Brussels: The Schengen Information System (SIS) witnessed unprecedented use in 2025, processing around 17.76 billion searches, averaging nearly 49 million searches per day and more than 2 million per hour. This marked an 18 percent increase compared to 2024.
According to Emirates News Agency, the European Union Agency for the Operational Management of Large-Scale IT Systems in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (eu-LISA) noted in its annual report that the SIS is Europe's most extensively utilized security tool. The system assists authorities, including police forces, border guards, and EU agencies, in creating and verifying alerts related to persons and objects during field operations and at border crossings.
Total interactions with SIS reached approximately 17.79 billion in 2025, encompassing 22.97 million operations to create, update, or delete alerts, which represented a slight decline of 2 percent. Text-based searches accounted for 99.93 percent of all searches, while biometric searches made up just 0.07 percent.
The rise in automation continued significantly, with automated searches surpassing 12 billion in 2025, compared to 9.9 billion in 2024 and about 4 billion in 2021. The Netherlands and Belgium reported the highest usage levels, representing 29 percent and 22 percent of all searches, respectively, together constituting more than half of the total.
Biometric searches using fingerprints saw rapid growth, increasing by 88 percent compared to 2024, with an average of around 36,000 searches per day through the SIS Automated Fingerprint Identification System (SIS-AFIS), operational since 2018.
By the end of 2025, approximately 94.6 million alerts were stored in the system, up by 2 percent year-on-year. Alerts related to objects accounted for the majority at 92.6 million, while alerts concerning individuals approached 2 million, recording annual growth of 19 percent. France, Italy, and Germany held the largest shares of stored alerts, accounting for a combined 55 percent of the total.
Migration-related cases were the largest category of person alerts, with return decisions concerning third-country nationals making up 41 percent of all such alerts, followed by entry and stay refusal alerts at 34 percent. Cross-border matches declined, with Member States reporting 364,984 matches through national SIRENE bureaux, down 8 percent compared to 2024, equating to roughly 1,000 matches per day.
These trends coincided with the full operational launch of the European Entry/Exit System (EES) on 10th April 2026. The system records data on non-EU travellers and monitors their permitted periods of stay, including biometric information. It is currently used by 29 countries, while Cyprus and Ireland continue to stamp passports manually.
The framework is anticipated to be further strengthened with the launch of the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) in the final quarter of 2026. This system will apply to visa-exempt travellers entering Europe through a pre-travel authorisation linked to their passports.