UK ETA for Gulf Travellers in 2026: Fees, Timing and the London Layover Question

Gulf nationals were the first in the world to need the UK’s Electronic Travel Authorisation. Three years on, the scheme has new fees, faster decisions and one transit rule that still catches passengers out at Heathrow.

Travellers from the Gulf got an early introduction to the UK’s Electronic Travel Authorisation. Qatari citizens became the first nationality in the world to need one, back in November 2023, and passport holders from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman followed a few months later. What began as a Gulf pilot has since grown into a worldwide scheme: by the end of 2025 the Home Office had issued 24.8 million ETAs.

If your last trip to London was more than a couple of years ago, the rules you remember may be out of date. Here is where the scheme stands in 2026, what it costs, and what it means for a stopover on the way to somewhere else.

What the ETA actually is

The ETA is not a visa. It is a digital travel permission linked to your passport, comparable to the American ESTA. Anyone who can visit the UK without a visa for short stays now needs one before boarding, including children and infants, with two notable exceptions: British and Irish citizens, and travellers who already hold a UK visa or immigration status.

One application covers unlimited trips for two years, or until your passport expires, whichever comes first. Each visit can last up to six months, which is generous by international standards and comfortably covers a summer in London, a course of study short of a degree, or an extended family stay. If you renew your passport, you apply again, because the authorisation is tied to the passport number rather than to you as a person.

The current cost, and why you may have seen three different prices

The fee has changed twice since launch, which explains the conflicting numbers still floating around travel forums. Applications originally cost £10. The price rose to £16 in April 2025, then to £20 from 8 April 2026, roughly AED 95 or SAR 97 at current rates. There is no family discount, so a couple travelling with two children pays £80 in total.

Set against the £127 fee and multi-week wait of a Standard Visitor visa, the ETA remains the fast lane. It is also the only lane: airlines will not board visa-exempt passengers for the UK without one.

How the application works in practice

Most people apply through the official UK ETA app, which reads the chip in a biometric passport, takes a photo and asks a short set of security questions. The alternative is the form on GOV.UK. Payment is by card in the final step, and the whole process rarely takes more than ten minutes.

Decisions are quick. The majority of applicants receive approval automatically within minutes, and the confirmation arrives by email. Even so, the Home Office advises allowing three working days before departure, because a small share of applications is held for manual checks. Applying the same week you book flights costs nothing extra and removes the risk of an airport problem later.

A few practical points from cases we see regularly. The passport used in the application must be the one you travel on. Name spellings need to match the passport page exactly, including the order of given names. A blurry passport-chip scan is the most common reason an app application stalls; wiping the phone camera and scanning in good light solves most of it. And parents apply separately for each child, using the child’s own passport. Guidance on requirements by nationality is collected at https://visaeta.uk.

The layover question at Heathrow

This is the detail that generates the most confusion for Gulf passengers, because so many routes to North America and Europe connect through London.

The rule turns on whether you pass through UK passport control. Airside transit at Heathrow or Manchester, where you stay behind the border and simply change planes, is exempt from the ETA requirement. Landside transit is not. If you need to collect and re-check baggage, switch to a separate ticket, move between terminals through the public area, or leave the airport for a hotel overnight, you are formally entering the UK and need an ETA like any other visitor.

Two caveats are worth underlining. First, the exemption only exists at Heathrow and Manchester; a connection through Gatwick, Stansted or any other UK airport always requires an ETA, because those airports have no airside transit route. Second, airlines can and do apply their own boarding rules, and some check for an ETA on any UK-bound ticket regardless of the exemption. A full breakdown of the scenarios, including mixed-ticket itineraries, is in this guide to UK ETA transit rules for airport layovers.

Given that the authorisation costs £20, lasts two years and takes minutes to obtain, most frequent flyers simply get one and stop thinking about the transit question altogether.

Europe is next: the EU’s ETIAS

Travellers who combine London with Paris, Amsterdam or a Schengen stopover should keep one more acronym on the radar. The European Union is completing its own digital border programme: the Entry/Exit System began rolling out at Schengen borders in October 2025, and the visa-waiver authorisation known as ETIAS is expected to follow in late 2026. Once live, it will work much like the UK ETA and the US ESTA, and visa-exempt visitors to the Schengen area, including GCC nationals travelling to Europe, will need an approved authorisation before departure. Launch dates, fees and country coverage are tracked in detail at europe-visa.eu, which follows the EU’s upcoming ETIAS travel authorisation as the start date approaches.

The practical takeaway for anyone planning a two-stop Europe trip in 2026: the UK document you can and should sort out today; the EU one is coming, and it pays to check the current status before a multi-country itinerary.

Before you book

Check three things. Your passport should have validity beyond your travel dates, and ideally a few months to spare, so the ETA does not expire with it mid-trip. Every member of the family needs an ETA or a visa as appropriate, infants included. And any London stopover on your itinerary should be genuinely airside if you plan to travel without one; when in doubt, the £20 application is cheaper than a rebooked flight.

Ten minutes of preparation covers you for two years of trips. By the standards of border bureaucracy, that is about as painless as it gets.