San José Airport Is Getting Biometric Gates to Cut Long Queues
Travel
Key Facts
—The launch. San José’s Juan Santamaría airport plans to switch on biometric eGates by the end of July 2026.
—The setup. The first phase installs four gates in arrivals and two in departures, with more to follow as demand grows.
—The speed. A gate reads the passport, checks a traveller’s face, and clears them in roughly 10 to 15 seconds.
—The order. Costa Rican citizens with biometric passports go first, then citizens without them, and only later foreign visitors.
—The context. The airport handled a record 6.4 million international passengers in 2025, and queues can run for hours at peak.
San José airport is about to get a lot faster to pass through, as Costa Rica prepares to switch on automated immigration gates by the end of July.
The airport in question is Juan Santamaría International, the country’s busiest, known to travellers by its code SJO. Its operator, Aeris, says the new gates will go live by the close of the month.
The technology is familiar to anyone who has passed through a large European or North American hub. Known as eGates, the barriers use facial recognition to confirm who you are, no officer required.
How the San José airport gates will work
The process is designed to be quick. A traveller scans their passport, looks into a camera, and waits a few seconds while the system checks their details against official databases.
Those databases include immigration records and international police watchlists. If everything clears, a green light opens the gate; if anything is flagged, the traveller is sent to a human officer.
It is worth being clear about what the gate does. It confirms identity and runs security checks, but it does not stamp a passport, so travellers who need an entry stamp may still deal with an officer for that.
The whole thing is meant to take between ten and fifteen seconds. Staffed monitoring stations stay in place to handle any passport queries or flagged cases the machines cannot resolve.
The first phase is modest: four gates for arrivals and two for departures. The operator says it reached this point only after roughly two years of software testing and integration.
That long gestation is telling. Border-control systems that touch police and immigration databases in real time cannot be rushed, and the operator has stressed the effort spent reaching the reliability regulators demand.
When can foreign visitors use the San José airport eGates?
Not immediately, and that is the key caveat for tourists and expats. The rollout is phased, and foreigners come last.
The first phase is open only to Costa Rican citizens who hold biometric passports, whose facial data is already stored in the passport chip and needs no separate registration.
A second phase will cover Costa Ricans without biometric passports, who will need a one-time registration. Only after that will foreign visitors with biometric documents be let through.
No dates have been set for those later phases. The operator says it will study how the first stage performs before opening the gates more widely.
Why it matters for travellers
The pressure behind the change is real. The airport handled more than six point four million international passengers in 2025, its highest ever, and the last high season lifted traffic by nearly eight percent.
That growth has strained the immigration hall. Arriving travellers have reported waits of three to four hours at the worst times, an unhappy first impression for a country that sells itself on ease and warmth.
The airport is expanding to keep up. A larger international departures area is already under construction, part of a long-term master plan, with that work due for completion in the second half of 2027.
The gates arrive alongside another new option for the impatient. Since the start of July the airport has sold a fast-track service at one hundred dollars a person, giving priority lanes at immigration and customs.
The two together sketch a clear direction. Costa Rica is trying to move more people through the same building faster, mixing free automation for some with a paid shortcut for others as visitor numbers keep climbing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who benefits, and how is it paid for?
In the near term, mainly Costa Ricans returning home. For the many US and European visitors who already carry biometric passports, the real gain comes only once the later phases open.
The bill is spread thinly. The project is funded by a small technical fee of fourteen cents on each departing passenger, covering the equipment, servers and maintenance rather than a charge at the gate.
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