Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) for travel to the UK 

An ETA (Electronic Travel Authorisation) is required for nationals of around 85 countries who can visit the UK without a visa, including every EU member state, the USA, Canada, Australia, Israel and the Gulf states. Since 25 February 2026, carriers will not let passengers board without an ETA or a visa. An ETA costs £20, is obtained online or through the UK ETA app and is valid for 2 years.

The list of ETA-eligible countries keeps changing. Since 2024 the UK has moved nationals of Jordan, Trinidad and Tobago, Botswana, Nauru, Nicaragua and St Lucia onto the visa regime. Below you will find the rules as they stand in November 2026, how to apply, the grounds for refusal and the situations in which it is safer to apply for a visitor visa straight away.

What an ETA is and how it differs from a visa

An ETA is a digital permission to travel linked to a specific passport. It confirms that the Home Office has screened the traveller against its databases in advance and has no objection to the journey. There is no paper document: the permission is held electronically, and at check-in and at the border you simply show the same passport you used to apply.

The key difference from a visa is the depth of the check. A visa application is assessed by an entry clearance officer, who looks at the purpose of the trip, finances, ties to the home country and immigration history. Most ETA applications are approved automatically after the answers are matched against databases. This is why an ETA does not guarantee entry: the decision to admit someone to the UK is still made by a Border Force officer at the airport or port of arrival.

The scheme was rolled out in phases. The ETA became mandatory for nationals of Qatar in November 2023, for the other Gulf states in February 2024, for the USA, Canada, Australia and most non-European countries in January 2025, and for EU nationals and other European countries from 2 April 2025. At first the requirement was applied with some flexibility, but from 25 February 2026 the Home Office moved to full enforcement: carriers must check that every passenger holds an ETA, an eVisa or a visa before boarding.

For nationals of visa-free countries, the ETA has turned a trip to the UK into a formality that takes a few minutes, but only for people with a clean immigration and criminal record. A single old refusal of entry, a past overstay or a conviction the traveller has long forgotten can turn an automatic approval into a refusal just before departure. Imperial & Legal reviews these risks in advance and advises when a visitor visa application is the more sensible route.

Vasily Kluev

Client Service Director, Immigration Adviser (IAA)

To avoid confusion, it helps to distinguish between three different documents travellers come across:

• ETA — a permission to travel for nationals of visa-free countries, for visits of up to 6 months;
• Standard Visitor visa — a full visa for visa nationals or for people for whom an ETA is not suitable;
• eVisa — a digital record of immigration status that the Home Office issues instead of physical visas and residence permits; eVisa holders do not need an ETA.

Who needs an ETA to travel to the UK

An ETA is required for nationals listed in the Appendix ETA National List of the Immigration Rules — the countries whose nationals do not need a visa for short trips to the UK. The requirement covers travel to the UK itself, as well as to Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

In simplified terms, you need an ETA if you are a national of:

• any EU member state, or Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino or Vatican City;
• the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei or Israel;
• the Gulf states — the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman;
• most Latin American countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay;
• several Caribbean states — Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, Barbados, the Bahamas, and St Vincent and the Grenadines;
• Hong Kong and Macao, or hold a Taiwan passport that includes an identification card number.

Each traveller needs their own ETA, including babies and children. Parents or other adults can apply on their behalf. An ETA is also required for transit if the passenger passes through UK border control (landside), for example to change terminals or collect luggage. If you stay airside and do not pass through border control, you do not need an ETA, but it is worth confirming the transfer arrangements with your airline.

Who does not need an ETA

According to GOV.UK guidance, you do not need an ETA if you:

• are a British or Irish citizen, including dual citizens;
• hold a UK visa or permission to live, work or study in the UK, including settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme;
• have permission to live in Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man;
• travel on a British overseas territories citizen (BOTC) or British National (Overseas) passport;
• are lawfully resident in Ireland and travel to the UK from Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man;
• are waiting for a decision on an EU Settlement Scheme application;
• transit without passing through border control.

Dual citizens deserve a separate mention. A British citizen who also holds, for example, a French or Canadian passport cannot get an ETA on that second passport. To enter the UK they must use a valid British or Irish passport, or a foreign passport with a certificate of entitlement to the right of abode. Otherwise the airline may refuse boarding. This issue often affects clients who have acquired dual citizenship and have not renewed their British documents for some time.

Nationals who cannot get an ETA

Nationals of countries on the visa national list must obtain a visa even for a short holiday. The list includes, among others, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, India, China (except Hong Kong and Macao passports), Thailand and South Africa. For them, the standard option is the UK Standard Visitor visa.

What matters is the nationality of the passport you travel on, not your country of residence. A person with two nationalities — one from a visa country and one from a visa-free country — can apply for an ETA on the visa-free passport and travel on it. The permission cannot be transferred between passports: you must travel on the passport named in the application.

For those who fall within the requirement, an ETA offers clear advantages over a traditional visa.

Advantages of the ETA for travellers from visa-free countries

• Application online or in the app, with no visa centre appointment
• Decision usually within a day and no later than three working days
• Multiple trips over two years without new applications
• Stays of up to six months on each visit to the UK
• Validity for travel to Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man
• Applications for children and relatives from a single device
• Fee of £20 instead of £135 for a short-term visitor visa

These advantages only apply within the rules for visitors. Before booking a trip, make sure its purpose is actually permitted when entering on an ETA.

What you can do in the UK with an ETA

An ETA does not create a separate status: its holder enters as a Visitor and must follow the same rules as a visitor visa holder. Importantly, the visitor requirements set out in the rules for visits apply even where no visa is needed. According to GOV.UK guidance, with an ETA you can:

• come for up to 6 months for tourism or to visit family and friends;
• make a business trip — meetings, negotiations, conferences and other activities permitted for visitors;
• undertake short-term study of up to 6 months;
• come for up to 3 months under the Creative Worker visa concession for performances and creative projects (see the Creative Worker visa);
• carry out a permitted paid engagement;
• transit through the UK while passing through border control.

Six months is the maximum length of a single visit, not an annual limit. However, frequent long trips that effectively amount to living in the UK may be treated by Border Force as an attempt to circumvent the rules. The more time a traveller spends in the country, the more closely the officer will ask about the purpose of the visit, income, work and accommodation abroad.

If the purpose of your trip goes beyond these limits — work, study longer than six months, marriage or relocation — you need the appropriate visa. Marriage in the UK requires a separate Marriage Visitor visa, and work generally requires a sponsored work visa or another dedicated immigration route.

ETA cost and processing times

Since 8 April 2026, the ETA fee has been £20, up from £16. The fee is paid when you apply and is not refunded if the application is refused or contains an error: in either case you have to submit a new application and pay again. Current amounts are published in the Home Office immigration and nationality fees table.

According to GOV.UK, you will usually receive a decision by email within one day, but it can take up to 3 working days. The email contains your 16-digit ETA reference number. You may only travel once you have received confirmation that the ETA has been granted. Here is how an ETA compares with a short-term visitor visa:

Long-term visitor visas cost £506 (2 years), £903 (5 years) and £1,128 (10 years); fees for all visa categories are collected on the UK visa fees page. Apply for an ETA only through the official GOV.UK website or the UK ETA app: third-party websites charge extra for the same service, do not speed up the decision, and some of them imitate government services.

How to get an ETA: the application process

For most travellers, an ETA application takes 10 to 15 minutes. But if there have been refusals, overstays, convictions or a change of nationality in the past, it is worth going through the process step by step, starting with a risk review. This is what the process looks like with support from Imperial & Legal:

To apply yourself, you will need the passport you will travel with, an email address, a credit or debit card (or Apple Pay or Google Pay) and a smartphone camera for the facial photo. In the app you can apply for another person only if they are with you; if they are not, you must apply online using photos of their passport and face. Decisions for family members may arrive at different times. You can check whether your ETA is valid and when it expires using the GOV.UK online service.

Travel support

Help with ETA and visitor visas for UK trips

ETA eligibility check

Review of nationality, travel purpose and Home Office rules

Visitor visa instead

Application support if an ETA is unavailable or too risky

Refusal risk review

Analysis of past refusals, overstays and convictions

Support after refusal

Action plan and new application addressing the reasons

Book a consultation

Even once you have an ETA, the rules can change at any time — not just for an individual traveller, but for an entire country.

Who has been moved from ETA to visas: timeline of changes

The Home Office regularly reviews the visa regime for individual countries. If a country’s nationals use visits on a significant scale for other purposes — such as work, settlement or claiming asylum on arrival — the country is removed from the ETA list and added to the visa national list. Since September 2024 this has happened to six countries. The changes take effect on the day they are published, at 3pm UK time, so nationals of these countries effectively learn about them after the event.

The transition period only applied to people who already held a valid ETA at the time of the change and a confirmed booking for travel within the set dates. Moving a trip to an earlier date did not help: a visa was still required. All of these transition periods have now ended, and nationals of the countries listed need a visitor visa for any visit, even if an ETA issued earlier has not formally expired. All changes with their effective dates are collected in the UK immigration rule changes log.

St Lucia passports and citizenship by investment

The two most recent decisions are particularly telling for holders of investment passports. In the explanatory memorandum to HC 1691, the Home Office expressly cites the risks of St Lucia’s citizenship by investment programme among the reasons for the visa requirement, and, according to the explanatory memorandum to HC 1491, visas for Nauru nationals were introduced precisely because the country launched such a programme. As a result, a St Lucia passport obtained through economic citizenship no longer allows travel to the UK on an ETA.

As of November 2026, nationals of Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis and Grenada still apply for an ETA, while nationals of Dominica, like those of St Lucia, are on the visa national list. If a second passport was acquired partly for travel to the UK, check the current rules before every trip using the GOV.UK checker: the rules change without advance notice.

ETA refusal: grounds and next steps

The grounds for refusal are set out in Appendix Electronic Travel Authorisation of the Immigration Rules. Unlike a visa, where the officer can take the applicant’s explanations into account, most ETA grounds are mandatory: if the circumstance applies, the ETA is refused. An application will be refused if the applicant:

• has been convicted of a criminal offence in the UK or overseas and received a custodial or suspended sentence of 12 months or more;
• has been convicted of any criminal offence within the last 12 months;
• overstayed (since 6 April 2017, by more than 30 days), breached the conditions of their permission or entered illegally as an adult;
• used deception in an immigration application or gave false information in an ETA application;
• was previously refused a visa or entry as a visitor, unless the Home Office later granted permission knowing about that refusal;
• had a previous ETA cancelled, has unpaid litigation costs owed to the Home Office, or whose presence is not conducive to the public good.

An ETA that has already been granted can be cancelled on the same grounds, and also where the holder owes the NHS £500 or more. An ETA refusal is not a refusal of entry and cannot be appealed: the rules expressly provide that the next step is a visa application. When applying for a visa, it is important to disclose your full immigration history honestly and to explain in advance the circumstances that led to the ETA refusal. Common refusal reasons and ways to address them are covered in the guide to UK visa refusal reasons.

When it is better to apply for a visitor visa straight away

GOV.UK expressly advises people with a criminal record or previous refusals of entry to consider applying for a Standard Visitor visa instead of an ETA. In practice, it is sensible to apply for a visa from the outset if:

• you have a criminal conviction, even one that is spent under your country’s law;
• you have previously been refused a UK visa or entry at the border;
• you have ever stayed in the UK beyond the permitted period;
• you have recently changed nationality, name or passport details;
• the trip is important and tied to a date: a family wedding, medical treatment, a court hearing or a transaction.

A visa takes more time and paperwork, but the officer assesses your circumstances as a whole rather than against a formal criterion. A strong application that explains past issues often offers better prospects than repeated attempts to obtain an ETA.

Practical examples: ETA or visa

Here are some typical situations clients raise before travelling to the UK.

An entrepreneur with British and Canadian passports. The client has lived in Dubai for years and flies to London on his Canadian passport. His British passport expired long ago. With the ETA now enforced, the airline will refuse boarding: as a British citizen he cannot get an ETA, and he is not entitled to enter on his Canadian passport without a certificate of entitlement. The solution is to obtain a new British passport or a certificate of entitlement in good time.

A family with St Lucia passports. An investor, his wife and children obtained St Lucia citizenship through the investment programme and travelled to London on ETAs until March 2026. Their next summer holiday now requires a Standard Visitor visa for each family member. They should apply early: the usual processing time is up to three weeks, plus time to book a visa centre appointment.

A Brazilian national with a past refusal. Several years ago, before the ETA was introduced, the applicant was refused entry at the UK border. An ETA application is now likely to be refused automatically because of that refusal. It is more practical to prepare a visa application straight away, with a detailed explanation of how her circumstances have changed.

Imperial & Legal has already resolved similar situations for clients from many countries. Here are some success stories involving visitor visas.

Client stories: UK visitor visas

Success stories

4 min

Applying For a UK Standard Visitor Visa after Refusal

Fernanda was born in Brazil. She has travelled a lot since she was a teenager and studied at a European university. She qualified as a business analyst and found a remote job which offered her a...

Success stories

4 min

UK Standard Visitor Visa for Business Purposes: Rules of the Game

Guan is an employee of an energy company in Singapore. He has been working in the company for almost 10 years and has grown to the project launch...

Success stories

4 min

Obtaining UK Standard Visitor Visa For Overstayers

Marina is very passionate about rock music – she goes to all rock concerts in her home town. She even tried to play the guitar in a rock band that, unfortunately, broke up after several...

Success stories

5 min

Applying for a UK Standard Visitor Visa for Medical Reasons

Aigul was the elder daughter of a well-known businessman in Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana) with her family scattered all over Europe. She was a businesswoman herself and managed a small chain of...

Success stories

4 min

Getting a UK Standard Visitor Visa after Refusal to Visit Children and Granddaughter

Galina has recently retired, and she is active and full of energy at 57. The children have grown up and they have their own families and careers. Her...

One of these clients explained why she turned to immigration advisers after a refusal, even though she had previously lived in and travelled to the UK without any problems.

I like to joke that I had become a freelancer before it became mainstream. The thing is since early age, I had been dreaming about travelling and exploring new countries – that is why I found a job I could do from anywhere. I had lived in the UK for some time previously and did not expect to get a visa refusal. Friends recommended that I get in touch with Imperial & Legal’s immigration advisors. They helped me sort out the visa.

Fernanda, a 29-year-old

Business analyst from Brazil

Clients’ names and photos have been changed

Brazilian nationals now travel to the UK on an ETA, but a past refusal shows the limits of the automated system: it does not take context into account, and in such cases a visa remains the more reliable route.

Common mistakes when applying for an ETA

Most ETA problems arise not from the complexity of the process but from a lack of attention to detail. These are the mistakes that most often lead to denied boarding, wasted money or difficulties at the border:

• Applying through intermediary websites. They charge on top of the £20 fee, do not speed up the decision and sometimes submit data with errors.
• Travelling on a different passport. An ETA only works with the passport named in the application. A replacement passport requires a new ETA, even if the old one has not expired.
• Inaccurate answers about the past. Failing to disclose a conviction, refusal or overstay counts as false information, leads to refusal or cancellation and complicates future visa applications.
• ETAs for British dual citizens. They cannot get one, and travelling on a foreign passport without a certificate of entitlement leads to denied boarding.
• Non-refundable tickets before a decision. Although most applications are approved within minutes, the Home Office recommends allowing three working days, and a refusal means extra time for a visa.
• Work or study disguised as a visit. Remote work for an overseas employer is generally permitted if it is not the main purpose of the trip, but work for a UK company or long-term study on an ETA is not.
• Ignoring changes to the visa regime. Nationals of countries moved onto the visa list sometimes try to travel on a previously issued ETA and are refused boarding.

If any of these points apply to your situation, it is worth getting an independent assessment before you apply.

Good preparation for a trip starts well before booking, especially if you plan to visit the UK regularly.

How to plan your UK trip without surprises

The ETA has made travel to the UK quick and inexpensive for nationals of visa-free countries, but it has also tightened control: without permission a passenger will not be allowed to board, and past breaches are now identified before departure. The guiding principle is therefore to check your status and history first and book tickets second. If an ETA is not available to you or there is a risk of refusal, it is better to prepare a visitor visa application in advance. And if you have already been refused, it is worth understanding the reasons before submitting a new application; the options for challenging decisions are described on the page about UK visa refusals and appeals.

Key takeaways

• An ETA is required for nationals of around 85 visa-free countries, including the EU, the USA and the Gulf states.
• It costs £20, is decided within up to 3 working days and is valid for 2 years or until the passport expires.
• Since 25 February 2026, carriers have not allowed passengers to travel without an ETA or a visa.
• Nationals of Jordan, Trinidad and Tobago, Botswana, Nauru, Nicaragua and St Lucia now need a visa.
• Convictions, past refusals and overstays almost always make a Standard Visitor visa the more sensible option.
• British dual citizens cannot get an ETA and must travel on a British passport or with a certificate of entitlement.

The information on this page is general in nature, is current as of November 2026 and does not constitute individual legal advice. Decisions on ETAs, visas and entry to the UK are made by the Home Office and Border Force.