Canadian passport holders do not need a visa for the United Kingdom, but since January 2025 they do need an ETA before boarding. Two years of validity, multiple entries, and up to six months in Britain per visit.
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
Canada and the United Kingdom have about as close a travel relationship as two countries separated by an ocean can have. Shared head of state until recently, shared parliamentary tradition, and something in the order of a million Canadians with a British-born parent or grandparent. Add the fact that Air Canada, British Airways, WestJet and Air Transat between them fly to Britain from every major Canadian city, and the result is one of the highest per-capita visitor flows the UK receives from anywhere.
That closeness makes the ETA requirement introduced in January 2025 feel like more of a change than it is. Canadians have never needed a visa for a British holiday and still do not. What is new is an Electronic Travel Authorisation applied for online before departure and held digitally against the passport number — the same idea as Canada's own eTA, which Britain and most of the world have needed for Canada since 2016.
The mechanics are what matter. The ETA is verified before boarding, not on arrival. Air Canada, WestJet, British Airways and Air Transat all check it at the airport in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal, and a passenger without one does not fly. Given that the application takes ten minutes and is usually decided within them, the only real risk is not knowing about it — which, a year into the scheme, is still the most common way Canadians come unstuck.
At a glance
Eligibility
You do not need a visa, but you do need an ETA. Canada is a non-visa national country for UK purposes, so Canadian citizens travel to Britain as visitors for tourism, seeing family, business meetings, conferences or short courses without any consular application. The ETA sits in front of that permission — it does not change what you are allowed to do once you arrive, and it does not shorten the six months Canadians have always been given.
Every Canadian traveller needs one, at every age. Infants need their own ETA against their own passport, and children cannot be added to a parent's application. The exemptions are narrow: Canadians who already hold a UK visa, settled status or indefinite leave to remain do not need an ETA, and neither do dual nationals travelling on a British or Irish passport. If you hold both Canadian and Irish citizenship — a very common combination — travel on the Irish passport and you need nothing at all.
Permanent residents of Canada are not covered by the Canadian arrangement. A PR holder travelling on an Indian, Chinese, Filipino or Pakistani passport follows the rules for that nationality, which in several cases means a Standard Visitor visa applied for weeks in advance rather than an ETA applied for over lunch. This catches out a great many Toronto and Vancouver families where the parents hold PR and the children are Canadian citizens by birth.
There is a Common Travel Area exception worth knowing if your trip includes Ireland. Travelling into the UK from within the Common Travel Area — from the Republic of Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey or Guernsey — does not require an ETA for that leg. Canadians flying Toronto to Dublin, then crossing into Northern Ireland by road, are the classic case. Most itineraries still need one, because most involve at least one direct arrival into Great Britain.
Stay & validity
An approved ETA runs for two years from the date it is granted, or until your Canadian passport expires, whichever falls first. Within that window there is no limit on the number of trips. Each visit can last up to six months — considerably more than the ninety days Canadians are used to from Schengen, and far more than any ordinary holiday needs.
The passport-expiry rule is the one that costs Canadians money. The authorisation is bound to the passport number you enter and expires with the document. Canadian passports are issued for five or ten years, and a traveller two months from renewal who applies for an ETA gets two months of use out of it. Renewing does not carry it across — there is no transfer and no refund. Check the expiry page before you apply, and if renewal is imminent, do that first.
The UK does not require six months of passport validity beyond your trip, unlike many destinations. Your Canadian passport simply needs to cover the period you are in Britain. Be careful on multi-country itineraries though: the Schengen area does want three months beyond your departure from it, so a London-and-Paris trip is governed by the French requirement rather than the British one.
Six months is the maximum per visit, and it is not an annual budget to be spent down. Border Force looks at patterns across entries. A Canadian who spends most of the year in Britain across two long visits is not visiting — they are living there without the right visa, and the questions come on the second or third arrival rather than the first. Snowbirds and people with British family should think carefully about the shape of the year rather than the length of any single trip.
Pricing
Live fees for Canadian passport holders, shown all-in — the Home Office charge and our service fee together, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Canada
Requirements
Everything Canadian 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.
Canadian applications are overwhelmingly decided automatically, and most applicants have an approval email before they have closed the browser tab. The Home Office asks travellers to allow up to three working days, and a minority are referred to a caseworker — usually because a photograph fails the automated check, or because a declared conviction requires a human decision.
Apply about a week before departure. Processing is rarely the constraint; the buffer exists so that a mistyped passport number or a rejected photograph can be fixed without paying twice. Canadians travelling in the summer peak or over the Christmas period should deal with the ETA when the flights are booked rather than in the final week, when a manual review would be genuinely awkward.
There is a timing quirk for western Canada in particular. Vancouver and Calgary departures to London leave in the late afternoon and evening, which is the small hours in Britain. If something needs resolving at check-in there is nobody awake in the UK to resolve it. That is a further argument for having the authorisation settled well ahead of the day itself.
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
Canada is exceptionally well served to Britain for a country of its population. Air Canada flies to Heathrow from most of its hubs, British Airways operates the reverse, and WestJet and Air Transat add leisure capacity into Gatwick, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Eastern Canada is closer to London than California is, which makes the overnight hop genuinely short.
Best time to go
Canadians have an advantage over most visitors: a British winter holds no fear. What feels bleak to a Californian is a mild January to someone from Winnipeg, and that opens up the cheapest months of the year. January and February fares from Toronto and Montreal to London are a fraction of the July price, the museums and theatres are at their best, and the queues that define a British summer simply are not there.
The classic window is May to September, and for good reason — long evenings, open gardens, and the countryside actually accessible. September deserves particular mention for Canadians: the weather often holds, school is back, prices drop from their August peak, and it lines up with the shoulder season on the transatlantic routes. Late May is similarly good and cheaper than June.
Two Canadian-specific scheduling points are worth building around. The Victoria Day long weekend in May and the Canada Day period at the start of July both push fares up sharply on the Toronto and Vancouver routes, and both fall in otherwise sensible travel windows. Booking a week either side of them can be materially cheaper for the same weather.
Time-zone-wise, Toronto and Montreal sit five hours behind London and Vancouver eight, but the changeover dates differ. Britain moves its clocks in late March and late October, out of step with the North American dates by a week or two. For a short period each spring and autumn the usual difference shifts by an hour, which matters if you have a tight connection at Heathrow onto a European flight.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Canada — we check for every one of them before submitting.
Canada has required an eTA from British visitors since 2016, so Canadians know the concept well. The British version differs in one important way: it allows six months per visit rather than the shorter permissions many such schemes grant. That is good news, but it leads some Canadians to assume the rest works identically. It does not — the UK version expires with your passport, which the Canadian one handles differently.
Eligibility follows citizenship. A Toronto family where the parents hold PR on Indian or Chinese passports and the children are Canadian citizens needs two different processes running at once — ETAs for the children and, potentially, Standard Visitor visas for the parents with weeks of lead time. Discovering this a fortnight before departure is a serious problem.
The ETA lives against a passport number for up to two years, and Canadian passports come up for renewal on five- and ten-year cycles that will often fall inside that window. Renewal voids the authorisation with no transfer and no refund. Check your expiry date first — this is the single most avoidable cost in the whole process.
Air Canada and WestJet are liable for carrying a passenger without a valid ETA, so they will not board you on a promise. An application cannot reliably be completed at the check-in desk if the photograph fails the automated check, and there is no counter at Pearson or YVR that issues one. This is how Canadians miss flights to London.
The UK's Youth Mobility Scheme is open to Canadians aged 18 to 35 and gives the right to work in Britain for up to three years. It is a separate visa with its own application, quota and cost. An ETA cannot substitute for it, and arriving as a visitor with the intention of finding work is a refusal at the border rather than a technicality.
Canadian passports print the full legal name, and the ETA must match it exactly. Entering the shortened form you use day to day rather than the name on the document creates a discrepancy between authorisation and passport that an airline check can flag at exactly the wrong moment.
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
As a fellow Commonwealth realm, Canada hosts a British High Commission rather than an embassy, supported by consulates-general in the major cities. You will not need to visit any of them to obtain an ETA. The application is completed online and decided digitally — no interview, no appointment and no passport submission. These offices handle consular assistance, Standard Visitor visa matters where an ETA is not the right route, and support for Canadians whose circumstances need a human decision.
FAQs
The questions Canadian passport holders ask most often about travelling to the United Kingdom.
No. Canadian citizens do not need a visa for tourism, business visits, short study or transit in the United Kingdom. Since January 2025 they do need an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), which is a digital permission linked to your passport rather than a visa. It is applied for online in about ten minutes and usually approved the same day.
Up to six months per visit. The ETA itself lasts two years, or until your Canadian passport expires if that is sooner, and permits unlimited separate trips in that period. The six months is a per-visit maximum, not an annual allowance — using most of it repeatedly will lead Border Force to ask whether you are in fact living in the UK.
Only if they are Canadian citizens. ETA eligibility follows the nationality of the passport you travel on, not where you live. A permanent resident of Canada travelling on an Indian, Chinese, Filipino or Pakistani passport must follow the rules for that nationality, which in many cases means applying for a Standard Visitor visa several weeks in advance rather than an ETA.
Yes. Canadian citizens 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 10 or over. Children aged 10 and 11 must be accompanied by an adult using the gates at the same time; families with children under 10 use a staffed desk together.
No. The Youth Mobility Scheme is a separate visa open to Canadians aged 18 to 35 that grants the right to live and work in the UK for up to three years. An ETA is a visitor permission only and confers no right to work. If your plan is to work in Britain, you need the Youth Mobility visa or another work route — arriving as a visitor to look for work is grounds for refusal at the border.
Yes. Every traveller needs an ETA regardless of age, including newborns, and each one is linked to that person's own passport. A child cannot be added to a parent's authorisation. A family of four makes four applications, although we can prepare and submit them together in a single session.
Most Canadian applications are decided automatically, frequently within minutes. The Home Office advises allowing up to three working days, and a small share are held for manual review — usually a photograph that fails the automated check or a declared criminal conviction. Applying about a week before departure leaves room to fix any problem without paying twice.
If you enter the UK from within the Common Travel Area — arriving from the Republic of Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey or Guernsey — you do not need an ETA for that particular crossing. In practice most Canadian itineraries still require one, because the trip usually includes at least one direct arrival into Great Britain. If in doubt, apply: the cost is low and the consequence of being wrong is missing a flight.
Yes. A single ETA covers the whole United Kingdom and is also accepted for Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. There are no internal immigration checks between the four nations of the UK, so a trip taking in London, Edinburgh and Belfast needs only the one authorisation.
Your passport must remain valid for the whole of your stay, and your ETA expires at the same moment the passport does. If your passport would expire mid-trip, renew before you travel and apply for the ETA against the new passport number. An ETA linked to an expired document has no effect, even if the two-year period has not run out.
Your nationality is already set to Canada. 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.
