The Port of Dover is warning of potential border chaos as approximately 7,500 cars bound for France are expected on Friday, July 17, 2026, and 10,000 on Saturday, July 18. French border police will have to check travellers by hand because a £40 million automated system cannot work due to software problems on the French side The Guardian.

The system in question is called the Entry-Exit System, or EES. It is a new EU border system designed to record when visitors from outside the EU enter and leave. Normally, it would take each traveller's photograph and fingerprints at a kiosk. The automated kiosks at Dover, built at a cost of £40 million, currently sit unused. Eurotunnel, which runs the LeShuttle train service through the Channel Tunnel, has its own multi-million-pound kiosks that also cannot be switched on. The Guardian described the EES as a "semi-functioning entry-exit system" in its July 17 reporting.

Under a long-standing arrangement, French border police carry out their checks at Dover before travellers leave the UK. This means your passport is stamped by French officers while you are still on British soil. This summer, those officers will create an EES file for each visitor by hand. However, they will not take the photographs and fingerprints that the system officially requires The Guardian.

Eurotunnel said it did not expect delays and confirmed that border police would not collect biometric information (photographs and fingerprints) from car passengers for EES this summer. The Port of Dover, by contrast, is worried that creating each file by hand will take extra time and produce long queues. The port urged holidaymakers to use only main roads when driving to the port and to arrive no more than two hours before their booked sailing The Guardian.

The timing could hardly be worse. Most schools in England and Wales are closing for the summer this weekend. Travel association Abta expected the main summer 2026 getaway to happen on July 17–18. More than 14 million drivers were expected to make a trip that weekend, the biggest number since 2022 according to the RAC. The AA said about one in five drivers would set off on a leisure journey of 100 miles or more in the week beginning July 17. London Heathrow said Friday July 17 would likely be its busiest day of the peak summer season The Guardian.

On the roads, the RAC and Inrix expected the worst traffic on Friday July 17 on sections of the M25 around Greater London linking to the M3 heading southwest. The June 2026 heatwave caused a spike in breakdowns, the RAC said, prompting the organisation to urge drivers to prepare for delays in potentially hot weather. RAC spokesperson Harriet Hernando said a rise in UK staycations was partly due to "concerns over cancelled flights, higher air fares and EU border delays" The Guardian.

The EES was originally scheduled to start on October 12, 2025, with a planned six-month rollout across EU border crossing points. The EU later delayed and restructured the plan. The UK government launched a campaign in September 2025 to prepare British travellers for the new EU border requirements and confirmed in March 2026 that EES would be fully used at all EU airports and ports from April 10, 2026. British travellers were told they need not do anything in advance, since EES checks at Dover are completed at the border before travellers leave the UK gov.uk.

This is not the first time the system has caused problems. EES checks at the start of the May half-term holiday 2026 caused delays of four and a half hours at Dover, according to the port itself. France suspended extra EU border checks at Dover on May 23, 2026 after vehicles were stuck in hours-long queues BBC News. The Port of Dover expected almost 50% more traffic during the peak summer 2026 period than during that May half-term period The Guardian. Port of Dover chief executive Doug Bannister warned of summer chaos without "greater flexibility" in EES operations during peak demand BBC News. MPs separately warned that the port faces "utter chaos" under the struggling EES The Guardian.

The UK Transport Secretary spoke with the EU commissioner about EES border checks ahead of the summer holidays, and both agreed to work together for the smoothest possible checks gov.uk. The Port of Dover has stated it is working closely with its French border agency partners to ensure a smooth introduction of the system Port of Dover.

The broader context here is that both the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel spent large sums on automated kiosks that cannot function because the software controlling them sits on the French side and is not ready. It is a bit like buying expensive self-service checkout machines for a shop, only to find that the payment system they rely on has not been switched on yet. The current fix — creating files by hand without photographs or fingerprints — is a partial version of what the EES was designed to do. The port has warned that the local impact of EES border delays "could be dire," specifically citing disruptions to freight and lorries BBC News. Warnings of queues extend beyond seaports: there have been cautions about airport queues across Europe this summer because of the new digital border system BBC News.

Looking ahead to this weekend, the difference between Eurotunnel's confidence and the Port of Dover's alarm may come down to the different types of traffic and border setups at the Channel Tunnel versus the ferry terminals. Whether creating EES files by hand can handle a 50% traffic increase over May half-term levels — without the fingerprinting step and without the automated kiosks that both operators built — will be tested in real time over the July 17–18 weekend.