Four travel authorisations now stand between you and a flight, and none is a visa

Four countries and blocs now ask visa-free travellers for an electronic permission before they fly, and none of them is a visa. The United Kingdom charges £20, the United States $40.27, the European Union will charge €20 when its system starts, and Canada charges CAN$7. They are linked to your passport, an airline will not board you without one, and each has a different lifespan. Here is what each costs, how long it lasts, and which ones exist today.

What each one costs and how long it lasts

The price has no relationship to the length of cover. Canada asks seven dollars for up to five years; the United States asks forty for two.

Two details catch people. Every one of them dies with the passport it is attached to, so renewing your passport means reapplying even if the authorisation had years left. And the UK charges per person with no child exemption, which turns a family of four into £80 before anyone has bought a ticket.

Who actually needs one

If you could previously fly visa-free, you are the person these were built for. The UK requires an ETA from visa-exempt nationals, which now includes the EU, the US, Canada, Australia and around eighty other countries. Canada’s eTA applies to visa-exempt foreign nationals arriving by air — not by car, bus, train or boat — and US citizens and lawful permanent residents do not need one at all. The US ESTA applies to Visa Waiver Program travellers. ETIAS will apply to visa-exempt non-EU nationals visiting thirty European countries, with a 90-days-in-180 stay limit.

How fast they come through

Usually minutes, sometimes days, and that gap is the whole risk. Canada says most applicants are approved by email within minutes, but some requests take several days if supporting documents are asked for. The same pattern holds across these systems: the median is fast and the tail is long, and the tail is what ruins a trip.

So apply when you book, not the night before. There is no advantage to waiting, the fee does not change, and the clock on validity starts either way. If your trip is inside a week and the authorisation has not arrived, that is the moment to contact the official service rather than reapply and pay twice.

The copycat site problem

Every one of these has imitators that charge more for the same government form. They rank in search, look official, and add a "service fee" on top of the real one. The defence is simple: reach the application through the government domain — gov.uk, canada.ca, the official ESTA site at esta.cbp.dhs.gov, and for ETIAS the European Union’s own pages when it launches — and never through a search advertisement.

If a site quotes a price higher than the figures in the table above, you are on the wrong site. The fees are fixed and public.

Nepal works the other way

Nepal has not replaced its visa with a pre-authorisation, so there is nothing to arrange before you fly. You buy a tourist visa on arrival at Kathmandu airport, or online in advance: $30 for 15 days, $50 for 30 days and $125 for 90 days. It is one of the simpler entries in Asia, and it is a genuine visa rather than a screening system.

What that means practically: your admin before a Nepal trek is the trek permits, not the entry. Our Nepal visa guide covers the process by nationality, and what a trek package includes explains which permits we buy for you and which costs sit outside the price.

If your route to Kathmandu connects through the UK, the US, Canada or Europe, though, the authorisation for that country still applies, even in transit in some cases. Check the transit rule for the specific airport before you rely on a cheap connection.

Keep reading

Sources: gov.uk (UK ETA, £20, checked 25 September 2026); canada.ca (eTA, CAN$7, validity and air-travel rule, checked 25 September 2026); our own verified desk guides for the US ESTA fee of $40.27 from 30 September 2025 and the €20 ETIAS fee, which cite esta.cbp.dhs.gov and the European Commission. Fees change — confirm on the official site before paying.