ETA UK: price, processing time and how to apply with a US passport (2026)
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P. LauroreCo-founder & Travel and Credit Card Insurance ExpertLast updated: October 9, 2026Do US citizens need an ETA UK, and what does it let you do?
Yes. With a US passport you need an ETA UK for any visit of up to 6 months. The official fee is £20 on gov.uk, and a decision usually arrives by email within a day, up to 3 working days. You can check your route and apply in the box below.
The electronic travel authorisation (ETA) is a digital permission to travel, not a visa. It is attached to the passport you apply with, so there is nothing to print and nothing to collect: at check-in and at the border, your passport is the document. Every traveler needs their own, and gov.uk is explicit that this includes babies and children.
The requirement arrived in two steps. US passports could apply from November 27, 2024 and have needed one to travel since January 8, 2025, which the Home Office announcement of the time framed as covering 6 million visitors a year from the USA, Canada and Australia. Enforcement came later: since February 25, 2026, airlines stop passengers from boarding without an ETA, an eVisa or other valid permission, and the same announcement reported that more than 19 million travelers had applied since the scheme opened in October 2023.
Our visa partner lists four products for this route, one per territory. An ordinary trip to England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland uses the first one, ETA Mainland; the three others cover Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man, and the mapping table further down says which is which.
Updated October 2026. The official fee, the processing time, the validity and the route data below were all re-read on October 7, 2026.
The ETA UK at a glance | What the official sources say |
|---|---|
Document Electronic travel authorisation | A digital permission to travel, not a visa, and not a guarantee of entry |
Who needs one US passport holders | Every traveler, including babies and children, since January 8, 2025 |
Stay per visit | Up to 6 months for tourism, family visits, business or short-term study |
Validity | 2 years, or until your passport expires, whichever comes first |
Entries | As many trips as you want while it is valid |
Official fee | £20 per person, with no refund once you have applied |
Decision | Usually by email within a day, and up to 3 working days |
File before departure | At least 2 days ahead on this route, per our visa partner |
Passport validity | Valid at least 1 month from your arrival date |
Territories covered | United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man |
Where to apply | In the box just below, or yourself on the official site |
- My passport
- United States
- Stay per visit
- 180 days
- Valid for
- 2 years
- Entries
- Multiple entries
ETA Mainland
+ our partner’s service fee, shown before you pay
Apply nowService fee refunded if refused
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Which passports are on the list, and which trips are ruled out?
A US passport is on the list. Our visa partner's route data names 83 eligible passports for the mainland, Guernsey and Jersey products and 86 for the Isle of Man, so most of the people you are likely to travel with qualify too: Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and every European Union country are on the same list.
Seven trip purposes are covered on this route: tourism, business, transit, a conference, visiting people you know, medical treatment and attending an event. gov.uk adds two narrow extras, a stay of up to 3 months on the Creative Worker visa concession and a permitted paid engagement.
Some travelers cannot use it at all, which is a different thing from not needing it. If you also hold British or Irish nationality, the official guidance states plainly that you cannot get an ETA: you travel on that passport, or on a certificate of entitlement. The same applies if you already have a UK visa, permission to live, work or study in the United Kingdom, in Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man, a British overseas territories passport or a British National (Overseas) passport. If you live in Ireland and enter from Ireland, Guernsey, Jersey or the Isle of Man, you do not need one either.
Transit is the case people get wrong. You need an ETA if you pass through border control at a UK airport before your onward flight, and you do not if you stay airside. Your airline is the one that can tell you which applies to your itinerary.
You can travel on this authorisation if
- Your visit is 6 months or less: Tourism, seeing family or friends, a business trip or short-term study all qualify.
- You hold one of the 83 eligible passports: A US passport is on the list, as are Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia and the EU countries.
- You travel on the passport you applied with: The permission is attached to that document and read electronically at the border.
- You are passing through border control on a connection: A landside transit through a UK airport needs one, even without an overnight stay.
- You are a baby or a child: Each traveler gets their own, and an adult can file for the whole family.
You need a visa instead, not this authorisation, if
- You are coming to work: Paid or unpaid work for a UK company, or as a self-employed person, is outside the scheme.
- You plan to stay more than 6 months: A longer stay means a Standard Visitor visa or a study route; see our UK student visa health insurance guide.
- You want to live in the United Kingdom through repeat visits: Frequent or successive visits used as residence are explicitly excluded.
- You are getting married or giving notice of marriage: That requires a Marriage Visitor visa.
- You intend to claim public funds: Benefits are not available on this permission.
- You hold British or Irish nationality as well: You cannot get an ETA at all, even as a dual national.
What does an ETA UK cost on gov.uk, and what does an assisted file add?
An ETA UK costs £20 per person on the official site, read on gov.uk on October 7, 2026, and the official page states that you cannot get a refund once you have applied. The fee is set in pounds by the UK government, which is why that one figure on this page is not in dollars.
The price has risen twice since US passports joined the scheme. It was £10 when applications opened in November 2024, £16 when boarding checks began in February 2026, and £20 today, all three figures from government announcements. For scale, the Home Office itself compared it with the US ESTA at $40.
Our visa partner charges the government fee plus a service fee, and that total is the live figure in the box further up this page. We do not retype it here: it moves with the exchange rate and with your own route, and the box recalculates it in dollars at the rate our funnel quotes, so the only trustworthy number is the one you are looking at.
What you are paying for | The official site | An assisted file on this page |
|---|---|---|
The fee Per traveler | £20, set by the UK government | The government fee plus a service fee, shown live in the box above |
Who receives it | The Home Office, directly | Our visa partner, which pays the government fee on your behalf |
What it buys | The official form, on the website or in the official app | A guided form, a specialist check of your file before it is sent, and follow-up until the decision email arrives |
When it is charged | When you submit the official form | When you submit the form in the box above |
If the answer is no | No refund after you apply | Service fee refunded, government fee kept by the UK |
A faster decision? | Same government queue | Same government queue |
Three things come with the assisted route, and they are the whole trade. The government fee is always shown separately from the service fee, so you can see what the state takes. Specialists read the file before it is sent, which matters most on the photo, the one item that gets applications delayed. And if the authorisation is refused, the service fee comes back to you. What the service cannot do is move you up the queue: the official guidance is blunt that no other website or app gets a faster decision.
How fast is the decision, and what is the safe date to file?
Most decisions land fast. The official wording is that you will usually get a decision by email within a day, but that it can take up to 3 working days, and that email carries a 16-digit reference number. You must wait for it before you travel.
Our visa partner treats this route as immediate processing and asks for the file at least 2 days before departure. Three of the four products are also issued on weekends; the Isle of Man one is not, so a Friday application for that territory realistically waits until Monday.
The deadline that actually bites is the airline's, not the border's. Since February 25, 2026, carriers check the permission before boarding and will refuse a passenger without one, so a decision that arrives while you are already at the airport is useless. If you have had no answer after 3 working days, the official guidance tells you to check your spam folder before contacting UK Visas and Immigration.
Apply as soon as your trip is booked. Most answers come back the same day, the official ceiling is 3 working days, and the authorisation lasts 2 years, so filing early costs you nothing and removes the only scenario that ruins a trip: a boarding gate refusal with no time left to fix it.
How many trips does one authorisation cover, and where is it accepted?
One ETA lasts 2 years, or until your passport expires if that comes first, and you can travel to the United Kingdom as many times as you want while it is valid. Each visit can be up to 6 months. Our visa partner's route data gives the same figures in days: 730 days of validity, 180 days of stay per visit.
Because the permission is attached to the passport you applied with, a new passport means a new application. There is no transfer and no update: the old authorisation stays linked to the old document. The same rule explains why a rejected application or a change of details cannot be edited, only filed again.
The territory question has a clean answer and a messy one. The clean answer is official: one ETA lets you travel to the United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man. The messy one is commercial: our visa partner still files per territory, so the box above draws four tabs. An ordinary trip to London, Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast is the ETA Mainland tab. The Republic of Ireland is not covered by any of them, because it is not part of the United Kingdom and runs its own immigration rules.
Tab in the box above | What it is filed for | Stay per visit | Validity | Official fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ETA Mainland | England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland | 180 days | 730 days | £20 |
ETA Guernsey | The Bailiwick of Guernsey | 180 days | 730 days | £20 |
ETA Jersey | The Bailiwick of Jersey | 180 days | 730 days | £20 |
ETA Isle of Man | The Isle of Man, and not issued on weekends | 180 days | 730 days | £20 |
What are the five steps from this page to an approved email?
Five steps, and the first one is already on this page. Allow ten minutes for the form and have your passport in your hand before you start, because the scan is the part that cannot be guessed.
- Check your route and the price in the box above
Pick the tab that matches where you are going, almost always ETA Mainland, and read the total before you commit. - Fill in the guided form
Passport details, contact details, trip purpose. One file per traveler, and an adult can file for the whole family. - Upload the passport page and the face photo
Follow the official digital photo rules: plain background, no filter, the whole face visible. - Pay and submit
The government fee and the service fee are shown separately before you confirm. - Wait for the approval email
Usually the same day, up to 3 working days. Do not travel until it arrives: airlines check before boarding.
You can also do all of this yourself, in English, on gov.uk or in the official UK ETA app, at the £20 government fee and nothing more. The official route needs a passport, an email address and a card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, and the official page warns about third-party sites that imitate government services. We are not one of them, and we say so plainly in the FAQ below.
Which two documents does the form ask for, and what can delay it?
Two items are mandatory on this route, and both are listed by our visa partner: the passport you will travel with, and a photo or selfie of the traveler on a neutral background. Everything else is typed, not uploaded.
- Passport (mandatory)
The one you will actually travel on, valid at least 1 month from your arrival date. The authorisation is linked to it electronically. - Photo of the traveler, or a selfie on a neutral background (mandatory)
The official digital photo rules apply: the whole face visible, no sunglasses, nothing covering the features, plain background. - An email address
The decision and the 16-digit reference arrive there, so use an address you can read while traveling. - A payment method
Credit card, debit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay on the official route.
The photo is where applications slip. The official guidance states that if the face photo does not meet the rules, the application may be delayed or rejected, and there is no refund: a rejected file means paying again. That single sentence is the strongest argument for having someone check the file before it is sent.
A US driver's license will not do, and neither will a card of any kind. The United Kingdom accepts a passport at the border for visitors on this route, which is why the scan quality matters more than anything else you type.
Which shots and which duty-free limits matter on arrival?
No vaccine is required to enter the United Kingdom. Our visa partner's route data lists six recommended ones, each drawn from the CDC's United Kingdom travel health page, and none of them is a condition of the authorisation.
- Tick-borne encephalitis (recommended)
From age 1, for rural or wooded stays in the east of the country from spring to fall. - Polio (recommended)
Poliovirus has been reported in the country and a single lifetime booster is advised for vaccinated adults. - Hepatitis A (recommended)
Suggested for travelers visiting smaller towns or rural areas, or eating street food. - Hepatitis B (recommended)
Recommended for unvaccinated travelers under 60; older travelers may also be vaccinated. - Rabies (recommended)
Suggested where activities increase contact with potentially rabid animals. - Mpox (recommended)
Recommended for adults expecting close intimate contact with new partners during the trip.
What you bring in | The allowance on arrival |
|---|---|
Alcohol From age 17 | 42 liters of beer, 18 liters of still wine, plus either 4 liters of spirits and liqueurs over 22% or 9 liters of sparkling wine, fortified wine and other drinks up to 22% |
Tobacco | 200 cigarettes, 100 cigarillos, 50 cigars, 250 g of pipe or cigarette tobacco, or 200 heated-tobacco sticks, or a proportional combination |
Cash | No limit on sterling or foreign currency, but £10,000 or more (or the equivalent) must be declared on arrival and on departure, and also when traveling from Great Britain to Northern Ireland |
Medicines | Personal medication needs no declaration, but carry a prescription or a doctor's letter. Anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs are prohibited unless imported for personal self-administration |
Refused or still pending: what can you actually do?
A refusal costs you the government fee. The official page is unambiguous that there is no refund once you have applied, and that a rejected application, or a change of details, means filing again from the start. On an assisted file the service fee comes back to you; the £20 the state has taken does not.
The official guidance does not publish a list of refusal reasons, but it names the two situations that should push you to a different route before you spend anything: a criminal record, or a previous refusal of entry to the United Kingdom. In both cases it suggests a Standard Visitor visa instead. That is a consular application, and it is not what this page sells.
An approved authorisation is also not a guarantee. The official wording is that an ETA does not guarantee entry to the United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man: the border officer still decides, on your purpose of travel and your means. Carrying a return ticket, an address and proof you can support yourself is what makes that conversation short.
The £20 government fee is not refundable. A second application means paying it again. A trip you cannot take because the permission did not arrive is a cancellation matter, not a visa one, and only a travel policy with cancellation coverage pays for it: of the plans we can quote from a US address for this destination, exactly one answers when you tick that option.
Who pays your hospital bill in Britain if something goes wrong?
Nobody, unless you arranged it. The authorisation insures nothing: it is permission to arrive. As a visitor you are not entitled to the country's state-funded healthcare on the same terms as a resident, and a hospital in Britain will bill you for treatment and pursue it afterwards. Your US health plan rarely follows you across the Atlantic, and almost never pays for a medical evacuation home.
Here is what our own numbers say. Across all markets, 66 travelers bought a HelloSafe policy for a trip to the United Kingdom in the 12 months to October 7, 2026. Quoted from a US address for a week in November, our comparator returns 6 plans, from $27.11 to $83.92 for a traveler of 34, with a median of $63.26. The cheapest of them still carries about $343,000 of emergency medical coverage, which is the number that matters when a night in a private ward turns into surgery.
The fine print is where these plans separate, and we read it rather than summarize it. On every one of them, the assistance service must authorize an evacuation or a repatriation in advance: on Smart Travel Protection the wording is that without that approval, compensation is limited to what would have been paid had the service been contacted. Direct billing, the reason you do not advance the money yourself, is equally conditional: Smart Travel Protection requires a call before admission, and on WorldSecure Basic and WorldSecure Platinum it applies only to a hospital stay of more than 24 hours. World Travel goes further and says that nothing you decide on your own is reimbursed.
Two clauses deserve a note before you buy. WorldSecure Platinum's cancellation option has to be taken out on the day you book the trip and within 48 hours at the latest, so it is not something you can add the week before you fly. And on both WorldSecure plans, a policy taken out after you have already left only starts covering you after 8 days. If what you actually want is coverage for the trip itself rather than for the ticket, our travel medical insurance for US travelers guide goes deeper on limits and exclusions, and our trip cancellation insurance guide covers the reasons a cancellation claim is accepted. The full comparison lives on our travel insurance hub.
The plan we would take for a week in Britain
You land in London, you are a visitor rather than a resident of the health system, and a private hospital bill arrives in your name. The plan we would take first is Smart Travel Protection: it is the one in this shortlist that an assistance service can settle directly with the hospital after a call before admission, it carries $250,000 of emergency medical coverage and $500,000 for evacuation and repatriation, and it is the only plan here that still answers when you tick trip cancellation, up to $40,000 of what you prepaid. It is also the only one open at any age, from a baby to a traveler of 99, and it includes telemedicine in English while you are away.
If your trip is already booked and you would rather have a European contract, WorldSecure Platinum carries about $10,280 of cancellation coverage, but only if you add the option within 48 hours of booking, and it stops at 65. For a medical-only week at the lowest price in the shortlist, WorldSecure Basic still carries about $343,000 of emergency care, provided you are under 40. The cards below show today’s price for your own dates.
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Real HelloSafe quotes captured on 7 October 2026 for 1 traveler aged 34, 7 days in the United Kingdom (20 to 27 November 2026), residence United States, cancellation option off. Your own price depends on your age, how long you stay and the options you tick.<br>Smart Travel Protection is shown as a from-price per day; the other quotes are the computed premium for the whole week. These policies are sold across many countries, so prices and cover limits are displayed in dollars, converted at the live exchange rate. WorldSecure Basic accepts travelers under 40, WorldSecure Platinum up to 65, World Travel up to 84.
HelloSafe is available as an app inside ChatGPT. Install it from ChatGPT’s Apps tab, then type @HelloSafe followed by your destination and dates to compare travel insurance.
What does a week of cover for Britain cost, traveler by traveler?
Between $27.11 and $278.87, depending on who is traveling and for how long. A solo traveler of 34 pays from $27.11 for the week; a family of four pays from $108.45 for one policy; a traveler of 68 pays from $69.72, because the two cheapest plans refuse that age outright.
Traveler profile | Budget | Average | Premium | The one thing that explains the row |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Solo traveler, 34 7 days in the United Kingdom | $27.11 WorldSecure Basic | $63.26 | $83.92 Go Explore + | Even the cheapest plan carries about $343,000 of emergency medical coverage |
Family of four Adults 38 and 36, children 8 and 5, 7 days | $108.45 WorldSecure Basic | $202.70 | $278.87 World Travel | One policy covers all four, so a week costs about four times the solo quote |
Traveler of 68 7 days in the United Kingdom | $69.72 World Travel | $94.25 | $114.91 Go Explore + | Two of the six plans refuse this age, so the cheapest plan is not the same one |
Long stay, 34 30 days in the United Kingdom | $85.21 WorldSecure Basic | $114.91 | $160.65 WorldSecure Platinum | Four times the nights costs about three times the week, not four |
The same quotes as the table above: residence United States, destination United Kingdom, 7 days from November 20, 2026 (30 days for the long stay), captured October 7, 2026.
Age and duration move the price far more than the destination does. At 34 the cheapest quote is $27.11; at 68 the same week starts at $69.72, and not because the plan got more expensive but because WorldSecure Basic and WorldSecure Platinum stop at 39 and 65 respectively, so the comparator falls back to World Travel. Stretching the trip from 7 to 30 days takes the cheapest quote from $27.11 to $85.21, roughly three times the price for four times the nights.
Trip value is the other lever, and it only exists if you buy cancellation coverage. Of the six plans quotable from a US address for this destination, ticking cancellation leaves exactly one standing, Smart Travel Protection, with the five others returning cancellation cover not supported. That is the single most useful thing our data says about this route, and it is not something a generic guide can tell you.
Which ETA UK questions do US travelers search for most?
£20 per person on the official site, read on gov.uk on October 7, 2026, with no refund once you have applied. Babies and children pay the same. Through an assisted file you pay that government fee plus a service fee, and the total is shown live in the box on this page before you commit.
No. The official route is the government website and the official UK ETA app, where the fee is £20 and nothing more. The box on this page is a licensed visa partner that files the same application for you and charges a service fee on top of the government fee. Both figures are shown separately before you pay.
For three things: a guided form, a specialist check of the file before it is sent, and follow-up until the decision email. The check matters most on the face photo, the item the official guidance says can get an application delayed or rejected, with no refund either way. If the authorisation is refused, the service fee is returned to you. What it does not buy is speed: no third party gets a faster decision.
Yes for an ordinary US passport, which appears on all four eligibility lists our visa partner publishes for this route. The exception is nationality rather than passport: if you also hold British or Irish nationality you cannot get an ETA at all and must travel on that passport or on a certificate of entitlement.
Yes. The official guidance states that each person traveling needs one, including babies and children, and each one costs £20. One adult can apply for the rest of the family, and if you are filing for someone who is not with you, you must use the website rather than the app.
As soon as the trip is booked. Most decisions arrive by email within a day, the official ceiling is 3 working days, and our visa partner asks for the file at least 2 days before departure on this route. Since the permission lasts 2 years, applying early costs nothing and avoids the only real failure case, a boarding refusal with no time to fix it.
Yes. The permission is linked electronically to the passport you applied with, and there is no way to transfer it. A renewed or replaced passport means a new application and a new £20 fee, even if the old authorisation has not expired.
Only if you pass through border control, which the official guidance calls a landside transit. If you stay airside and never cross immigration, you do not need one. Itineraries differ by airport and terminal, so your airline is the authority on which case yours is.
The £20 is not refunded, and there is no appeal on the official route: a rejected file means applying again. On an assisted file the service fee is returned to you while the government fee is kept by the UK. If the refusal follows a criminal record or an earlier refusal of entry, the official guidance points to a Standard Visitor visa, which is a consular application we do not handle.
No. Visits are capped at 6 months and paid or unpaid work for a UK company, or as a self-employed person, is excluded, apart from a permitted paid engagement and up to 3 months on the Creative Worker visa concession. Living in the United Kingdom through frequent or successive visits is excluded too, and so is marrying or giving notice of marriage.
No. The official guidance is explicit that a dual national with British or Irish citizenship cannot get one. You travel on a valid British passport, a valid Irish passport, or another passport carrying a certificate of entitlement that proves your right of abode.
No. Unlike a Schengen visa, the United Kingdom sets no insurance condition for this permission. It is a practical need rather than a legal one: as a visitor you are billed for hospital treatment in Britain, and quoted from a US address a week of coverage for this destination starts at $27.11 for a traveler of 34, with about $343,000 of emergency medical coverage on the cheapest plan.