Australian ETA for UK Citizens: What You Actually Need
Updated: 5 August 2026
British passport holders cannot get an Australian ETA. The ETA (subclass 601) is limited to eight passports, and the United Kingdom is not one of them. You use the eVisitor, subclass 651, instead. It costs nothing, you apply through ImmiAccount in a browser, and it allows three months per visit.
Independent guide — not a government service. Australian Visa Online is an independent information resource. We are not affiliated with the Australian Government or the Department of Home Affairs, and we do not lodge applications on your behalf.
Quick Facts: ETA and eVisitor for UK citizens
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Can a British passport get the ETA (601)? | No. The UK is not on the subclass 601 list |
| What UK citizens use instead | eVisitor, subclass 651 |
| Cost of the eVisitor | Free. No application charge |
| Apply via | ImmiAccount, in a web browser |
| Maximum stay | Up to 3 months per visit |
| Validity | 12 months from grant, multiple entries |
| Work rights | None |
| Short-term study | Up to 3 months |
| Apply from | Outside Australia |
| Processing | See the processing times guide for current ranges |
The short answer
The Electronic Travel Authority, subclass 601, is open to holders of eight passports. Here is the whole list:
- Brunei
- Canada
- Hong Kong SAR (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passport only)
- Japan
- Malaysia
- Singapore
- South Korea (Republic of Korea)
- United States of America
No British entry. There is no exception and no waiver. The subclass 601 guide sets out the same eight.
Eligibility follows your passport, not where you live. A British citizen based in Dubai or Singapore is still a British passport holder, so the ETA is still closed to them.
The visa you do qualify for is free. UK passport holders are on the eVisitor (subclass 651) list, and there is no application charge at all.
Why British travellers search for an Australian ETA
Those three letters get reused. The United Kingdom runs its own ETA scheme for people arriving there, the United States has the ESTA, and plenty of countries now issue some form of digital travel permit. So you hear "you need an ETA for Australia" from a colleague, a forum post, or a booking site, and reasonably assume it means the same thing everywhere.
In Australian immigration law, ETA is the name of one visa subclass with one passport list attached to it, not a general term for an online entry permit.
The confusion runs deeper than the name. Once granted, the two visas behave almost identically: same three-month stay, same permitted activities, same ban on work. Our ETA vs eVisitor comparison covers the differences that do exist, and nearly all of them are about who applies and through which channel.
What the eVisitor is
The eVisitor (subclass 651) is a free electronic visa for European passport holders. The list covers 36 European countries and territories, and the United Kingdom is on it. Brexit did not change that.
Nothing is printed and nothing is stuck into your passport. The grant is recorded against your passport number, and the airline checks it through Advance Passenger Processing when you collect your boarding pass. No valid visa in the system, no boarding pass.
| Rule | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Stay | Up to 3 months each time you enter |
| Validity | 12 months from the date it is granted |
| Entries | Unlimited, across those 12 months |
| Stay clock | Restarts every time you leave Australia and return |
| Extensions | Not possible. The eVisitor cannot be extended |
| Passport | Tied to a single passport number |
That last row catches people out. Renew your British passport and the eVisitor attached to the old one stops working, even if its 12 months have not run out. Apply again on the new document. It is free.
Validity and stay are different things, and confusing them is the most common misreading of this visa. Twelve months of validity does not buy you twelve months in Australia. It gives you twelve months in which you can keep arriving, three months at a time. Our guide to how long you can stay on a tourist visa works through the arithmetic.
How UK citizens apply for the eVisitor
You apply online in an ordinary web browser. There is no app for this one, which throws people who went looking for the ETA app.
- Go to the Department of Home Affairs website and select the eVisitor (subclass 651) application. New application, then Visitor, then eVisitor.
- Sign in to ImmiAccount, or create one. Our ImmiAccount walkthrough covers the setup if this is your first Australian visa.
- Enter your passport details exactly as they appear on the biographical page. Check the passport number twice.
- Answer the character and health declarations honestly. They ask about criminal history, earlier visa refusals or cancellations anywhere in the world, and your health.
- Submit. There is no payment screen, because there is nothing to pay.
You do not upload documents with a standard eVisitor. No bank statements, no employment letter, no itinerary. The Department only comes back for evidence when an answer in your declarations needs explaining.
Decisions are usually fast. Not always. An application routed to manual review can take considerably longer, and it cannot be sped up. What sends one there is normally a declared refusal or cancellation, a conviction, a previous overstay, or a health answer. Check the visa processing times guide for current ranges. Apply before you book if you can, and if you have already booked, apply well ahead of the flight.
One rule catches British expats out. The eVisitor must be applied for from outside Australia. If you are already in the country and want to stay on as a visitor, that is a subclass 600 matter.
What the eVisitor lets you do
Permitted:
- Holidays and travel anywhere in Australia
- Visiting family, friends, or a partner
- Conferences, seminars, and trade fairs
- Business enquiries, negotiations, and contract discussions
- Study or training for up to three months
- Medical treatment
Not permitted:
- Paid work for an Australian employer
- Selling goods or services directly to the public
- Providing services to a business in Australia
- Freelance or contract work carried out on Australian soil
- Unpaid work that takes the place of a paid job
The line people find hardest sits inside business travel. Attending a conference on behalf of your London employer is a business visitor activity. Being paid to deliver a session at that conference is work, and work needs a different visa.
Remote work is genuinely murky, and anyone who tells you it is settled is guessing. The no-work condition is aimed at work for an Australian business. Keeping up your existing UK job from a flat in Melbourne, with no Australian clients and no presence in the Australian market, sits in a grey area that the Department of Home Affairs has neither authorised nor plainly forbidden. It stops being grey when you take on Australian clients, run an Australian operation, or make the remote work the real purpose of the trip. If that is the plan, look at a work visa. Our guide on whether you can work on an Australian tourist visa goes into it.
Study is capped at three months. A course running longer than that needs the Student visa (subclass 500).
The conditions attached to your eVisitor
Three condition numbers come with every grant, and one worth knowing about does not.
| Condition | What it means |
|---|---|
| 8101 | No work in Australia, including volunteer work that replaces a paid position |
| 8201 | Maximum 3-month stay per visit |
| 8558 | You cannot spend more than 12 months in Australia in any 18-month period |
| 8503 | Not applied to the eVisitor by default, so you can generally apply for another visa while onshore |
Condition 8558 is the one that limits frequent visitors. Each entry resets your three-month clock, but the cumulative cap still applies, so chaining short visits back to back forever is not on. Border officers also have discretion. If your travel pattern reads as living in Australia rather than visiting it, you can be questioned at the airport and refused entry. That is rare for ordinary tourists. It is a real risk for anyone who has quietly made Australia a second home.
Overstaying is a heavier problem. Going over your permitted stay, even by a day, can attract a three-year exclusion from Australian visas.
If you already started an ETA application
Nothing has gone badly wrong. A British passport cannot produce a subclass 601 grant, so that application was never going to become a valid visa however far you pushed it. Stop, and lodge the eVisitor instead.
Where it can hurt is money. The Australian ETA has been app-only since 2022, through the Australian ETA app published by the Department of Home Affairs. There is no official website that lodges an ETA. Any site offering to "apply for your ETA" is either a paid middleman or a scam, so if you handed over a card, you paid a third party rather than the Department. The tells: a web form instead of the app, a price hidden until checkout, an app publisher that is not the Department of Home Affairs, promises of guaranteed approval or priority processing, and requests for payment by gift card, crypto, or bank transfer.
The fix is the same either way. Open ImmiAccount, lodge the eVisitor, pay nothing. And if anything on your official ImmiAccount screen ever differs from this guide, follow the screen. It is always the source of truth.
When the subclass 600 is the right call instead
The eVisitor covers ordinary British holidays and family visits. Reach for the Visitor visa (subclass 600) when one of these applies:
- You want to stay longer than three months in one visit. The 600 can be granted for 3, 6, or 12 months, and the case officer decides which, not you.
- You are already in Australia and want to stay on as a visitor.
- You are coming for medical treatment.
- You are being sponsored by an Australian family member or a government department.
- Your character declarations need a written explanation rather than a yes or no box.
- An earlier Australian visa refusal needs addressing through a full, documented application.
The 600 asks a lot more of you: a real application charge, supporting documents to upload, and a genuine temporary entrant assessment behind the decision. Check the fee schedule for the current charge rather than trusting a figure quoted on a forum.
A refused eVisitor does not close the door. The 600 lets you put a proper case on the record with documents attached. And if you visit Australia often enough that reapplying is becoming a chore, the Frequent Traveller stream of the 600 offers a longer multi-year validity with the same three months per entry.
Practical points for British travellers
Keep your passport valid for at least six months beyond your planned stay. It is not a formal visa requirement, but airlines and border officers prefer it, and an airline can decline to board you.
Everyone travelling needs their own visa, including babies. You can lodge several applications in one ImmiAccount session, but each one is assessed separately.
If you hold a second passport, apply on the one you will hand over at the Australian border, and travel on that same document.
Carry travel insurance. The UK has a reciprocal healthcare agreement with Australia, but the cover is limited to treatment that is medically necessary during your stay, and it only applies if you are ordinarily resident in the UK. It is not a substitute for insurance.
Beyond visitor visas, we keep separate UK guides for skilled migration, the working holiday visa, the partner visa and the student visa. The tourist visa guide for UK citizens goes deeper on the eVisitor itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can UK citizens get an Australian ETA?
No. The Electronic Travel Authority (subclass 601) is limited to eight passports, and the United Kingdom is not one of them. Eligibility follows your passport, not your residence, so a British citizen living abroad still cannot apply. Use the eVisitor (subclass 651) instead, which is free.
What visa do British passport holders need for Australia?
The eVisitor, subclass 651. It covers tourism, visiting family, and short business activities such as conferences and meetings. You apply online through ImmiAccount from outside Australia, there is no application charge, and a grant lets you stay up to three months per visit across twelve months of validity.
Is the eVisitor really free for UK citizens?
Yes. The Department of Home Affairs charges British nationals nothing for the subclass 651, and the application has no payment screen. If a website asks for a card before it will lodge your visa, you are on a reseller's page. Apply through ImmiAccount and pay nothing.
I paid a website for an Australian ETA using my British passport. What now?
That application was never going to produce a visa, because British passports are not on the subclass 601 list. There is no official website that lodges an ETA either, only the Department's app, so any site that charged you was a middleman. Lodge the free eVisitor through ImmiAccount now.
How long can a UK citizen stay in Australia on an eVisitor?
Up to three months on each entry, with unlimited entries across the twelve months the visa is valid. The three-month clock restarts every time you leave and return. Condition 8558 caps the total at twelve months in any eighteen-month period, so the visa cannot quietly become residence.
Can I work in Australia on an eVisitor?
No. Condition 8101 bars work in Australia, including volunteer work that displaces a paid job. Business visitor activities are fine: meetings, conferences, negotiations, and enquiries. Remote work for your existing UK employer sits in a grey area, and taking Australian clients clearly crosses the line into prohibited work.
What happens if I renew my British passport?
Your eVisitor is recorded against one passport number, so a renewal kills it even if the twelve months have not expired. Do not try to fly on a new passport with an authority attached to the old one, because border systems will flag the mismatch. Reapply free, before you travel.
