Policy timeline

UK ETA timeline

The UK ETA is a pre-travel authorisation for visa-exempt travellers; visa-national passports still need a visa.

Updated 23 Jul 2026

Why this is watched

ETA fee, rollout waves and visa-national boundaries can change multiple corridors and common user assumptions quickly.

Review cadence

  • check on each GOV.UK ETA update

Change triggers

  • ETA fee update
  • Nationality rollout update
  • Visitor-policy or duration wording change

Timeline

  1. 2025-04-02: ETA became a broad visitor requirement
    The UK ETA scheme expanded to more visa-exempt nationalities. It does not replace a visa for visa-national passports.
  2. 2026-04-08: ETA fee reached GBP 20
    GOV.UK lists the ETA application fee as GBP 20 and warns that third-party websites may charge more.
  3. 2026-06-23: Key site distinction
    Ukraine remains treated as a visa-national corridor for ordinary UK visits on this site: Ukrainian citizens need a Standard Visitor visa, not a UK ETA.

Official sources

Representative corridor pages

A small sampled set of verified corridor pages affected by this policy watch item.

Related verified pages

Install TravelVisaRules