Paper boarding passes are about to become history at Ryanair. Starting November 12, 2025, the Irish low-cost giant will require all passengers to use digital boarding passes, with no option for paper check-in.

Ryanair Goes 100% Digital Boarding Passes

Ryanair has confirmed that from November 12, 2025, it will no longer issue paper boarding passes. Instead, passengers will be required to check-in via the Ryanair app and present a digital boarding pass on their smartphone to board. The airline is marketing the change as a move toward efficiency and sustainability, noting that over 80% of its 206 million annual passengers already check in digitally today.

This change means the days of printing out a boarding pass at home or paying a stiff fee to have one issued at the airport will officially come to an end. Going forward, the myRyanair app will be the only way to obtain a boarding pass.

I Wouldn’t Worry Too Much Over This…

This is classic Ryanair: aggressive, unapologetic, and focused on cutting costs wherever possible (in three words, we hate you). For the vast majority of passengers, this won’t be a huge change, since most already use digital boarding passes anyway. But making it mandatory underscores how far Ryanair is willing to go in forcing standardization.

Curtailing the ability to print boarding passes at the airport is at least understandable, but it’s quite odd that the ability to print boarding passes at home will also be shut down. I do understand there is a strong commercial incentive to push people to use the myRyanair app, which can extract personal info and sell it to the highest bidder, but not everyone has smartphones.

What’s missing from Ryanair’s policy, however, is any clear mention of backup provisions. Phones break. Batteries die. Apps glitch. Other carriers that have leaned heavily into digital boarding still provide kiosks or staffed fallback options, but Ryanair’s announcement makes no reference to such contingencies. Passengers will be expected to come prepared and in true Ryanair fashion, sympathy will likely be in short supply.

But let me go out on a limb and predict that paper boarding passes will still be a thing. First, because some places mandate it (my understanding is that Morocco, for example, requires printed boarding passes). Second, because I can just see the lawsuits now alleging age and disability discrimination. Not only do many not have smartphones, but those who don’t tend to fall into recognizable groups like senior citizens and the disabled. My hunch is that airports will still be able to print these out; it will just be strongly discouraged.

United Airlines gives us a good example. Its kiosks now no longer show an option to print paper boarding passes…unless you really know how to work it.

> Read More: United Airlines Makes It Grueling To Print A Paper Boarding Pass From Airport Kiosk…

CONCLUSION

Starting November 12, Ryanair will become the first major airline to go entirely paperless for boarding passes. For most, this will hardly be a change. But for those who still rely on printed passes or find themselves caught without a working smartphone, this shift could be a rude awakening. But I just cannot see this ending well for Ryanair and I imagine there will still be situations (perhaps many situations) in which paper boarding passes are issued.