How to Handle Uk Eta Application Price

The UK ETA application price is £16 per person. That's the whole thing. One flat fee, paid when you submit, covering every trip you take to the UK for the next two years.

There's no family rate. No child discount. No premium tier that gets you a faster answer.

A nine-month-old pays the same £16 as a pensioner, and a family of four pays £64 — not £16 split four ways.

Below is what that £16 actually buys, what it doesn't, the add-ons travellers accidentally pay for, and the narrow cases where you can get the money back. The figures here reflect the position after the fee rose on 9 April 2025. Always confirm the current amount on GOV.UK before you pay, because UK immigration fees get reviewed and do change.

This is general information, not immigration advice.

What is the UK ETA application price right now?

The fee is £16. It went up from £10 to £16 on 9 April 2025 — a 60% jump, set out in updated UK immigration fee regulations rather than announced as a headline news story.

Most people never noticed the increase. If you last travelled to the UK in 2024 and paid £10, you'll be paying £16 now. That catches people out at the payment screen, especially families applying for four or five people in one sitting.

You pay when you submit. Not at the border, not on arrival, not later. An unpaid application simply doesn't exist.

UK ETA fees at a glance

One more thing worth knowing: the ETA is only one part of the UK's electronic travel system. If you also want to understand the wider entry rules — passport validity, what you can and can't do on an ETA, and the documents you'll be asked about — our guide to uk eta application requirements walks through the full checklist.

Why the fee went up — and whether it will rise again

The UK's ETA fee isn't fixed by statute at a single figure. It's set through immigration fee regulations, which the Home Office updates periodically. That's exactly how the £10 became £16 in April 2025.

In practice, UK immigration fees have historically moved in one direction. The Home Office has been explicit that fees are set with a view to recovering costs and funding the border system, not just covering the administrative cost of one application.

So what should you budget? Treat £16 as the figure today, not as a guarantee for 2027 or 2028. If your trip is more than a year away, don't buy an ETA now to "lock in" the cheaper price — an ETA applied for today starts running today, and you'd likely need a new one anyway.

Does everyone pay the same UK ETA application price?

Basically, yes — with one important caveat about who is eligible at all.

The ETA is for visa-exempt nationals. If you're a citizen of a country that doesn't need a visa for short UK visits, you need an ETA instead. You pay £16.

If your nationality does require a visa, you can't buy an ETA at any price — you apply for a visa, and that costs considerably more.

Not sure which group you're in? Our breakdown of who needs a uk eta lists the eligible nationalities and the exemptions, including the ones people get wrong.

Do children and babies pay the same £16?

Yes. Every traveller needs their own ETA, and every ETA costs £16. That includes:

• Babies and infants, even if they're travelling on a parent's lap
• Children on their own passports
• Teenagers travelling with a school group
• Elderly relatives visiting family

This is the single most common surprise on the payment screen. Parents reasonably assume young children are free or discounted. They aren't.

A family of five flying to Manchester for a fortnight pays £80, not £32.

It's also worth knowing why: the UK ETA has no age-based exemptions at all. Contrast that with the EU's ETIAS scheme, where under-18s and over-70s are exempt from the fee entirely. Different scheme, different rules — don't assume one applies to the other.

Is it cheaper to apply in the app than online?

No. The UK ETA app and the gov.uk online form charge the same £16. There is no discount for using one over the other.

Pick based on convenience, not price. The app lets you scan your passport chip and take a photo directly, which reduces the chance of a rejected upload. The website works fine on a laptop and may be easier if you're applying on behalf of several people in one go.

Do you pay per person or per family?

Per person. Always. There's no group application and no family bundle.

You can submit multiple applications in a single session, and some people describe this as a family application. But each traveller is a separate application with a separate £16 charge and a separate decision. If one is refused, the others aren't affected — and the refused one isn't refunded.

What a UK ETA really costs by scenario

Here's how the £16 stacks up in realistic situations. All figures assume the current £16 fee and exclude any bank charges, which are covered below.

The pattern is simple. The ETA is cheap per trip and expensive per mistake. Where people lose money isn't the £16 — it's paying it twice, paying it to the wrong website, or paying it for someone who was never eligible.

What the £16 does not cover

Quite a lot, as it turns out. None of the following are included in the UK ETA application price.

1. Bank foreign transaction fees

The fee is charged in pounds sterling. If your card is issued outside the UK, your bank converts it — and most add a non-sterling transaction fee of roughly 1% to 3%.

On a single £16 payment that's pennies. On a family of five it's £80, and a 3% fee adds about £2.40. Annoying rather than painful, but worth knowing if you're on a tight budget.

Cards designed for travel — the ones that advertise no foreign transaction fees — avoid this entirely. If you have one, use it.

2. Third-party website markups

This is where real money disappears. Dozens of sites rank above or alongside the official gov.uk page for searches like "UK ETA apply". They look official.

They often use the same colours and similar logos. And they charge £40, £60, even £100 per application.

They're not committing fraud. They're acting as a paid intermediary for a form you can complete yourself in under ten minutes. The extra £24 to £84 per person goes to them, not to the UK government.

There are exactly two official routes:

1. The UK ETA app, on the Apple App Store or Google Play, published by the UK Home Office.
2. The online form on gov.uk.

If the site you're on asks for more than £16 per person, close the tab.

3. The cost of a refusal

If your ETA is refused, you lose the £16. There's no refund for an unsuccessful application.

Worse, you then need a visa to travel to the UK. A Standard Visitor visa currently costs around £127 for a six-month visit — verify the current figure on GOV.UK, since visa fees also change. You'll also need to attend a visa application centre to give biometrics, which may mean travelling to another city.

So a refusal doesn't cost you £16. It costs you £16 plus a visa fee plus a trip to a biometrics appointment. That's the real risk of a sloppy application.

4. Anything you'd normally pay for a trip

Obvious, but worth stating: the ETA is not a visa, an insurance policy, or a guarantee of entry. It doesn't cover healthcare, and it doesn't replace travel insurance. Even with a valid ETA, a Border Force officer can refuse you entry on arrival.

How the fee is actually charged — step by step

Knowing the order of the screens helps, because the payment step is where most people hesitate. Here's what the process looks like in practice, in the official app or on gov.uk.

1. Choose your travel document. You select the type of passport you hold and the country that issued it. This determines whether you're eligible for an ETA at all.
2. Scan or enter your passport details. In the app you scan the photo page and the chip. Online, you type the details manually. Watch out for the passport number — the digit 0 and the letter O trip people up constantly, and mismatched passport details are a leading cause of refused applications.
3. Take or upload a photo. It's a live photo in the app — you can't upload an old one. No glasses, no hats, plain background, neutral expression.
4. Answer the eligibility questions. These cover criminal convictions, previous immigration problems, and whether you've been refused entry or deported. Answer honestly. The Home Office already holds a lot of this data.
5. Review your answers. This is your last chance to fix a typo before paying.
6. Pay £16. Debit or credit card. This is the screen where a non-UK card may trigger a verification step from your bank — a one-time code by text or app.
7. Get your confirmation. The screen confirms the application has been submitted and gives you a reference number. Screenshot it. The ETA itself is digitally linked to your passport — there's no certificate to print — but the reference is useful if you need to chase anything.

The whole thing takes most people under ten minutes. The payment step usually takes one to two minutes.

If your bank declines the payment, the application isn't submitted and you aren't charged. Try a different card. Don't start a second application from scratch unless the first one shows as failed — duplicate applications mean paying twice.

Is the UK ETA fee ever refundable?

In a small number of situations, yes. In most, no.

You generally won't get a refund because:

• Your plans changed and you're not travelling
• Your application was refused
• You found a cheaper flight and don't need the trip
• You realised later you didn't need an ETA

You might get a refund if there was a genuine error on the government's side — a duplicate charge for one application, a payment taken for an application that was never actually submitted, or an application made in circumstances the Home Office's own refund policy covers.

If you think you're owed a refund, don't email your bank first. Contact the ETA team through the details on GOV.UK and quote your application reference. Refunds are handled case by case, so keep your payment confirmation.

What the £16 buys you over two years

Two years of validity is the part people underuse. Once your ETA is approved, you don't reapply for each trip — you just travel. That changes the maths considerably.

Say you fly to the UK three times over two years. Your cost per trip is about £5.33. Fly six times and it's £2.67.

For frequent business travellers, the ETA is close to free on a per-journey basis.

Two ways to accidentally pay twice

There are two scenarios where you pay the £16 again well before the two years are up.

1. Your passport expires. The ETA is bonded to the passport you applied with. Renew the passport and the ETA dies with the old one. New passport, new £16.
2. You lose or damage your passport. Same result. A replacement passport means you need a fresh ETA before you travel.

Here's the practical tip: if your passport has less than a year left on it, consider renewing it before you apply for the ETA. You'll get the full two years instead of eight months, and you'll avoid paying twice.

UK ETA vs a UK visa — the price gap that matters

If you're not eligible for an ETA, the alternative is a visa — and the cost difference is dramatic. The table below shows the rough scale, using figures after the April 2025 fee changes.

Visa fees change frequently and vary by category, so check the current published figures before you budget. The point of the table isn't the exact amounts — it's that being born in the wrong country for ETA eligibility can make a single UK trip thirty times more expensive from an entry-permission standpoint.

If you already hold a valid UK visa, you don't need an ETA and shouldn't buy one. Your visa does the job. That's a genuine saving people miss.

UK ETA vs ETIAS — don't mix up the two fees

If you're planning a Europe trip that includes the UK, you'll see references to both. They're separate schemes with separate fees and separate rules.

• UK ETA — £16, covers the UK only, valid 2 years, no age exemptions.
• EU ETIAS — €20 under the scheme as designed, covers the Schengen area, and exempts under-18s and over-70s from the fee.

That last difference matters for families. On a UK ETA, four children under 18 still cost £64. Under ETIAS as planned, those same children would pay nothing.

Start dates for ETIAS have shifted more than once, so check the official EU travel portal for the confirmed position rather than relying on a date you read six months ago. And remember: an ETA gives you no rights in the Schengen area, and ETIAS gives you none in the UK.

What people assume about the UK ETA price — and get wrong

Four misconceptions come up again and again. Each one costs real money.

"It's a visa, so it must cost a few hundred pounds."

It isn't, and it doesn't. The ETA is a lightweight pre-travel authorisation, not a visa. £16 is the entire fee. Anyone asking for more than that for the application itself is adding their own margin.

"Children go on my application free."

They don't. Every traveller — including a baby in arms — needs their own ETA and pays the full £16. A family of six pays £96.

"I can get it expedited for an extra fee."

There's no priority service, no same-day service, and no paid fast lane. Decisions are usually made within three working days, and very often within minutes. No one can speed that up for money.

"I'm a British citizen, but I'll buy one anyway to be safe."

Don't. British and Irish citizens are not eligible for an ETA and don't need one. If you're a dual national travelling on a foreign passport, you may be asked to show evidence of your right of abode — but an ETA isn't the answer, and you won't get your £16 back if the application is refused.

The same logic applies if you hold a valid UK visa or have permission to live, work or study in the UK. You're already covered.

A realistic worked example: what the Whitfields actually paid

Tom and Rachel are Australian citizens living in Melbourne. In March they booked a twelve-day trip to London with their two children — Ella, aged four, and Noah, nine months.

Here's what happened, and what it cost.

• Rachel searched "UK ETA apply" and clicked the second result, which looked official. She applied for all four of them.
• The site charged £89 per person. Total: £356.
• Two days later, a colleague mentioned that the official fee is £16. Rachel checked gov.uk and realised what had happened.
• She contacted the site. Their terms and conditions stated clearly — in small print — that they were a processing service, not the government. No refund.

The Whitfields needed four ETAs. The correct cost was £64. They paid £356.

They overpaid by £292 for an application Rachel could have completed herself in about eight minutes.

Two further details from the same trip are worth noting.

First, Noah — nine months old — needed his own ETA. The Whitfields had assumed a baby wouldn't need one. He did, and he paid the same £16 as his parents.

Second, Tom's passport expires in fourteen months. His ETA will die with it. Rachel's passport has six years left, so hers will run the full two years.

Same fee, very different value — which is why checking your passport expiry before applying is worth two minutes of your time.

How to pay the £16 — and what to do if you've been overcharged

The official route takes debit and credit cards. If your card is issued outside the UK, expect your bank to add a conversion or foreign transaction charge.

If you've already paid more than £16 through a third-party site, be realistic about your options:

1. Check the terms you agreed to. Most intermediaries disclose their role — often in small print — which makes a chargeback difficult.
2. Contact the company first. Some will refund as a goodwill gesture if you ask politely and quickly.
3. If they refuse, try your card issuer. Ask about a chargeback for a service not as described. Success isn't guaranteed, and it depends on what the site told you.
4. Report misleading advertising. In the UK, you can report a misleading site to the Advertising Standards Authority or to the National Cyber Security Centre if it appears to impersonate a government service.

None of that gets you a faster decision. If your trip is imminent and you paid a third party, your application may still have been submitted properly — check for a confirmation email and reference number before assuming the worst.

Your UK ETA cost checklist

Before you pay anything, run through this list. It takes two minutes and prevents most of the expensive mistakes.

• Confirm you're a visa-exempt national who actually needs an ETA.
• Check you don't already hold a valid UK visa, or British or Irish citizenship.
• Check every traveller's passport expiry — six months or more left is ideal.
• Count your travellers, including babies. Multiply by £16.
• Apply at gov.uk or in the official UK ETA app only.
• Apply at least three working days before you travel.
• Screenshot your confirmation and reference number.
• Verify the current fee on GOV.UK before paying, in case it has changed.

This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for official advice. Always verify current requirements with official sources before you travel.

Key takeaways

• The UK ETA application price is £16 per person, following the increase from £10 on 9 April 2025.
• Everyone pays — adults, children and infants alike. A family of four pays £64.
• One ETA lasts 2 years or until your passport expires, with unlimited entries of up to six months each.
• There's no priority service, no family discount, and no cheaper route through the app.
• The fee is non-refundable if you're refused — and a refusal means applying for a visa instead, which costs considerably more.
• Apply only on gov.uk or the official UK ETA app. Third-party sites regularly charge £60 to £100 for the same application.
• If your passport is close to expiry, renew it first — otherwise you'll pay the £16 twice.
• Fees change. Confirm the current figure on GOV.UK before you travel, and treat this article as general guidance rather than immigration advice.

See also: how much a UK ETA costs