Last month, we visited the United Kingdom to spend the first few days of the New Year in Cardiff, Wales. And this weekend, we’ll be heading back to the UK — to Liverpool this time — with a brand new “visa” in hand. This is the new UK ETA visa, or the Electronic Travel Authorisation visa, which just went into effect for the first time on January 8, 2025.
It sounds a little but scary, but I promise the process to apply is super simple — and I’ll walk you through all the steps so there’s no confusion. I’ll even share a trick for American passports to (hopefully) help prevent frustration. So, here’s everything you need to know about the UK ETA visa.
What is the UK ETA visa?
One quick note to start off: the UK ETA “visa” isn’t really a visa. It’s a travel authorization. Many countries — the U.S. included — have required travel authorizations from its visitors for years. You may have heard that the European Union has been planning to implement its own travel authorization system on visitors for a couple of years now, which is scheduled to finally take effect in May 2025 (allegedly). The UK isn’t part of the EU anymore, but they’re doing the same, and it’s already underway.
The United Kingdom’s Electronic Travel Authorisation allows you to stay in the country as a tourist for a maximum of six months per year (or three months if you’re coming through the Creative Worker visa concession). Basically, it allows you to do all the things you could do before if you were going to the UK. American tourists, for example, were already only allowed to stay in the UK for a maximum of six months per year. So in that regard, the ETA isn’t really changing anything. It’s just a new system of registering and tracking your presence in the country.
The UK ETA costs £10 per person to apply, and you can choose to pay in your native currency.
Who needs the UK ETA visa?
As of February 2025, citizens of the following countries will need to apply for the UK ETA:
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Argentina
- Australia
- The Bahamas
- Bahrain
- Barbados
- Belize
- Botswana
- Brazil
- Brunei
- Canada
- Chile
- Costa Rica
- Grenada
- Guatemala
- Guyana
- Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (including British national overseas)
- Israel
- Japan
- Kiribati
- Kuwait
- Macao Special Administrative Region
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Marshall Islands
- Mauritius
- Mexico
- Federated States of Micronesia
- Nauru
- New Zealand
- Nicaragua
- Oman
- Palau
- Panama
- Papua New Guinea
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Qatar
- Samoa
- Saudi Arabia
- Seychelles
- Singapore
- Solomon Islands
- South Korea
- St Kitts and Nevis
- St Lucia
- St Vincent and the Grenadines
- Taiwan (if you have a passport issued by Taiwan that includes in it the number of the identification card issued by the competent authority in Taiwan)
- Tonga
- Trinidad and Tobago
- Tuvalu
- United Arab Emirates
- United States
- Uruguay
Starting on March 5, 2025, citizens of all European countries (with the exception of Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey) will be able to apply for the UK ETA.
Every traveler needs their own ETA, including babies and children.
If your country is not listed as able to apply for the UK ETA, you will need to seek a travel visa instead.
Who does not need a UK ETA visa?
Just like residents of the United Kingdom, citizens of the Republic of Ireland also do NOT need the UK ETA. Additionally, those with citizenship in the United Kingdom or Ireland, even if they are dual nationals, do not need the UK ETA.
And people who have a valid residence permit in the UK do not need the ETA. For example, if I were living in England as an American with a valid residence permit, I wouldn’t need it.
How long does the UK ETA Visa last?
The UK ETA is good for two years, or until your current passport expires — whichever is sooner.
How do you apply for the UK ETA visa?
Applying for your visa with your phone is really easy, though there are a few steps you have to get just right. I hope all these screenshots and photos help show how simple it can be!
Start by downloading the official UK ETA app for either Android or iPhone. While that finishes up, grab your passport and your debit/credit card — that’s all you really should need for the process.
The first step, after passing these initial screens, is to enter your email address. This is important because you’ll receive your ETA “decision” by email — meaning you’ll find out whether you are approved or not. After entering your email address, you’ll receive a message to that email from UK Visas and Immigration Home Office, which will include a code. Come back to the app and enter the code (within 10 minutes or else it will expire) and then you’ll be ready to move on to the next steps.
Next, you’ll be asked whether your passport has a biometric chip. For most people applying for the UK ETA, the answer is likely “yes.” So when you say yes, you’ll need to take a picture of the information page of your passport — pretty standard — and then we move to the next step.
This is where it gets kind of tricky. You have to scan your passport’s biometric chip with your phone. (This will only work if your phone has NFC capability, or — in other words — can make contactless payments.) The instructions for scanning the chip say to “Close your passport”… and “Put the top of the phone halfway down your passport,” along with an illustration.
I can tell you that this did NOT work in either of our American passports — mine, which is the old style (no plastic photo page) OR Matt’s, which is the new style with the plastic photo page.
In order to get past this, recent experiences flying RyanAir to the UK and Ireland helped me out. When we fly from Spain, since we are leaving the Schengen area, we always have to get our documents checked. Previously, this meant an extra stop in the RyanAir line at the airport before going through security. But in the last year, we’ve been able to use our phones to scan our passport’s biometric chip in the RyanAir app instead.
And the instructions from the RyanAir app are quite different from the ones for UK ETA visa. I remember it saying: “In American passports, the biometric chip is located in the back cover.” The instructions are to open your passport to the back cover and put your phone halfway down the page.
And it worked!
So, it seems like the app basically wasn’t able to give specific instructions based on passport, but we got there in the end. I think I would have been super frustrated if I hadn’t known to try it the RyanAir way, so I’m so glad it worked, and I hope it helps you too!
Now with the hardest part over, there’s just a bit left to the application. Next, you have to center your face in the middle of a circle. Simple enough, but it’s like a cartoon sketch of you that looks like it came straight out of A-Ha’s Take On Me music video from 1985. (It caught me off guard and I was trying not to smile too hard because it’s so silly.) And then, you have to take a normal photo of yourself in front of a blank light-colored wall, almost like a passport photo. You can do it as a selfie, but it’s a little easier if you have someone else to help you.
And finally, you answer standard questions like “Do you have any criminal convictions?” and “What is your employment status?” I think from beginning to end, including paying for the application, it took me about 10 minutes to apply — and that includes the passport-scanning-related delay.
When you’re finished, you’ll get a message stating your reference number and telling you to keep an eye on your email for the resolution of your application.
How long does it take to get approved for the UK ETA?
After your application is officially submitted and you get your reference number, the message also states: “Allow up to 3 working days (Monday to Friday) to get a decision, but it may arrive much sooner.”
Matt and I both got our approvals via email one minute after submitting the application. 😂
I’m not sure if we benefitted from being some of the first people to apply (within the first month) or whether we’re just easy to run background checks on, or whatever, but the whole thing was so much faster than we were even expecting.
What happens when you arrive in the UK?
Now that we have our UK ETAs, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing special we need to do when we land at the airport in Manchester. Many airports in the UK have been using e-gates for passports for the last several years, so it’s not like we even have to go up to an immigration officer or get our passports stamped.
However, if you arrive in the UK without the ETA — and one is necessary for you — I’m guessing you’d run into some sort of issue if the e-gate detects that your passport is not associated with an ETA.
What if I get rejected for the UK ETA?
If your application is rejected — or you’re not eligible for the ETA — you will have to apply for a regular visa.
What do I if I can’t scan my passport chip for the UK ETA visa?
If your phone isn’t reading your passport chip in the front cover with your passport closed, try opening your passport to the back cover. This is where the biometric chip is located in American passports (and potentially others as well).
If your phone doesn’t have NFC capabilities, which is the technology required to be able to scan your passport chip, you may need to borrow someone’s phone who does. There doesn’t seem to be an alternative solution shared by UK immigration at this time.
I hope this helps explain a bit about how the UK ETA visa works and how to troubleshoot some of the most frustrating steps! Let me know what other questions you have and I’ll do my best to answer them.
-Cathy
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