Austrian passport holders have needed a UK ETA since April 2025. Two years of validity, multiple entries, up to six months in Britain per visit — applied for online in minutes.
6 months
Maximum stay per visit
2 years
ETA validity
Multiple
Entries permitted
3 working days
Typical decision time
100% online
No embassy visit
Overview
Austria and the United Kingdom trade a steady flow of visitors in both directions, and the traffic has a distinct shape. Austrians come to London for culture, shopping and business, and to Britain more broadly for language courses and university study; Britons go to Austria in enormous numbers for the ski season and for Vienna and Salzburg's music. The relationship is long-standing and, in cultural terms, unusually warm.
Since April 2025 the journey has required an Electronic Travel Authorisation. Austria remains a non-visa country and nothing about what Austrians may do in Britain has changed — the ETA is a digital pre-travel permission applied for online and attached to the passport number. What is new is that it must be obtained before departure, which is a genuine adjustment after decades of free movement.
In practice the process is quick and the shape of it will be familiar to anyone who has used a US ESTA. The application takes about ten minutes, is usually decided within them, and produces no document — the authorisation is held digitally against your passport number. Austrian Airlines, British Airways, easyJet, Ryanair and Eurowings all check it at the gate, and a passenger without one is not boarded.
At a glance
Eligibility
You do not need a visa, but you do need an ETA. Austria is a non-visa national country for UK purposes, so Austrian citizens travel to Britain as visitors for tourism, family visits, business, conferences or short courses without any consular application. The ETA sits in front of that permission rather than replacing it, and the six months Austrian visitors have always been allowed is unchanged.
Every traveller needs their own, at any age. Children and infants need an ETA linked to their own passport and cannot be added to a parent's application. This affects Austrian school trips and family holidays in particular — a class travelling to London needs an individual authorisation for each pupil, which requires planning weeks rather than days ahead.
Several exemptions apply. Austrian citizens holding a UK visa, settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, or indefinite leave to remain do not need an ETA, because their existing status already carries the permission to travel. Dual nationals travelling on a British or Irish passport need nothing at all.
The Austrian identity card no longer works for travel to Britain. The Personalausweis stopped being accepted in October 2021 for most travellers, so a passport is required and the ETA attaches to its number. Austrian citizens with EU Settlement Scheme status are the exception and may still use an identity card.
Stay & validity
An approved ETA lasts two years from the date it is granted, or until your Austrian passport expires, whichever comes first. Within that period there is no limit on entries, and each visit can last up to six months. For Austrians who travel to London several times a year on business, one application covering two years removes a recurring step entirely.
The passport-expiry rule is where the two-year figure becomes misleading. The ETA is bound to the passport number you enter and ends when that document does. Austrian passports are issued for ten years for adults, five for children aged two to eleven and two years for the very young — so a family applying together will often find the children's authorisations expiring long before the parents'. Renewal does not transfer the ETA and there is no refund.
Britain does not require six months of onward passport validity, only that the passport covers your stay. Austrian travellers sometimes assume symmetry with the rule the EU applies to third-country nationals entering Schengen, but the British requirement is simply that the document remains valid while you are there.
Six months per visit is the maximum for a single entry rather than an annual allowance. It matters most for Austrian students: language courses and summer schools finishing within six months are covered, but an academic year, a semester that runs long or a full degree requires a Student visa applied for in advance. It also matters for anyone splitting their working life across both countries, since Border Force considers entries cumulatively.
Pricing
Live fees for Austrian passport holders, shown all-in — the Home Office charge and our service fee together, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Austria
Requirements
Everything Austrian passport holders need before starting an application. The first five items apply to every applicant; the rest are specific to your nationality.
Passport bio-data page — a clear colour scan or photo showing your photograph, full name, date of birth, passport number and expiry date
Recent digital photograph — full face visible against a plain background, taken within the last six months, with no headwear other than for religious or medical reasons
A valid email address, which is where the approval is sent and which you should keep accessible while travelling
A credit or debit card to pay the Home Office ETA fee and our service fee together
Your travel and accommodation details — Border Force can ask about the purpose of your visit and where you are staying
Simple process
Four steps, entirely online, with our team checking every field before anything reaches the Home Office.
Enter your passport details exactly as printed, answer the suitability questions and upload your photograph. Most applicants finish in under ten minutes.
Our team checks your photo, passport number, name spelling and declarations against Home Office requirements before anything is submitted.
Your application goes to UK Visas and Immigration with the government fee paid, and we track its status until a decision is issued.
There is no sticker, label or document to print. The authorisation is held digitally against your passport number, and we explain exactly what to show at check-in.
Applications from Austria are decided automatically in the great majority of cases, and most applicants receive approval within minutes. The Home Office asks travellers to allow up to three working days, and a small proportion are referred for manual review — usually because a photograph fails the automated check rather than for anything substantive.
Apply at least a week before travelling. The buffer exists so that a mistyped passport number or a rejected photograph can be corrected without a second payment, not because the decision itself is slow. Austrians tend to plan and book early, and the sensible moment to deal with the ETA is when the flights are confirmed.
Two situations deserve extra lead time. School group trips to London need every participant authorised individually, and gathering thirty sets of passport details in the final week before departure is a familiar problem. And travellers heading to Britain for a language course should sort the ETA well ahead, since a course confirmation is often booked months in advance while the authorisation is left to the last fortnight.
On arrival
An approved ETA gets you on the plane. This is what happens once you land — and your nationality is one of those that can use the automated gates.
Your nationality is eligible to use the automated gates at Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Edinburgh and most other UK ports, alongside British and Irish citizens. The gate reads your biometric passport chip and checks your ETA against it electronically.
Children aged 10 or 11 can use the gates when accompanied by an adult using them at the same time. Younger children must be seen at a staffed desk, so families with under-tens should join the officer queue together.
The gates do not stamp passports. Your arrival is recorded digitally, and your six-month permission runs from that date. Keep your boarding pass and booking confirmations if you need to evidence your arrival date later.
The gates refer a proportion of passengers to Border Force at random or where the chip does not read cleanly. This is routine, is not a sign of a problem with your ETA, and usually adds only a few minutes.
Getting there
Vienna is the principal gateway, with several daily services to London on both full-service and low-cost carriers. Salzburg and Innsbruck have strong seasonal links to Britain driven by the ski trade, which run in the reverse direction to most Austrian outbound travel but do give Austrians extra winter options into the UK regions.
Best time to go
Austrian visitors arrive from a continental climate into a maritime one, and the difference is more noticeable than the latitude suggests. British winters are far milder than Austrian ones — snow in London is rare and rarely lasts — while British summers are cooler and considerably wetter than a Vienna July. What Britain offers that Austria does not is a long northern evening: daylight in Scotland in June runs past ten at night.
May, June and September are the strongest months. Prices sit below the July and August peak, the countryside is at its best, and September has the advantage that the British school holidays have ended while the weather in the south often holds well into October.
The Austrian school calendar creates a genuinely useful opportunity. The Semesterferien in February, staggered by Bundesland, fall completely outside the British peak and make an excellent window for a London city break — hotels are cheap, the museums and theatres are at their best, and the short daylight matters little for an urban trip. The Easter and Whitsun breaks are similarly good value.
One point on timing. Britain is one hour behind Austria year-round and both change their clocks on the same dates, so the difference never varies. Vienna departures arrive into Heathrow during the busy late-morning bank, so allow extra time if you have a connecting domestic flight or a same-day meeting.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Austria — we check for every one of them before submitting.
The Austrian identity card has not been accepted for travel to Britain since October 2021, and travellers still arrive at Vienna with one expecting it to work. You need a passport, and the ETA is linked to that passport number. The only exception is for Austrian citizens holding EU Settlement Scheme status, who may still use an identity card and need no ETA at all.
The ETA must match the machine-readable zone of the passport exactly, where umlauts are transliterated — Müller appears as MUELLER, Österreicher as OESTERREICHER, Weiß as WEISS. Entering the umlaut characters themselves, or simply dropping the dots to Muller, creates a mismatch that the airline check can flag at the gate.
Austrian children's passports run for five years, and for children under two they are valid for only two years. The ETA expires when the passport does, so a family applying together may find the children's authorisations lasting a fraction of the parents'. Check every expiry date individually before applying.
Every pupil on a class trip to London needs an individual ETA linked to their own passport. There is no group application and children cannot be added to a teacher's authorisation. Collecting passport details for a whole class in the final week before departure is the most common failure in Austrian school travel to Britain.
The ETA permits study of up to six months, which covers summer schools and short language courses. An academic year, a full degree or a course running beyond six months needs a Student visa applied for before travel from Austria. It cannot be obtained from within the UK after arriving on an ETA.
An Austrian debit card restricted to the domestic Bankomat network will not process an online international payment in pounds sterling. Use a Visa or Mastercard credit card, or a debit card you have already used successfully for overseas online purchases.
Passport number mistyped
By far the most common problem. The authorisation attaches to the number you enter, so a single wrong character produces an ETA that does not exist as far as the airline's check is concerned.
An undeclared conviction or refusal
The Home Office asks about criminal convictions and previous immigration refusals or removals. History found later is treated far more seriously than the original matter would have been if declared.
A photograph that fails the check
Shadows across the face, glasses, a patterned background or a cropped chin all cause the automated check to reject an image, which turns a routine approval into a manual review.
Conditions
These conditions are set by the UK Home Office and do not vary by nationality. The passport-linking rule in particular catches out a great many otherwise well-planned trips.
Your authorisation is held digitally against the passport number you enter. There is nothing placed in your passport and nothing to print for the border. If you renew or replace that passport, the ETA does not transfer — you must apply for a new one on the new document.
Every person travelling needs their own ETA, including babies and children. A child cannot be added to a parent's application, and each traveller needs their own valid passport to apply against.
An approved ETA lasts two years from the date it is granted, or until the expiry date of the passport it is linked to, whichever comes first. This is the single most misunderstood rule in the scheme — a passport with eight months left produces an ETA with eight months left.
Within its validity you can travel to the UK as many times as you like. Each individual visit can be up to six months. There is no formal annual cap, but repeated long stays that add up to the majority of the year will attract questions at the border.
One ETA covers England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and it is also accepted for travel to Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. You do not need a separate authorisation for the Crown Dependencies.
An ETA lets you board your flight, train or ship. The decision to admit you is made by Border Force on arrival, who can ask about your funds, your accommodation, your onward plans and the purpose of your visit.
Consular services
The United Kingdom maintains an embassy in Vienna, but it plays no part in issuing an ETA. The application is completed online and decided digitally — there is no interview, no appointment and no passport submission. The embassy handles consular assistance, visa routes where an ETA is not the appropriate option, and support for applicants whose circumstances require a human decision.
FAQs
The questions Austrian passport holders ask most often about travelling to the United Kingdom.
No. Austrian citizens do not need a visa for tourism, business visits, short study or transit in the United Kingdom. Since April 2025 they do need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), a digital permission linked to the passport rather than a visa. It is applied for online in about ten minutes and usually approved the same day.
In most cases no. The Personalausweis has not been accepted for travel to Britain since October 2021, and you need a passport. The exception is for Austrian citizens with EU Settlement Scheme status, who may continue to use an identity card — and who do not need an ETA at all, since their status already carries permission to travel.
Exactly as it appears in the machine-readable zone at the bottom of your passport photo page, where umlauts are transliterated: ä becomes AE, ö becomes OE, ü becomes UE and ß becomes SS. So Müller is entered as MUELLER. Do not use the umlaut characters and do not simply drop the dots, as either creates a mismatch with the passport.
Up to six months per visit. The ETA is valid for two years, or until your Austrian passport expires if that is sooner, and permits unlimited entries within that period. Six months is a per-visit maximum rather than an annual allowance — repeatedly using most of it will prompt Border Force to ask whether you are living in Britain.
Yes. The ETA expires when the passport it is linked to expires. Austrian passports for children under two are valid for two years and for older children five years, so a child's ETA will often last considerably less than the headline two years. Check each family member's expiry date separately before applying.
No. Austrian citizens with settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, indefinite leave to remain, or a valid UK visa do not need an ETA. Your existing status already carries permission to travel, so applying would be money spent unnecessarily.
Yes. There is no group application. Every pupil and every accompanying adult needs their own ETA linked to their own passport, and children cannot be added to a teacher's authorisation. Because gathering passport details for a class takes time, school trips should begin the process several weeks before departure.
Yes. Austrian citizens, like all EU nationals, are eligible for the automated ePassport gates at Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, Edinburgh and most other UK ports, provided the passport is biometric and the traveller is aged 10 or over. Children aged 10 and 11 must be accompanied by an adult using the gates at the same time.
Only for courses lasting up to six months, such as a summer school or a short language programme. An academic year, a full degree or an exchange running beyond six months requires a Student visa applied for before travel from Austria. You cannot switch to a Student visa from within the UK after arriving on an ETA.
Yes. A single ETA covers the entire United Kingdom and is also accepted for Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. There are no internal immigration checks between the four nations, so a trip combining London and Edinburgh needs only one authorisation.
Your nationality is already set to Austria. Complete the form in under ten minutes, and our team will check every detail before it reaches the Home Office.
Other nationalities
Requirements, routes and border formalities differ by passport. Here are the guides for other eligible nationalities.
