Key facts
- Novelist Jojo Moyes was detained by French border guards and accused of overstaying despite spending 23 days in the EU over six months.
- Moyes's departure from Portugal after a May trip was not logged in the EES, according to her account to Which?.
- Jane Nolan and her husband were shown as having zero days left despite spending 40 days in France in April.
- Over the summer, some countries suspended the EES and used manual passport checks due to technical glitches and staff shortages.
- The EU is suing three firms over the EES failures, it emerged on Monday.
- The Foreign Office said it is raising the issue with the European Commission and advised travelers to carry evidence of their last EU departure.
The novelist Jojo Moyes is facing a two-year EU travel ban and a €10,000 (£8,300) fine because of glitches with the bloc's digital Entry/Exit System (EES), according to a report by The Guardian published on November 10, 2026. Moyes is one of a number of UK travelers who say their trips to the EU have not been properly recorded since the system launched last year.
The EES replaced passport stamps with biometrics recorded at border control in Schengen zone countries. The botched rollout has led to some Britons being wrongly deemed to have used up their post-Brexit allowance of 90 days in any 180-day period. Moyes, a bestselling novelist, was detained by French border guards after a holiday and accused of overstaying, despite having spent only 23 days in the EU over six months. She discovered that her departure from Portugal after a trip in May had not been logged.
"The clock had been ticking ever since," Moyes told the consumer organization Which?. "The border control senior officer at Marseille warned me that I should not attempt to re-enter Europe until it is sorted out, or face a €10,000 fine and a two-year ban."
Over the summer, some countries suspended the EES and resorted to manual passport checks due to technical glitches and staff shortages. On Monday, it emerged that the EU is suing three firms over the failures.
The problem affects passengers whose biometrics were collected on arrival in the EU but not on departure, meaning the system sometimes fails to record that they have left. Since Brexit, those deemed to have remained more than 90 days face deportation or fines of up to €10,000.
Jane Nolan and her husband found the EES wrongly showed them as having used up their 90-day allowance, preventing them from booking a trip to France. "We travelled 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." Their passports were manually stamped on their return to the UK in June because French authorities had suspended the EES.
In a case reported by the Telegraph, a UK holidaymaker was detained at the Italian border and deported under police guard after a system error suggested she had overstayed. 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 Advantage Travel Partnership, representing independent travel agents, said British travelers were being penalized for a chaotic system. Its CEO, Julia Lo Bue-Said, said: "Travellers should not be penalised for failures in a system that is entirely outside their control."
The Foreign Office said it was aware of reports of inaccuracies in some EES records affecting British nationals and was raising the issues with the European Commission. It advised travelers to carry evidence of when they last left the EU and to raise anomalies with border officials. The European Commission has been contacted for a comment.