Bestselling author Jojo Moyes is confronting a two-year ban from the European Union and a €10,000 (£8,300) fine after the bloc’s digital border system failed to log her departure from Portugal, leaving her wrongly flagged as an overstayer. She is among a group of UK travelers whose trips have not been properly recorded since the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES) went live last year.
The EES replaced passport stamps with biometric data captured at border control points across the Schengen zone. Its troubled rollout has denied some British visitors the 90-day allowance they are entitled to under post-Brexit rules, because the system incorrectly shows the full allowance as already spent.
Detained in France after a 23-day trip
Moyes was stopped by French border guards at the end of a holiday and accused of overstaying. Over a six-month period she had spent only 23 days in the EU. What she discovered was that her exit from Portugal after a trip in May had never been entered into the system.
“The clock had been ticking ever since,” she said. According to Moyes, the senior border control officer at Marseille told her she should not attempt to re-enter Europe until the record was corrected, warning that she otherwise risked a €10,000 fine and a two-year ban.
The problem hits travelers whose biometrics are collected when they arrive in the EU but not when they leave, so the system holds no record of their departure. Because the rolling 180-day window begins at entry, anyone deemed to have stayed more than 90 days faces deportation or fines of up to €10,000.
Allowance shows as zero despite 50 days left
Jane Nolan and her husband ran into the same fault. The EES indicated they had used up their 90-day entitlement, which stopped them from booking a trip to France. “We traveled to France in April by LeShuttle and spent 40 days there,” she said. “We have made no subsequent Schengen visits. We should have 50 days remaining, but the EU’s ‘check how long you can stay’ tool says: ‘Authorised stay: not OK,’ and zero remaining days. It does not show us which entry or exit record produced that result.”
The couple’s passports were stamped by hand when they returned to the UK in June, because French authorities had suspended the EES to prevent long queues. “We have asked the French authorities to check our records, but do not yet know what has gone wrong or whether the result could affect us at the border,” Nolan said.
In another case, a UK holidaymaker was detained at the Italian border and deported under police guard after a system error suggested she had overstayed.
Several countries suspended the EES over the summer and reverted to manual passport checks, citing technical faults and staff shortages. On Monday it emerged that the European Commission is suing three companies, IBM among them, over the system’s failures.
Travel industry presses for accountability
Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, called the situation unacceptable. “This is one of the most serious in a long line of European border control failures,” he said. “The lack of care and accountability shown towards travelers, who risk being locked up and fines of thousands of pounds for rules they have not broken, is utterly indefensible.”
The Advantage Travel Partnership, which represents independent travel agents, said British travelers were paying the price for a chaotic system. Chief executive Julia Lo Bue-Said said: “Travelers should not be penalized for failures in a system that is entirely outside their control. There needs to be greater accountability, alongside a straightforward process to challenge and correct inaccurate records.”
The Foreign Office said the reports were concerning. A spokesperson said: “We are aware of reports of inaccuracies in some EES records affecting British nationals, including incomplete records and the registration of some individuals who are exempt from EES. We are raising these issues as part of our engagement with the European Commission.” The office advises travelers to carry evidence of the date they last left the EU and to raise any discrepancy with border officials.
How to check a record
Travelers can see how many days of their allowance remain by entering their passport number on the EES website, which logs all Schengen visits since April 10, 2026. Anyone who finds an unexpected shortfall can request a correction before traveling by selecting the last country visited on the Travel to Europe data protection page and contacting the relevant data controller.
Moyes said her attempts to do so have so far failed. “In the last two weeks, I’ve tried every possible avenue,” she said. “I have now engaged an immigration lawyer, but not everyone is lucky enough to be able to afford this remedy. I have no idea how much time they think I have spent in Europe, and no idea whether I am safe to travel.”
The European Commission has been asked for comment.