Do Australians Need a Visa for the UK? ETA, Fees and Arrival Steps

Your ETA is linked to your passport, so there's nothing to print, but the rest of arrival day runs on your phone. A HelloRoam UK eSIM connects when you land, so maps, the train into London and a message home all work before you leave the terminal.

The answer changes if you want to work, stay longer than 6 months, or also hold British or Irish citizenship. Each case is covered below. Rules checked on 2 October 2026 against GOV.UK and Smartraveller. UK entry rules can change at short notice, so check GOV.UK again in the week you fly.

Your reason for travel decides which UK document you need

The UK Home Office sets the rules, and GOV.UK publishes the fees in pounds. These are the documents Australians most often need.

Get your UK eSIM before you flyInstall it at home, then turn on data roaming for it when you land. From A$4.03.See UK plans

An ETA covers tourism, visiting family and friends, business trips and short-term study, for up to 6 months at a time. It also covers a permitted paid engagement, such as a paid lecture or performance as an expert in your field, and up to 3 months on the Creative Worker visa concession.

It doesn't let you do paid or unpaid work for a UK company or as a self-employed person, claim benefits, stay longer than 6 months, or live in the UK through frequent or back-to-back visits. Getting married or registering a civil partnership needs a Marriage Visitor visa instead.

Holding an ETA isn't a guarantee of entry. You still have to meet the Standard Visitor rules, which include showing you'll leave at the end of your visit and can pay for your stay and your return or onward journey, or have someone else funding them. Border Force may ask about your plans when you land.

GOV.UK says that if you have a criminal record or were previously refused entry to the UK, you may want to apply for a Standard Visitor visa instead of an ETA. It costs £135 for up to 6 months, and the earliest you can apply is 3 months before you travel.

The UK ETA application runs on your phone or on GOV.UK

The UK ETA app needs an iPhone on iOS 16 or later, or an Android phone on Android 12 or later with NFC, which reads the chip in your passport. GOV.UK's tip: if you can pay with your phone by tapping it, it has NFC. If the app won't work on your phone, apply online instead.

Here's how the application goes, based on GOV.UK's guide to the UK ETA app:

1. Have the passport you'll travel on, an email address and a credit card, debit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay ready. A photocopy or digital passport won't work.
2. Photograph your passport's photo page, then place the phone on top of the passport so the app can read the chip. Take any cases or covers off both first.
3. Scan your face and take a face photo. Children aged 9 or younger skip the face scan but still need a photo.
4. Answer questions about your address, job, other nationalities and any criminal convictions. Applicants under 18 give contact details for someone with parental responsibility.
5. Pay the £20. The app shows the price in your local currency and lets you change it, and your bank may ask you to confirm the payment in its app.
6. Wait for the decision email with your 16-digit ETA reference number. It usually arrives within a day but can take up to 3 working days, and you must not travel until it comes.

Everyone travelling needs their own ETA, babies and children included. In the app you can apply for someone else only while they're with you, because it scans their face. For anyone who isn't with you, apply online. Each person's decision can arrive at a different time.

The £20 isn't refundable. If an application is rejected, or you need to fix a detail after you submit, you apply again and pay again. And because an ETA ends when the passport it's linked to expires, renewing a passport that's close to expiry before you apply gets you the full 2 years.

Copycat ETA websites can charge more than the official £20

GOV.UK warns that other websites may charge more to apply and tells travellers to avoid sites that imitate government services. Paying a middleman doesn't speed anything up either. GOV.UK says you can't get a faster decision by applying through another website or app.

Smartraveller's United Kingdom advice says travellers have been scammed by private online visa services and travel agents, and to apply only through the UK's official visas and immigration website. Download the UK ETA app from the App Store or Google Play links on GOV.UK, not from an ad.

Some travel pages written for Australians quote a lower ETA fee than GOV.UK does. The price on GOV.UK is £20, so a site asking for a lot more than that is adding its own charge.

Dual Australian-British and Australian-Irish citizens can't get an ETA

If you're also a British or Irish citizen, GOV.UK says you can't get an ETA. You enter on a valid British or Irish passport, or on your Australian passport with a certificate of entitlement to the right of abode. Smartraveller notes that the UK started enforcing this on 25 February 2026, and that dual citizens may not be able to board a flight to the UK without the right document.

A certificate of entitlement costs £589, and you can't hold one at the same time as a valid British passport. If your British passport has lapsed, GOV.UK's dual citizenship page says your airline may let you travel with an expired UK passport issued in 1989 or later plus a valid passport from an ETA country, such as your Australian one, as long as the personal details match. Smartraveller calls this a temporary measure and says you may face extra identity checks on arrival. It's the airline's decision, so ask yours before you fly.

A British parent can matter here. GOV.UK says you may have British citizenship automatically if you were born in the UK or have a parent with British citizenship, and that checking before you travel is your responsibility. If you previously held a UK passport and need to travel urgently, you can apply for an emergency travel document.

Working in the UK needs a visa, not an ETA

The Youth Mobility Scheme visa is the UK's working holiday visa. Australians can apply from 18 to 35 and get up to 2 years to live, work in most jobs and study. Only Australian, Canadian and New Zealand passport holders can then extend it once, for one more year, from inside the UK. The extension is a new application with its own £340 fee and £776 health surcharge.

The application fee is £340, plus the immigration health surcharge, which is usually £776 a year. You also need £2,530 in savings, held for at least 28 days in a row, with day 28 falling within 31 days of your application. You can apply up to 6 months before you travel and usually get a decision within 3 weeks. GOV.UK says you can't apply if children under 18 live with you or you're financially responsible for children.

The UK Ancestry visa is open to Commonwealth citizens, Australians included, who can prove a grandparent was born in the UK, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, or in what is now Ireland before 31 March 1922. You must be 17 or over, able to support yourself without public funds, and able and planning to work.

It lasts 5 years, lets you work and study, and lets your partner and children apply to join you. The fee is £726, plus the health surcharge if it applies, which GOV.UK sets at £1,035 a year for most adult applicants. The earliest you can apply is 3 months before you travel.

Other work routes include the Skilled Worker visa, which needs a confirmed job offer from a Home Office-approved employer and a certificate of sponsorship before you apply.

Airside transit needs no ETA, but arriving via Europe or Ireland usually does

Changing planes at a UK airport without passing through border control, known as airside transit, doesn't need an ETA. If your connection means going through border control and coming back through it, usually within 24 hours, that's landside transit and you need one. Smartraveller's summary simply says you'll need an ETA to transit, while GOV.UK's transit guidance draws this line. If you're not sure which applies, GOV.UK says to ask your airline.

Starting your flight in Europe changes nothing. GOV.UK's list of people who don't need an ETA has no exemption for travellers arriving from the EU, so a flight from Paris or a ferry from France needs the same ETA as a flight from Perth.

The only exemption tied to where you travel from helps people who live in Ireland. GOV.UK exempts ETA-country nationals who live in Ireland and travel from Ireland, Guernsey, Jersey or the Isle of Man, and those aged 16 or over must carry an Irish document such as an Irish Residence Permit to prove it. GOV.UK also says you don't need any documents to cross from Ireland to Northern Ireland, but it still tells travellers to check whether they need an ETA. An Australian on holiday in Dublin doesn't live in Ireland, so the exemption doesn't cover the bus to Belfast.

Four checks take you from check-in to the UK arrivals hall

There's no landing card. Smartraveller confirms Australians don't need to fill one in. Here's what happens instead, according to GOV.UK's Entering the UK guide:

1. At check-in for your flight to the UK, your airline checks your passport and travel documents and sends the details to UK Border Force.
2. At passport control, Australian passports can use the eGates if the passport has the biometric symbol on the cover, you're 8 or older and at least 120cm tall, and you have digital permission to be in the UK, such as your ETA. Children aged 8 to 17 must go through with an adult.
3. Anyone who can't use the eGates sees a Border Force officer, who checks the passport and usually asks why you're visiting. Families go through together. If you don't share a surname with a child you're travelling with, you may be asked to prove your relationship, for example with a birth certificate, or with a letter from the parent if you aren't one.
4. At customs, declare anything over your personal allowance, plus banned or restricted goods, goods to sell, and cash of £10,000 or more arriving in England, Scotland or Wales.

Smartraveller's UK page still lists the eGates as open to Australians aged 10 and over, but the UK government's own Entering the UK guide says 8. Your passport only has to be valid for your whole stay in the UK. Smartraveller adds that many countries want 6 months left, transit stops included, so check any country you change planes in.

The personal allowance for other goods is £390, with separate limits for alcohol and tobacco. Go over it and you pay tax and duty on the total value, not just the extra.

Getting online after you land in the UK

HelloRoam's UK plans are data only, and a plan starts when your phone first connects to a network at your destination, so you can set up the eSIM before you fly.

The networks listed for our UK plans are EE and 3. Pick the eSIM as your mobile data line, with its data roaming on. Keep your Australian SIM switched on for calls and texts, such as bank security codes, but off mobile data. Turn its data roaming off too if it has its own switch, as on iPhone and Pixel, so it can't use data at your home carrier's roaming rates. On many Samsung Galaxy phones one switch covers both lines, so leave it on or the eSIM loses data too.

Before you buy, check your phone supports eSIM. If London is the first stop on a longer trip, our regional plans for Europe cover the UK, Ireland and every EU country, plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, on one eSIM.

A Youth Mobility stay uses far more data than a fortnight's holiday, so estimate how much data you'll use before you pick a plan. For two years in the UK, a local prepaid or monthly SIM may suit you better once you've settled in.