What is an Electronic Travel Authority (ETA), or a European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) or some similar name. Some countries, like Kenya, call them e-Visas.

Keep in mind that these documents are linked to your passport electronically. So, if you get an ETA or ETIAS the year before your passport expires, you will have to apply for them again, and pay the fee, to attach them to your new passport.

An Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) provides authorization to travel to and enter the foreign country and it is electronically linked to your passport. And, before you get too excited or upset with these requirements from foreign governments, don’t forget that the U.S. also has similar requirements for visitors and tourists to the U.S.

The European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) is a new electronic, mandatory pre-travel screening for visa-exempt non-EU citizens, launching in late 2026. It applies to 30 European countries, allowing stays up to 90 days within 180 days. Apply only on the official EU ETIAS website.

Also, since United Kingdom is no longer a part of the Europen Union, they have their own ETA program.

It is for short term stays for tourism or business visitor activities such as attending a conference, making business inquiries, or for contractual negotiations.

It is an approval process that many countries have already initiated to allow them to process your request to visit before you arrive at their border.

Many countries are also making the ETA or ETIAS more complicated by requiring incoming visitors to be photographed and fingerprinted which can make the passport control a real bottleneck.

In the past, many travelers would arrive at the border with a passport and money in hand, ready to purchase a visa to enter the country. Well, that has been changing.

A little background first. To simplify travel between countries, many countries joined with each other to set up a visa program that basically said that we will let your people enter our country if you let our people enter your country. That resulted in what was often called visa free access between the countries. Each country had their own “Visa Waiver Countries List” granting access to foreign nationals of specified countries. Of course, the also had a list of who they would not allow to enter their country.

Other countries would allow people from some countries come visit, but you usually had to get a visa before you left home. Some countries did allow you get them at the border. For example, we traveled to Kenya and Tanzania last year. We went online to get our Kenya e-Visa, but waited until crossing the border to get the Tanzania visa. (Keep in mind that in 2024, at the border crossing from Kenya to Tanzania, they required newer crisp US Dollars to pay for the entry visa. They did not accept credit cards, Kenyan money or old beat up and wrinkled US Dollars.) We did not want to have to send our passport to a Tanzanian embassy or some such effort to get a visa ahead of time. What would happen to our trip if it was lost in transit? A ruined vacation, that is what. That is why we really appreciated the fact that Kenya allowed us to apply for a visa online. We also purchased a visa at the airport when we flew into Zambia in 2015 and in 2022.

Our next big trip wss to New Zealand and Australia. When we started the planning, we knew that the US was on the visa waiver list with New Zealand and Australia and that we could apply online for our visas. We also read that Australia required us to also obtain an Electronic Travel Authority before we left home; something that we had never heard of. You probably didn’t know about it either.

We recently discovered that as of October 2019, we also need an ETA from New Zealand as well. If you check the US Department of State website, here is what you will read about New Zealand. This site is not up-to-date. “If you are a U.S. citizen, you are eligible for a visa waiver and therefore do not need a visa for tourist stays of three months or less. You must have a passport that is valid for at least three months beyond your planned departure from New Zealand. Visit the New Zealand Embassy website for the most current visa information.”  You can get the ETA from New Zealand.  New Zealand requires this to be completed even if you are just transiting through at the airport on your way to Australia with no plans to stay in New Zealand.

Some countries, don’t require them if you arrive by land or by sea, but they do if you arrive by air. Canada is an example with this type of rule for what would normally be visa waiver country for US Citizens.

Here are examples of other countries with similar ETA type requirements: Bolivia, Brazil, Vietnam, China, Cuba, etc..

So, the bottom line is, Always check with each country you are visiting early in the planning process and check again a few weeks before you go!!!  Don’t trust this site or any site, other than the official government site, for up-to-date info. All of us who write blogs for travelers, do our best to keep up with ever changing rules around the world, but we also want to remind you to check on an official site. You don’t want to be turned away at the border because you didn’t know about some new rule change.. 

We saw a new wrinkle to this whole process on our flight from the US to the Netherlands. At the airport in Seattle, they were asking passengers to take a later flight, for which the airline would give them $1,000. They then suggested that they would be routed through Heathrow then on to the Neatherlands. My question would be; What will happen when these people show up in Great Britian without an ETA in hand? I would expect that they had not applied for the ETA since they were not planning a visit to Great Britian.

What would happen if you were diverted to a country that requires an ETA, but you didn’t have one? For example if you were flying from Fiji to Melbourne but for some reason the airplane was diverted to Aukland and none of the people on board had an ETA from New Zealand?