From 2 April, most European visitors to the UK must hold an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), but the equivalent requirement for UK travellers heading to Europe, ETIAS, will not arrive until the end of 2026. ABTA is urging people to follow the official timeline and ignore unofficial sites that claim to sell an ETIAS already.
From Wednesday 2 April 2025, European visitors to Britain must buy an Electronic Travel Authorisation before they travel. Here is a plain-language guide to the new ETA: what it costs, who is exempt, how to apply and how it fits alongside the EU's own incoming border checks.
The Port of Dover says the EU's Entry/Exit System will add only minutes to motorists' journeys, not the hours some had feared. A new registration compound and an AI-monitored ‘continental corridor' are central to the plan.
From 2 April 2025, European visitors to the UK have to buy an Electronic Travel Authorisation before they travel, as Britain screens arrivals before they reach the border. Here is what the new requirement means in practice.
British visitors will not need an ETIAS travel permit for the EU and wider Schengen Area until April 2027 at the earliest. The delay follows a decision to roll out the Entry/Exit System gradually from October 2025 rather than all at once.
The EU has once again delayed its ETIAS travel authorisation, which is now expected to start in the last quarter of 2026, roughly six months after the Entry/Exit System goes live.
Every traveller crossing the external border of the Schengen area goes through security controls, but the steps differ depending on citizenship. Here is what those checks involve and how they are about to change.
The EU's ETIAS travel authorisation has been pushed back again and is now due in the last quarter of 2026, once the Entry/Exit System is fully running. A grace period means it will not be truly mandatory until 2027.
The EU is working towards an autumn 2025 launch for the Entry/Exit System (EES), but it will arrive in phases rather than all at once. Member States can start with a share of their border crossing points and scale up over six months, while ETIAS is not expected before late 2026.
The government of Guernsey has finally corrected years of misleading advice about passport expiry for travel to Europe. The episode is a useful reminder of the two simple rules that genuinely apply to British passport holders.