Travellers who do not need a full UK visa but must obtain an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) will soon pay more. Expat-focused outlet IamExpat confirmed on 1 April that the Home Office will raise the ETA fee from €18 to €23 (roughly £20) on 8 April 2026, in line with wider immigration-fee inflation. The two-year, multi-entry waiver, introduced for non-visa-nationals in January 2025 and extended to EU citizens in April 2025, has already been purchased more than 3.2 million times.
For travellers who’d rather not navigate the ETA application process on their own, specialist visa agency VisaHQ offers a simple online tool, step-by-step guidance and real-time status tracking. Their UK section (https://www.visahq.com/united-kingdom/) allows individuals and corporate travel managers alike to delegate the paperwork, pay in multiple currencies and receive timely alerts the moment requirements or government fees change—adding a welcome layer of certainty just as costs begin to creep up.
The extra revenue — an estimated £35 million annually — will, according to officials, fund further rollout of mobile-app enrolment and backend risk-scoring algorithms designed to flag high-risk passengers before they board a flight. Airlines have been told to update their Departure Control Systems by 7 April or risk carrier liability fines. Dual UK nationals without a valid British passport have raised concerns that they will be caught in a grey area once the higher fee kicks in. In a concession, the Home Office has issued temporary guidance allowing airlines to carry dual citizens presenting an expired UK passport (issued 1989 or later) together with an ETA until at least 31 May while passport-renewal backlogs ease. For business-travel managers the practical impact is twofold. First, per-trip budgets must be updated; a four-person sales team making quarterly visits would now spend £320 on ETAs instead of £256. Second, companies that fly in short-term contractors from Europe should remind them to apply at least 72 hours in advance, as the average processing time has stretched to 18 hours during recent traffic peaks. Looking ahead, the government still intends to integrate the ETA app with its planned Single Trade Window so that logistics drivers can declare goods and obtain travel clearance in one transaction. Until then, the April price rise is a reminder that digital borders, while convenient, are not cost-free.
