Got your ETA yet?

Recently (Winter, 2025), the UK enacted a new requirement for travelers to the country. While not a visa, it is a required permission to enter. It is called the “Electronic Travel Authorisation” or ETA. The details are here UK Government Website.

To apply for the ETA, you must download the app to your phone, either iPhone or Android, through the appropriate store. We have iPhones, so we got it through the Apple Store. The app is free and installation was pretty easy.

When the app is launched, the phone displays these screens:

Screenshot of Opening Page of UK ETA app. (Image copyright 2025, England for All Reasons)

Screenshot of UK ETA App from iPhone. (Copyright 2025, England For All Reasons)

As the screens say, you’ll need your passport, a credit or debit card, and access to your email during the process.

What happens next is that you enter or scan data from your passport. We both have the new ePassports with a chip in them, but the app could not read the chip for some reason, so we had to enter the data manually. It wasn’t hard to do, just annoying. Later we found out that the chip apparently is in the back cover of the US passport, but the instructions clearly show putting your phone on the front of the passport for the scan. After we had applied, there were “hints” shown in the app that suggested that if the phone couldn’t scan the chip, to put the phone on the back cover on the inside to read it. Unfortunately, that advice came AFTER the app had already rejected the chip and forced the manual entry. Just be aware that the chip for the US passport is in the back cover and maybe it will work for you.

After entering the data, the app wants to do a “scan” of your face using the phone camera. As the scan is being taken, the screen will show a black and white image, kind of an Xray-looking image, of what it is scanning. My scans were rejected three times, and then the app moved on to the next step, skipping the scan altogether. Again, after the application was completed, there was a hint that for the scan remove any eyewear. The hint would have been more useful BEFORE the scan, as I could clearly see the glasses I wore in the scan, but it kept rejecting the scan without saying why.

The next step is a photograph, which needs to be on a blank background with no shadows. There is a helpful oval on the phone in which your face is to appear and once it is satisfied that you are appropriately located, the app triggers the picture taking. This part worked well for both of us.

Finally, you pay for the application by using a credit or debit card. We paid through Apple Pay, which was very simple to do. For now, the fee is £10, which is about US$13 (early 2025) and the approval is good for two years.

The website says it can take up to three business days for approval, but my wife got an email confirming her approval in about an hour. I was approved the next business day. I suspect the delay was the skipped scan process.

We have not yet traveled with this new ETA in place, so we don’t know how it will work. There is no certificate issued, not even electronically. The ETA is somehow “tied” to the passport in some way, so it presumably will come into play at Border Control when you pass through the process of entry. We are traveling later this year and will report back on what happens. I’m curious for me in that I wear my glasses all the time, as does my wife, so when we go through the new arrival gates at Heathrow, will the glasses being on or off make a difference? Will having a successful scan make a difference in how we are processed?

As I said, we’ll report back.

In the meantime, get your ETA before heading to the UK.