UK ETA cost: how much is the application fee?

It is not a household charge, not a fee per booking, and not something a parent can absorb into their own application.

Every traveller needs a separate Electronic Travel Authorisation before travelling if they fall within the ETA eligibility threshold — including babies and children. Submit an application for a family of four, and the government charge is £80. Build that into the travel budget before flights are purchased, not after.

The price has moved quickly: the ETA launched at £10, rose to £16 in April 2025, and now stands at £20. The operational point is straightforward: use the current fee at the point of application, not an old article, a cached search result, or a travel agent’s estimate.

What is the official UK ETA fee in 2026?

The official UK electronic travel authorisation price is £20 for each applicant.

An approved ETA permits multiple trips to the UK over up to two years, or until the passport linked to it expires — whichever happens first. Each visit can normally last up to six months, provided the traveller continues to meet the conditions for a visitor.

The £20 fee is distinct from the cost of a Standard Visitor visa. A traveller who needs a visa cannot substitute an ETA for a visa application simply because the ETA is cheaper. As of 8 April 2026, a Standard Visitor visa for a visit of up to six months costs £135.

Do not treat this as a choice between two products. The decision is made by nationality, immigration status, travel purpose, and the visitor rules. If you are a non-visa national and eligible for an ETA, £20 is your entry-authorisation cost. If you require entry clearance, the ETA route is not available.

The £20 ETA is low-cost only when you apply through the official channel. Add an unnecessary intermediary, and the same authorisation can cost several times more.

Why every traveller pays — including children

The UK ETA is attached to an individual traveller and their passport. There is no family ETA, no dependent add-on, and no age-based exemption from the application fee.

That catches families out because airline bookings and hotel reservations are often organised under one lead passenger. Border permission does not work that way. A parent’s ETA does not cover a child, and a child’s passport must be linked to their own approved authorisation before travel.

For a group booking, calculate the cost as a simple per-person exercise:

1. Count every person travelling, from infants upward.

2. Multiply that number by £20.

3. Confirm that every applicant has their own valid passport before beginning the application sequence.

4. Check the passport expiry date carefully. An ETA cannot outlast the passport it is tied to.

5. If a passport is replaced, do not assume the old ETA carries over. The traveller will need a new application linked to the new passport, with a new £20 payment.

This is where cheap trips become administratively expensive. A family that changes two children’s passports after securing ETAs may face two replacement applications. The government fee is not high in isolation. Repeating it because the travel documents were not locked down is avoidable spend.

The same principle applies to adults travelling frequently. An ETA can be used for multiple eligible visits during its validity period, but only with the passport used in the original application. Renew the passport early, lose it, or change it after damage, and the existing digital travel permission is no longer the permission you can rely on at check-in.

Is the UK ETA fee refundable?

No. The UK ETA fee is non-refundable once the application has been submitted.

That rule applies whether the ETA is approved, refused, delayed, or simply no longer needed because travel plans change. Paying the fee gets your application assessed; it does not purchase a guaranteed approval or a refundable travel reservation.

Applicants routinely make two strategic mistakes here.

First, they apply before confirming that they are using the right route. An ETA is for eligible visitors. It does not authorise work outside the narrow activities permitted to visitors, long-term residence, marriage or civil partnership activities that require a different route, or a move to the UK. If the purpose of travel does not fit the visitor framework, a £20 ETA application is not a low-risk shortcut. It is a payment toward the wrong outcome.

Second, they submit quickly with incomplete or inconsistent information because the fee appears modest. That is backwards. The financial charge is £20; the material exposure is disruption at the point of travel and a refusal record that may need to be addressed in later applications.

Before payment, pressure-test the file:

• Use the exact passport details that will be presented to the airline and at the UK border.
• Answer prior immigration, criminality, and travel-history questions accurately. Do not try to “simplify” an inconvenient history.
• Make sure the visit genuinely fits the visitor rules: tourism, seeing relatives or friends, permitted business activities, short study, and other authorised visitor purposes.
• Apply with enough time to resolve a problem. An ETA is digital, but it is still an immigration decision.
• Do not book non-changeable arrangements on the assumption that a payment receipt equals permission to travel.

A refusal does not make the fee recoverable. It can also signal that the applicant may need to pursue a visa route rather than attempt repeated ETA applications without fixing the underlying issue.

How do you pay the UK ETA application fee?

The UK ETA payment methods are designed for online applications. You can pay the £20 government fee using:

• a credit card;
• a debit card;
• Apple Pay; or
• Google Pay.

Payment is made as part of the ETA application process, including when applying through the official UK ETA app. The practical objective is not merely to get a payment through. It is to preserve a clean link between the applicant, their passport, and their application record.

Use a payment method that you can access if a bank verification step appears. That is particularly relevant when one person is filing applications for several members of a family or tour group. The cardholder does not need to be the traveller in every practical scenario, but the application details must still belong to the person seeking the ETA. Never allow a payment page to blur that distinction.

A better sequence for families and group organisers

Start by preparing the passport information for every traveller. Then complete one applicant at a time, checking the data before moving to payment. It is slower than racing through a stack of forms, but it is how you mitigate risk.

For each person, verify:

1. Full name exactly as shown in the passport.

2. Passport number, nationality, issue date, and expiry date.

3. The passport image and any requested identity capture.

4. Answers to eligibility questions.

5. The email address or contact route through which the decision can be tracked.

6. The £20 payment confirmation for that specific applicant.

Avoid copying answers across adult and child applications without reading the questions. A shared itinerary does not create shared personal history. The application is individual because the border decision is individual.

Why some websites show a much higher UK ETA cost

If you see an ETA price of €80, €100, or another figure far above £20, you are usually looking at a third-party service, not the official government application fee.

Some agencies sell form-completion assistance, document review, reminders, and customer support. Those services may have a place for travellers who explicitly want paid administrative help. But their charge is separate from the Home Office fee. It does not buy a stronger eligibility profile, a faster government decision, or a guaranteed approval.

The critical distinction is simple:

A high total at checkout is not proof that the provider is fraudulent. It is proof that you need to read the pricing structure before authorising payment. Some sites are deliberately designed to look official while placing their service charge in small print or presenting the total only late in the journey.

Use this discipline before entering passport data or card details:

• Look for a clear breakdown separating the government charge from any service fee.
• Check whether the website states that it is an agency rather than a government channel.
• Do not assume words such as “fast-track,” “priority,” or “expert processing” change the Home Office decision process.
• Stop if the price is unclear. You can always return to the official application route.
• Keep the payment confirmation and application reference after submission.

The £20 fee is not where most applicants lose money. They lose it when urgency turns into haste and they pay a private intermediary without recognising that the core authorisation costs far less.

What the £20 payment does — and does not — buy

An ETA is a pre-travel permission for eligible visa-exempt travellers. It supports travel to the UK; it does not guarantee admission at the border. Border officers can still assess whether the traveller meets the conditions of entry on arrival.

That matters for visitors making repeated trips, spending long periods in the UK, or arriving with a travel pattern that looks inconsistent with a genuine visit. A valid ETA is not a sponsorship certificate, not a work permission, and not evidence of a right to live in the UK.

The strategic value of the ETA is efficiency: one £20 authorisation can cover multiple compliant visits for up to two years, subject to passport validity. But efficiency only works when the applicant remains within the permitted visitor framework.

For business travellers, that means distinguishing permitted meetings, conferences, negotiations, and other visitor activities from work that requires sponsorship or another immigration route. For families, it means distinguishing a short visit from an attempt to establish residence through back-to-back stays. For everyone, it means arriving able to explain the purpose, duration, and funding of the trip if asked.

Pay the £20 once, but prepare for every trip as if the border officer has never seen your ETA before.

The bottom line on UK ETA costs

The answer to “how much is UK ETA?” is currently uncomplicated: £20 per traveller, paid online, including for infants and children. It is non-refundable, valid for multiple eligible visits for up to two years or until the linked passport expires, and separate from any fee charged by a private agency.

Do not overpay because a commercial website creates false urgency. Do not underprepare because the government fee is modest. And do not use an ETA application as a workaround when your travel purpose points to a visa or sponsorship route instead.

The most common failure is not the £20 charge. It is applying under the wrong immigration category, submitting inaccurate answers, or assuming that an ETA approval removes all border scrutiny. Those are the errors that can cost far more than the fee.