£10 warning to travellers visiting the UK from today
From today, January 8, new rules will apply to people visiting or transiting through the UK. Anyone who has an upcoming flight will have received an email from their airline with a warning to "check your travel documents before you fly". EasyJet and other airlines are asking passengers to ensure they are travelling with a valid Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA).
An ETA is a digital permission to travel and costs each traveller £10. It permits multiple journeys and is valid for two years. For now, the ETA only applies to non-Europeans visiting or transiting through the UK without a visa, but from April 2, they will apply to all non-European passengers. British and Irish citizens will be exempt from the new rules.
The Home Office says the ETA system is a way of ensuring "more robust security checks are carried out before people begin their journey to the UK". The government hopes will prevent "abuse of our immigration system".
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The system was first rolled out to people from Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan in November 2023. Heathrow Airport has said the scheme has been "devastating for our hub competitiveness", blaming it on the 90,000 drop in transfer passenger numbers on routes affected by the system.
The ETA is entirely separate to the proposed EU entry-exit system (EES) which would impact UK and Irish citizens if it is imposed. The EES requires non-EU citizens to have their fingerprints or photos taken before entering the EU's Schengen area.
A bit like the US Esta scheme, travellers will have to pay to enter the EU under this system. They will be asked to pay €7 (£6) for multiple entries over three years.
In August, the European Union vowed that the EES would go ahead on November 10, 2024, but a month before EES was due to be launched, the EU said it had been "postponed indefinitely".