What is an Electronic Travel Authorisation? What is an eVisa? Your questions – answered

An eVisa is a digital representation of your immigration permission for the UK. In the past, if you held permission under the Student route you would likely have been issued a Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) which was a physical card representing your Student permission. BRPs were discontinued on 31 October 2024, and now all Student permission holders will have an eVisa instead. Your eVisa is accessed through your UKVI account and outlines your personal details and the details of your permission.  

You can find out more details about setting up a UKVI account in order to access your eVisa from the relevant gov.uk webpage, and also from UKCISA’s eVisa webpage. 

An ETA permits certain individuals to travel to the UK. It is issued digitally and must be applied for in advance of travel to the UK.  

A successful application for an ETA means you have only been granted permission to travel to the UK, but you have not been granted immigration permission, it does not guarantee entry. As a result, following your arrival in the UK, you would also need to apply for permission to enter the UK.  

Only the following two groups of people are eligible to obtain an ETA: 

It should also only be used by those with specific nationalities.  

If you are eligible to obtain an ETA, you can find out further details about the cost of the application and application process through the gov.uk website. We also provide more detail on ETAs and visiting the UK on our Visitors webpage. 

As a reminder, the eVisa is just a digital representation of your immigration permission – similar to how a BRP used to function. Therefore, as long as you are seeking to travel to the UK within the validity dates of your immigration permission as shown on your eVisa, then your eVisa is what you need when travelling. Although your eVisa alone should be sufficient, we understand that difficulties can arise (i.e. your phone may run out of battery, the eVisa system may be down, there may be errors with your eVisa). Therefore, we would recommend that if you are travelling out of the UK at any time, or are entering for the first time on your new permission, that you do the following: 

If your carrier has problems viewing your eVisa, you can tell them to contact the UK Border Force carrier support hub for assistance. This hub is for carriers only, not passengers, but can help carriers directly to address issues with eVisa access.