What changes for Italian travelers heading to Spain with the Madrid Government’s decision to restore until September 7 internal border controls at ports and airports?
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ID card or passport
From a formal point of view, nothing, because the entry requirements remain the same: a passport or ID card valid for the entire duration of the stay abroad is required. The extraordinary controls concern non-EU citizens.
From a practical point of view, however, the suspension of Schengen could cause longer waits and times for disembarkation and document checks at the airport and port. The diplomatic escalation will thus end up affecting passengers from both countries because the move by the government of Pedro Sánchez is a retaliation for a similar move by Giorgia Meloni taken on July 31 after the Ceuta migration crisis.
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Controls for Spanish travelers in Italy
This has already been seen for passengers coming from the Iberian country for whom, the Italian government had assured, no bureaucratic burden is foreseen but who in some arrival terminals in Italy are directed to a dedicated lane. At Fiumicino airport, which in summer receives up to 60 daily flights from Spain, passengers of an Iberia flight departing from Madrid confirmed to the Efe news agency that police officers checked documents directly on the finger, the boarding tunnel connecting the plane to the terminal.
The numbers
Some numbers are enough to understand the intensity of travel between the two countries: according to Aena (Spanish public company managing airports in Spain) in the first half of 2026 over 11 million passengers traveled by plane between Italy and Spain (two million in June alone). According to Enac data, for Italy Spain is the top country by passenger volume (22.5 million in 2025) and Rome Fiumicino-Madrid Barajas is the main route.
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