After decades of being able to fly into cities like London and Edinburgh with nothing but a plane ticket and a valid passport, both North Americans and Europeans who traveled to the United Kingdom since 2025 learned that they now need to apply for an online electronic travel authorisation (ETA) prior to their first trip.
The process is relatively easy: Most will, after applying online on the British government portal and paying £20, be approved within minutes for multiple entries over two years. But those who do not remember to do this and do not have an ETA attached to their passport can be refused boarding by the airline or entry by the border guard upon arrival.
With the ETA requirement now in place for more than a year, the “transitionary period” in which a tourist can pass it off to not being aware has mostly come to an end. Last week, the U.S. State Department updated its travel advisory for the UK to reflect the British government’s message of “no permission, no travel.”
‘All U.S. citizens traveling to the United Kingdom must have an ETA before travel:’ U.S. State Department
“All U.S. citizens traveling to the United Kingdom for tourism, family visits, business meetings, conferences, or short-term study for six months or less must have an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) before travel,” the State Department now states in the “Travel Requirements” section of its travel advisory page for the UK.
An added section says that the U.S. government “cannot help with your UK visa application and also “cannot press for your admission into the UK” if one is denied entry.
Related: Country reintroduces travel restrictions for Americans and Brits
The ETA is meant to vet low-risk travelers and automate the entry process once one arrives to a British airport. Most travelers without a history of past overstay or criminal offenses get approved within a few minutes and, once they have the authorization digitally attached to their passport, can then use the same e-gates as British citizens.
If those do not open automatically, one gets redirected to a customs agent for additional questioning.
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As UK requires travel authorisation, ETA scams are on the rise
The United States has had a similar Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) requirement for UK and European travelers since 2008.
Amid widespread confusion around the ETA and how to apply for one, countless scammers have been operating websites that seize upon Google search optimization to deceive travelers into paying for unnecessary application help.
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The most common scheme is an application website that either impersonates the British government website or promises to “fast-track” an application without any ability to do so. The website is optimized to be one of the first things a traveler sees when they type things like “apply for travel authorization to UK” into a search engine.
In each case, the company will charge a fee substantially higher than the £20 that the ETA would cost for the traveler to apply through the government app independently. Meanwhile, any promised “application help” they provide cannot go beyond entering one’s personal passport details into an online application portal already accessible to all.
Travelers without a history of criminal conviction or past visa overstay are already usually automatically approved within minutes, while those who got flagged will go through a government vetting process over which a private company would have no control.
Related: The latest tourist tax could soon come to all of England
