Lisbon, June 1, 2026 (Lusa) - The bottlenecks experienced at Lisbon Airport due to the border control system may affect tourism, but the effects are likely to be temporary and will not weigh on economic growth in Portugal, according to economists interviewed by Lusa.
Ricardo Ferraz, a lecturer at ISEG and Lusófona universities, told Lusa that these problems could “have a deterrent effect, particularly on those who prefer destinations with easier movement and shorter waiting times on arrival”, but said he believed it to be a “temporary problem, given that this is a period of adjustment to a new system”.
Ricardo Amaro, an economist at Oxford Economics, also told Lusa that “the majority of tourists” visiting the country “travel by air, particularly via Lisbon Airport, so these constraints should not be ignored”.
However, as these issues have existed for several years now, despite the well-known success of tourism during this period, “it has not been enough to convince many of those wishing to visit us to choose other destinations”, he notes, whilst warning that the ideal solution would be to try to rectify the problem.
Ricardo Ferraz acknowledges that tourism makes a direct and indirect contribution equivalent to around 12% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), so if the number of tourists were to fall significantly, the impacts would be felt across various sectors such as the hotel industry, catering, retail and even transport, which would naturally also have repercussions on employment.
Even so, whilst acknowledging that the international context is not ideal, with rising fuel prices hindering people’s mobility, he plays down the situation, noting that “a sharp, significant drop in tourism is not expected”.
Ricardo Amaro, for his part, suggests that the conflict in the Middle East may even help boost Portuguese tourism, as it will lead to a reduction in long-haul flights to or via the Middle East, with Portugal being one of the beneficiaries.
“This will more than offset the negative effect caused by the reduction in demand resulting from rising prices, but the effect will be modest and will not alter the overall performance of the economy, where we continue to expect growth of around 2% this year,” he concludes.
The new European border control system, known as the Entry/Exit System (EES), came into operation in October 2025 on a phased basis in Portugal and the other Schengen countries, and since then, waiting times at air borders have worsened, particularly at Lisbon Airport, with passengers sometimes having to wait for several hours.
The EES has been fully operational since 10 April, and since then the border control police (PSP) have resorted to partially suspending the collection of biometric data in “exceptional circumstances”, namely when “waiting times at an airport border checkpoint become excessive”, PSP spokesperson Sérgio Soares told Lusa.
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