Is there a way to confirm my EasyPASS registration?
 

I’m a U.S. citizen who visits Germany a few times a year. I registered in August with EasyPASS RTP at Tegel, and since then I haven’t heard a peep as to whether my registration was accepted. I suppose I expected a letter, since they have my address.

Is there a way to determine if my registration is valid, or do I have to try the automated passport control lanes next time I arrive and see if they work? I ask because I’ve read stories from Americans whose EasyPASS applications seem to have simply vanished, and whose passports aren’t accepted by the scanners.

It’s not the end of the world either way, but I’ve had some seriously long passport control waits in the non-EU queue at FRA. I’d love to confirm that everything is in order.

They should have informed you at the end of the enrollment appointment whether you were enrolled or not.

Thanks for your reply. The officer told me it "could take a few weeks until I was in the system," and that it wouldn't work until then. And regardless, at least at TXL the process was all paper, not electronic, so he wouldn't have had any way to notify me if I was officially enrolled, since for U.S. citizens a background check is apparently required.

Perhaps the procedure is different at different locations?

I suppose it could be different. They did background check during the enrollment process in DUS.

Ugh, my fault for enrolling in a backwater like TXL. That place is stuck in the 60s. :p

My experience with EasyPass is this.

I enrolled at FRA but the computer was down. The officer took my paperwork and said she would enter it when the system came up. She also stated that once entered it would be effective within an hour or two. Thirty days later I am passing through FRA and try the EasyPass gate and it wouldn't accept my passport. I go back to the Police station and the officer verifies that I am enrolled. He examined my passport and mentioned that I have one with extra pages and that the info page may not be scanned because it doesn't extend to the full length of the cover.

Since enrolling I've been through FRA at least 6 times and have never gotten EasyPass to work. I will say this, the gates are confusing as it is hard to determine which one I can use.

EasyPass has been flawless IMO. You can use any active gate. It does take about 15-20 seconds for it to read the passport (and somethings you have to make sure it is centered on the reader) and open for you to enter and begin the photo matching processing before taking another 15-20 seconds for additional processing and the final gate opening up.

Agent might be making things up as an excuse as passport information page and RFID chip have to comply with international (ICAO) standards. If the machine readable zone on the information page is not damaged, then maybe the RFID chip is.

Well that’s discouraging. I’m flying on LH F fir the first time next week, ORD>FRA>DEL, with a six-hour layover. Every minute that I spend in a passport control queue is a minute that I won’t be spending with my feet up at the FCT!

I wonder if there’s any way the staff at the FCL could research it for me, call the Bundespolizei to find out if I’m in the EasyPASS system before I head out to the FCT? Nah, Germany’s vaunted privacy laws probably wouldn’t allow it.

Good to know it works for some. I’ll be extra patient when I try.

I did the same at TXL since I had a few minutes to kill, I'm not too confident it will end up working when I actually try to use it. After finishing the paperwork, the officer just shrugged his shoulders and said 'Hope I did everything right and that it works...'

I highly doubt it will.

I did the registration at FRA about 10 days ago. Everything seemed to go well and the guy said it would be 4 hours before the system was updated.

I was expecting something more like the Global Entry process but this seemed remarkably casual -- especially for Germany :)