The UK is now requiring an electronic visa for Americans visiting the UK or connecting in their airports as of 8 January 2025.  I recently applied for the Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) and the process took less than 10 minutes with the app and cost $13.05 (it’s £10 but for US $ conversion they charged $13.05 on the day I applied). The visa will be valid for two years tied to your passport number.  If you change passports with new number you’ll need to reapply. Currently I have a biometric US passport that allows me to use the E-gates upon arrival in immigration in the UK,  I’ll continue to use e-gates and travel as usual. The UK ETA is an administrative step for an electronic visa to visit similar to the US ESTA ($21 for two years) and the upcoming EU ETIAS (€7 for three years) currently delayed.  I visit London and the UK a few times a year so it made sense to apply asap as I don’t need to detail any travel dates – its a blanket visa for two years, of course, within the rules of a tourist visit which still applies a limit of six months in total visit days.

What you need to apply for the UK ETA as an American

• Download the UK ETA app via Apple or Google store (see image below). The UK site is pushing for using the app as the quickest way but also offers an online application option for those without phone option. You may want to help folks in your circle who can’t or don’t want to use the app (I’m thinking of my 80 year old mom)

• You can enter details for each person in your family/group separately.
• Find your passport (they won’t accept photocopy or digital versions) as you’ll need to scan/upload via the app
• You’ll need to access your email for security code they send
• Payment via credit or debit card or you can pay via Apple Pay or Google Pay
• Look pretty if you want to in the photo. I look like a troll today who needs a visit to hair salon based on the photo results but I hit submit to get it processed.

Applying for the UK ETA via the UK ETA app

So now with the app downloaded and passport in hand, I was ready to go.

1. The app wants to scan the photo page of your passport and it took a few tries for the app to recognize the data in the rectangle box. I was sitting down and the angle wasn’t working so standing over it worked better. The tricky part was not including my fingers holding open the page to get the scan
2. There’s a facial recognition step so you’ll need to look into the phone to align your face for the scan and verification against your passport photo.
3. It asked if you have a chip in passport and I do so the next step was to scan for that. It’s similar to when you hold your phone over to pay with apple pay.  However, despite multiple tries this wasn’t working for me so I opted to move forward with the manual option to answer questions.
4. Next step is to take a photo of yourself on a white background. The oval circle to fill your face is tricky to align, again suggest standing up as I was sitting down and the angles weren’t working.  I’m not a selfie girl so this took me a while to the surprise of no one.
5. Once your photo is acceptable, you are asked to input your country so pricing can be sorted. The UK price is 10 GBP and the US pricing today was $13.05 to account for currency exchange rate.  I paid via Apple Pay.
6. I received email confirmation and told it could take 3 business days for a decision.
7. 17 minutes later (submitted at 1:44 pm. approved at 2:01pm) I was approved. I’m not sure if this is standard timing yet until others report their timing.  For context, I have US Global Entry and formerly was enrolled in the UK Trusted Traveller programme when I traveled for business.

Thoughts on applying for the UK ETA

All in the process took less than thirty minutes to complete from app download to approval email.  If you have a trip to the UK (including cruise port stops in the UK) or through any of the UK airports, you should apply as soon as possible.  For others without a trip upcoming, I’d still suggest applying for the UK ETA so you are ready to go without worrying about the administrative step.  Now that I’m done with the app I’m going to delete it as it was a conduit to the application and ease of using camera to scan passport and my face. It does not require creating an account so no need to keep it as one less app on my phone is always a good thing.