Your questions, answered

It’s digital permission to travel to the United Kingdom, linked electronically to your passport.

There’s no sticker, no appointment and nothing to collect. Your airline checks it against your passport number at check-in, which is why you need to apply with the passport you’ll travel on.

No. It’s a lighter, quicker permission for nationalities a country already considers low risk, and it’s usually decided by an automated check: no interview, no supporting documents. If your nationality needs a full visa for that country, you can’t get an ETA instead. You’ll need to apply for the visa.

We only handle travel authorisations. If our check shows you need a visa, we’ll tell you, we won’t take any payment, and we’ll point you to the official guidance.

No. An authorisation gets you on the plane, but a border officer still decides whether you can enter. They can still ask about your plans, your money or your return ticket when you arrive.

No. Your approval is linked to your passport number in the authority’s system, and the airline checks it there. Keep the email if it gives you peace of mind (plenty of people do), but nobody at the airport will ask for it.

It depends on just two things: the passport you’ll travel on, and where you’re going. Tell us both on the home page and we’ll check your nationality against that destination’s rules before asking you anything else.

You’ll get one of three answers. You need one and can get one, so we carry on. You don’t need one, so we tell you and stop there. Or you need a full visa, which we don’t handle.

British and Irish citizens don’t need a UK ETA. There are other exemptions too, which is why we check for you rather than leaving you to work it out.

If you’re exempt, the application stops there and we tell you, with a link to the official guidance so you can double-check. You pay nothing.

The one you travel on. We check every passport you tell us about and give you the best result. A British-American dual national going to the UK is exempt on their British passport, for example, so that’s what we’ll tell them, even though it means we’ve got nothing to sell.

The approval is linked to whichever passport you apply with. Travel on the other one and the airline won’t find it.

Yes. Each authorisation is linked to one passport, and every traveller has their own, babies included. Some rules vary by age, so we check each traveller against their own date of birth.

You can add everyone to one application and pay once. Shared details, like your address, only need typing once.

Yes, sometimes at short notice. We check your application against the rules on the day we prepare it. Each destination page links to the official guidance, which always has the final word.

Before you pay, there are five short steps:

• Trip details — Where your passport is from, and how many of you are travelling.
• Traveller information — Please ensure all details match exactly as in your passport.
• Passport information — Number, expiry and issuing country — enough to confirm eligibility.
• Choose your processing time — Processing speed and any extras.
• Review your order — Have a look at your final order before checkout.

After you pay come the longer questions: contact details, photos of your passport page and your face, personal details, the rest of your passport details, your job (if the destination asks), and the declarations. We split it this way so the long part doesn’t stand between you and your place in the queue.

There are two clocks, and only one of them is ours. Ours is the filing speed you choose: Standard files your application within 48 hours, Priority within 4 hours and Fast track within an hour, counted from when your application is complete.

Theirs is the decision, and nobody can promise how long that takes. Most are automatic and come back quickly. Some get referred to a person, and those can take days. That’s why the authorities, and we, say to apply well before you book anything you can’t change.

Our service fee starts at $109.00 per traveller. That’s in USD, the currency you’ve picked at the top of the page. Change it and the prices change too. On top of that is the government fee, at cost. You’ll see the full breakdown on the check-and-pay step before you’re charged, and again on your receipt.

Our fee pays for the preparation and checking: simple questions, every answer checked against the current rules, your passport page read (and queried if a character’s unclear), filing on time, and dealing with the authority afterwards. You can apply directly on the government’s own website and pay only the government fee. Our refund policy explains what’s refundable.

Yes. Add everyone to the same application and pay once. Each person still gets their own authorisation (that’s how the authorities issue them), but you only fill in shared details once, with one payment and one reference to keep track of.

No. Until you pay, your application is saved in your browser, so you can start straight away. No registering, no password, no confirmation email. Once you’ve paid, your six-character reference and the email you applied with will open it from anywhere, using the tracker.

Yes. Choose your currency at the top of the page and prices update across the whole site. Pick it before you pay: your order is charged, receipted and (if it ever comes to it) refunded in the currency you chose at checkout.

• It must be the passport you’ll travel on. The approval is linked to that passport number and no other.
• Enter your names exactly as printed, including every middle name. One missing name is enough to stop you at check-in.
• The issuing country must match the code on your photo page. Some codes look confusingly alike, so read it off the passport rather than going from memory.
• It must be valid for your whole trip. Some countries want extra validity on top, so check the official guidance.

Your authorisation stays with the old passport, so a new passport means a new application and another government fee. If you’re renewing soon, apply afterwards or be ready to apply again. Carrying the old passport alongside the new one won’t help: the airline checks the one you’re travelling on.

Two: a photo of your passport’s photo page, which we read your details from, and a photo of your face. The face photo is the one that gets applications rejected. The strictest rules boil down to this: look straight at the camera, eyes open, neutral expression, plain light background, nothing covering your face, taken in the last six months, and a JPEG under 10 MB.

We check it against those rules before anything’s filed. If it fails, we’ll tell you which rule it broke, so you don’t hear it from the authority a week later.

Yes, it’s the easiest way. If you’re applying on a laptop, the upload step gives you a link to open on your phone. Take the photos with the better camera and they’ll appear in your application straight away. Nothing to install.

The link works once and expires after 15 minutes. It opens your application without a sign-in, so we don’t want it lying around in a message thread.

We’ll ask you. A worn zero that might be an O, an eight that might be a B: we’ll show it back to you with the character highlighted before the application goes anywhere. A wrong passport number is the most common way a perfectly good application goes wrong, and catching it is a big part of what you’re paying us for.

Your order gets a six-character reference, like E313KW, and you go straight on to the remaining steps. No need to prove who you are seconds after paying. We email the reference and a direct link to your application to the address you applied with.

From then on, your application page shows exactly what’s still missing for each traveller. We can’t file until that list is empty, so it’s worth finishing the same day.

Open the tracker with your reference and the email you applied with, or use the link in any of our emails. It shows the same five stages we work to: received and paid, your details, checked by our team, filed with the authority, and issued.

We ask for your email too because your reference on its own isn’t a password.

Before payment: come back to the same destination in the same browser and you’ll pick up where you left off, with everything you’d typed still there. We keep unfinished applications for 30 days from your last visit, not from when you started, so coming back on day 25 gives you another 30 days.

If you’d already given us your email, we’ll send you a link that opens it on any device. You can also start again from scratch. It won’t cost anything; you’ll just be retyping.

After payment: nothing’s ever lost. Use the tracker with your reference and email.

Before we file, fix it yourself. Every answer on the check-and-pay summary has an edit link, and after payment you can reopen any step from your application page. Change it, save it, done. Nothing gets sent until the whole application is complete and checked.

After we file, tell us straight away. Contact support with your reference and what’s wrong. What happens next depends on the authority and how far along it is: some corrections they’ll accept, others need a fresh application, and another government fee. Either way, don’t travel on an authorisation whose passport number doesn’t match the passport in your hand.

Because the authority asks, in its own words, and we can’t soften its questions. A wrong answer does far more damage than any honest one. A past refusal you don’t mention, which the authority already knows about, is a much bigger problem than the refusal itself.

We treat those answers as sensitive: they’re encrypted, and only the people who need to see them can.

By email, to the address on your application. It’s also linked to your passport number in the authority’s system, so there’s nothing to print or collect. If the email hasn’t arrived, check your spam folder, then the tracker, which is always up to date.

We’ll tell you as soon as the authority tells us, along with any reason they give. Often they don’t give one. That’s their right, and nobody can make them.

A refusal is the authority’s decision, not a fault in the preparation, so on its own it doesn’t mean a refund: the government fee has gone to the authority, and our fee paid for work we’ve done. If the refusal was down to a mistake of ours, tell us and we’ll put it right. The details are in our refund policy.

Most refusals come down to something in the applicant’s own history, not the form. Depending on the country, the next step is usually a full visa application, where you can explain your circumstances to a person.

An optional extra on some destinations. If your application is refused because of something we should have caught, we’ll prepare and file your next attempt without charging our fee again. The authority will still charge its own fee, because it’s a new application.

It isn’t insurance, and it doesn’t refund your money.

Check your spam folder, then the tracker, which is always up to date. If it’s still with the authority, it’s been passed to a person to review, and that’s out of everyone’s hands.

Then contact support with your reference and your travel date. Do tell us the date: someone flying on Friday gets treated differently from someone flying in March.

Sometimes, and it depends how far your application has got. Before any work has started on it, you get all of it back. Once we’ve started checking it, or it needs something from you, you get the government fee back in full plus 25% of our service fee, and extras like denial protection aren’t refundable. Once it’s been sent to the government, the service has been delivered, so there’s no refund.

Duplicate or failed payments always come back in full. Everything else is in our refund policy, and you can request a refund here.

Don’t travel on it. If the passport number, name or date of birth doesn’t match the passport you show, the airline won’t find your authorisation, and being turned away at check-in is far worse than fixing it now.

Contact support with your reference straight away. Depending on what’s wrong and which country issued it, it can either be corrected with the authority or you’ll need a fresh application.

Head to the support page. If it’s about an order, have your six-character reference ready. It turns “I think I applied last Tuesday” into your file on screen in seconds.