Face Scans on Departure: America Makes Them the Rule

The Department of Homeland Security has published a final rule that rewrites its own regulations at a crucial point. It states that the department may photograph all foreign nationals on entry and on exit, and that it may also require further biometric data from persons who are not exempt.

The second part is the really big one: the rule deletes the references to pilot programs and the limitation to specific ports. Until now, exit screening was a trial run at selected airports. From now on it can take place at airports, land borders, seaports and any other authorized point of departure.

The whole thing takes effect on December 26, 2025. So if you're flying over the holidays, you may hit the changeover right in the middle of your trip.

The department is also inviting comments on the specific collection process and on the costs and benefits for new modes of travel. In plain English: the expansion isn't finished yet.

Until now, the American system knew very precisely when you came in and surprisingly little about when you left. Your departure was essentially reconstructed from the airlines' passenger lists. That worked, but it had gaps, and it was an inference, not proof.

With nationwide biometric exit screening, the gap disappears. Every departure becomes a record with a face, a timestamp and a location. And the moment the system knows your departures as cleanly as your arrivals, it can do something it could only estimate before: count your days in the country exactly.

For the vast majority of travelers, this makes no difference at all. If you take two weeks' vacation and fly home, you have nothing to worry about. For one particular group of Europeans, however, everything changes, and that group usually doesn't know it.

If you don't know the process from Europe: biometric capture on entry has long been routine. You place your passport, look into a camera, and the system compares your face with the stored passport photo and with the data your airline has transmitted. The officer still makes the decision, but the identity check is automated.

On departure, there is no such counter. American airports have no exit control in the European sense. No booth, no stamp, no officer facing you. That's why biometric exit capture will happen where you're standing anyway: at the gate, during boarding, via a camera that matches your face against the passenger list.

For you as a traveler, the process barely changes. There will be one more camera, and you probably won't even notice it does more than before. That is exactly the point: this change is invisible to the individual and fundamental for the system.

The regulation refers to persons who are not exempt. US citizens are generally exempt, although in practice they often choose to be captured too because it's faster. Depending on the circumstances, certain age groups and individual status categories are also exempt.

A green card holder is not a US citizen. They are a foreign national with permanent residence, and so they fall under this rule. Many green card holders from Europe have filed this differently in their minds.

It's also the point at which, for some, the question of naturalization comes up again. Not because of the camera, but because every one of these rules is a reminder of how sharply the law separates a citizen from a permanent resident.

It's the commuters. The businesswoman with clients in California who flies over six times a year. The father whose wife is American and who spends his summers over there. The retiree with a house in Florida who stays five months every year and then flies home.

All three live in a gray zone that has worked so far only because nobody was counting precisely. The Visa Waiver Program allows 90 days per entry. If you come often, you build up stays that, added together, look like a residence.

And there is a second, tougher count: the Substantial Presence Test under US tax law. It adds up your days present in the current year, one third of the days in the previous year and one sixth of the days in the year before that. If the total reaches 183 days and you were in the country at least 31 days in the current year, you are a tax resident for the IRS. With everything that comes with it: a filing obligation on your worldwide income, your home in Europe, your Swiss brokerage account, your shares in your company back home.

Until now, this count was self-reported. From now on, the other side has the data.

Keep your own day log. Every entry, every exit, with the date. Not because anyone distrusts you, but because in a dispute with an agency you only stand a chance if you have your own records. Boarding passes aren't enough; a calendar is.

Run the Substantial Presence Test once for the last three years. It takes ten minutes, and it's the most important calculation many transatlantic commuters have never done. If you come out above 183, talk to a tax advisor before the year ends, not after.

Check whether an exception applies. In some situations days don't count, and in certain cases you can claim a closer connection to another country. Both work only with forms and deadlines, not with good intentions.

And if your life is over there anyway, stop disguising it as a series of visits. That's the most honest advice anyone can give. If you actually live and work in the United States, you need a status that reflects it. Anything else is a risk that grows with every improvement in the data.

From a European point of view, you may find this rule outrageous. Biometric capture of all foreign nationals, without cause, at every border. In Europe, a rule like this would be tied up in court for years.

But that doesn't change the situation. The United States legally treats the border as a space with greatly reduced protections, and that applies to searches as much as to data collection. Whoever enters does so on the host country's terms. It's uncomfortable, but it's the starting point for any planning.

What you can influence, though, is your own position. Someone with a clean status, clean tax years and clean records has nothing to fear from better data. It even protects them, because it proves they followed the rules.

Almost unnoticed, a second rule arrived on October 30, 2025 that will hit many businesses harder than the camera at departure. The Department of Homeland Security has abolished the automatic extension of work permits.

Until now, if you filed your work permit renewal on time, in certain categories you could keep working even if the agency hadn't decided yet. That bridge is gone for applications filed from October 30, 2025. Documents already automatically extended before then are not affected.

For employers, this means an employee whose card expires while their renewal is pending with the agency may not keep working. For those affected: file as early as the rules allow, and treat processing time as a real risk, not a formality.

First: from December 26, 2025, every departure from the United States can be captured biometrically, at any authorized point of departure, no longer just at selected airports in a trial run.

Second: if you regularly commute between Europe and America, start counting your days yourself now, because the other side will soon do it without gaps. The Substantial Presence Test is the calculation that decides whether the IRS sees you as a visitor or a taxpayer.

Third: since October 30, 2025, there is no more automatic extension of work permits for new applications. If you employ staff with temporary work permits, you now need a deadline calendar, not a good feeling.

And a fourth, non-legal point to finish. In every American venture there comes a point where improvising stops and structure has to begin. For many commuters, this week is exactly that point. Not because a camera is added, but because the gap is disappearing in which you could live comfortably for years without making a decision.

Those who decide gain peace of mind. Those who keep living between two countries without being properly registered in either gain time, until the system catches up. And the system is catching up right now.

Two rules in four days, both worded unspectacularly, both with considerable impact. They point in the same direction: the American system wants to know more precisely who stays in the country and for how long, and who may work when. It is closing the places where things used to be fuzzy.

If you're building something in America, don't see this as a threat but as a call to get your house in order. This country is exceptionally generous to those who have their paperwork under control, and exceptionally unforgiving to those who take their chances.

If you want to know how your days in the country and your status fit together, talk to Mount Bonnell Advisors in Austin, Texas. You'll find the framework in our US Visa and Green Card section, the tax side in Tax Services for Individuals and, if a real move is behind it, in Your Move to the USA.

Consultation & implementation

If you'd like to find out what this means for your own situation, the best step is to book a consultation.