him. Sadly, much damage will be done over the next couple years…hopefully nothing irreparable. And maybe some good can come out of this crusade against waste.
US passport control lines at US airports have improved a lot for Belgian visitors coming off non—stop flights from BRU. Use MPC and it’s likely the MPC-using Belgian clears faster than most Americans.
The difference here, Jim, is that people aren’t actually entering Belgium.
It doesn’t matter. If you transit through the US you still have to go through the awful immigration control process.
BRU’s bad passport control lines are nothing new. I faced them so often that I half-joked that some could make a small business of their own for claiming EC 261/2004 compensation due to missing flights out of BRU because of this mess.
Apparently some moderators on FT didn’t like that I know BRU like the back of my hand, and so one of them did what they could to disappear some of my comments about that.
Seriously? Were those Flyertalkers nationalistic or for what other reason would they censor your comments?
FT mods do tend to go over the top on moving around posts to try to organize the forums as they see fit or delete posts they think are “off topic”. At least in the UA forum. It gets a little ridiculous sometimes
I’ve flown through BRU at ton, as recently as March 2024 and I don’t recall any significant wait. I’m surprised others are saying it’s common, though I would probably agree that BRU is my least favorite Western European hub (I don’t like MXP either).
Regardless, I’m ready for ETIAS to get here so we’ll have e-gates everywhere, and no more of those boring Schengen stamps cluttering our passports.
The non-Schengen holding area for Bucharest/OTP airport departures to non-Schengen destinations is so bad — and the non-Schengen contract lounge so packed at times — that I try to wait to clear exit passport control there as late as possible after making a guestestimate based on what flights are departing at around the relevant times for me. BRU is less predictable than OTP and far more variable, but I would rather get delayed at BRU than at OTP.
Why must all of the travel bloggers and many of their followers detest President Trump…or have TDS???? so many libs in the business????
Trump is not a conservative by any stretch of the definition. I don’t support narcissists, no matter the political party. Those who oppose Trump are not necessarily liberal…
Just to be diplomatic Dee, I think most would agree that the more one travels, the less likely they are to support Trump. I think there are lots of obvious reasons for that, and it would explain why travel writers are generally not Trump supporters.
My time points are before the 2016 terrorist attacks at Zaventem airport and just before the pandemic. The later was slow but pre-2016 was ok, slightly slow.
Remember the 30 or so brave, mostly Christian, patriots and martyrs who died at Zaventem in 2016 when idiot terrorists attacked.
We went through Brussels in mid-Jan 2025. There was no queue for passport at all (family lane.) We were rushing to make our flight, so likely the rush had already passed through passport by the time we got there.
Lisbon transferring from Schengen arrivals to a connecting USA flight was the worst I’ve experienced in a very long time.
Flew BRU-IAD on UA on Feb 9 (2025), a Sunday, and I had zero wait time. (Ok, maybe 1 minute.) Flight departed at 1155am, and I think I went thru customs around 1015/1030am.
I have never faced a serious passport queue connecting at BRU, usually there’s not been any queue at all and just once did I have to wait for 10-12 minutes. However, most of my flights through there are in the evening. In any event, it’s not a big airport and I wouldn’t hesitate to go landside if faced with a long wait at passport control for connections.
Omg that does suck! You really feel like a 2nd class citizen bc well you are! My most recent experience was in GIG where there was a line to get to the line! All the non-estrangeros were casually strolling by. Took 1 hour total. But as others said, they get the same (or worse) here.
I connect through there often. I’ve never seen the line that long but there usually is a wait.
The strange thing is that there is a sign at the beginning of the line that does not list US passports as eligible for the egates. If you ignore the sign and walk further towards the egates, the later signs shows US as eligible.
That saves a lot of time since the rest of the US passports are waiting in line
I read somewhere (here maybe?) that entering Schengen in Zurich after a flight from the US can be a problem. We’re heading there in a few weeks. Coming back through ORD late afternoon is DEFINITELY an ordeal, but that’s another story. Just wondering about ZUR. Thanks for the info on BRU. Another place to avoid.
I arrived in BRU from JFK back in June 2024 and that immigration line was long for non-EU passport holders. I waited an hour. Ultimately it was because there were only 2 immigration officers and a lot of flights arrived that morning.
Saw your comment on OMAAT about the problem with Virgin Atlantic (last-minute space). I’m 100% with you on that! Huge devaluation for me, who tends to buy last-minute tickets.
By the way, MPC at Dulles was very slow yesterday. It seems like lots of people have gotten it, while they only had one agent for it, and he took a lot of time with each person, stepped away at one point, and also stopped to handle crews.