Arriving passengers must count an average of 30 to 40 minutes to complete the formalities of police and customs and to retrieve their luggage. Entry into Portuguese territory through Lisbon International Airport requires a passport valid more than 3 months after the passage of the police station.

As of early 2026, wait times at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport (LIS) have become highly variable due to the full rollout of the European Union’s Entry/Exit System (EES). For travelers from non-Schengen countries (such as the US, UK, and Canada), the process of registering biometrics—including facial scans and fingerprints—can lead to significant queues. During peak morning arrival windows when multiple transatlantic flights land, it is not uncommon for passport control and customs to take between 1 to 3 hours. However, on days when the system is operating smoothly or during off-peak afternoon hours, you might clear the area in 30 to 45 minutes. The airport has recently invested in 24 new high-speed biometric e-gates to reduce processing time to roughly 20 seconds per passenger once their profile is already in the system. Travelers are strongly advised to budget at least two hours for the arrivals process if they have a tight connection or a pre-booked ground transfer, as the manual secondary checks for first-time EES registrants remain a primary bottleneck in the terminal's infrastructure.