This Tuesday August 10, border inspections for travelers arriving from Italy began at Lanzarote airport, as verified by Pedro Viera, insular director of the General Administration of the State on the island, for La Voz.
Viera specified that these checks are random and consist of examining the passport or DNI to certify the identity and nationality of passengers, requiring the residence card in the case of non-European Union citizens.
The measure, coordinated by the Ministry of the Interior, took its first steps in Madrid-Barajas and Barcelona-El Prat, and was subsequently extended to Málaga, Seville, Bilbao, and Valencia.
On the island level, the National Police are already carrying out these selective checks in Lanzarote, Tenerife Sur, and Gran Canaria, with the service in Fuerteventura to commence upon the arrival of its direct transalpine flights.
As for the Balearic archipelago, Palma de Mallorca (Son Sant Joan) leads the implementation of the device due to its importance on routes with Italy —with connections to Rome, Milan, Naples, or Venice—, while Ibiza and Menorca will be added according to the operational schedule.
This reciprocity regulation implemented by the central Executive responds to the stance of Giorgia Meloni's Italian government to maintain its own controls.
The measure will affect both the 60,000 Italian residents settled in the Canary Islands —the largest foreign group in the islands after the local population— and the more than 800,000 visitors of that nationality who visit the archipelago each year (834,108 in 2025 according to Istac), which threatens to worsen the saturation and waiting times in high-traffic airport facilities such as Tenerife Sur.
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