In just one year, the UK has already issued over 600,000 Electronic Travel Authorisations “ETA” to visa-exempt travelers.
Since November 27, 2024, citizens of 48 non-European visa-exempt countries have been able to apply for an ETA to travel to the UK. Tourists from the USA, Canada, Australia and Japan now qualify, joining the GCC countries already eligible.
For these visitors, the ETA, introduced to facilitate travel while strengthening border security, will become a travel requirement from January 8, 2025. From March 5, 2025, EU nationals will also be able to apply for a UK ETA, and this online formality will become compulsory from April 2, 2025.
48 hours after this major change, the UK authorities published their annual migration statistics for the year ending September 2024.
The United Kingdom government announces that by the end of September 2024, 608,886 ETA applications had been submitted online, and 601,858 of these had been approved since the launch of ETA in October 2023.
Ranking of nationalities requiring the most ETAs to travel to the UK
The ETA system opened to Qatari nationals on October 25, 2023. On February 1, 2024, the program was extended to nationals of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. However, since September 10, 2024, Jordanian nationals are no longer eligible for an ETA and must now apply for a visa to travel to the UK.
The top 3 nationalities applying for ETAs for the UK are Saudi Arabia (211,273 ETA applications), Jordan (165,489 ETA applications) and Kuwait (96,427 ETA applications). This ranking will change rapidly over the coming weeks as new nationalities are gradually added.
| Nationality | Applications | Issued | Rejected | Refused |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saudia Arabia | 211,273 | 209,330 | 1,246 | 115 |
| Jordan | 165,489 | 162,859 | 2,145 | 484 |
| Kuwait | 96,427 | 95,381 | 746 | 96 |
| United Arab Emirates | 55,806 | 54,945 | 713 | 40 |
| Qatar | 44,693 | 44,403 | 181 | 60 |
| Oman | 18,471 | 18,345 | 93 | 18 |
| Bahrain | 16,514 | 16,384 | 77 | 16 |
| Other and unknown | 213 | 211 | 2 | 0 |
| TOTAL | 608,886 | 601,858 | 5,203 | 829 |
A year marked by a diversity of migration flows to the UK
In 2024, the UK recorded 130.9 million arrivals. 55% were British nationals returning to the country, and the remaining 45% comprised overseas visitors or individuals entering for a variety of reasons, such as work, study or family visits.
These figures show a slight decrease on previous years, due in particular to a drop in unauthorized arrivals and certain political adjustments.
Apart from ETA, the UK continues to issue a large number of visas in various categories. 2.1 million visitor visas were granted, 11% more than in the year to September 2023, but 12% fewer than before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
1.1 million non-visit or transit visas were granted in the year ending September 2024, 26% fewer than in the year ending September 2023, but 46% more than in 2019. This total is made up of work visas (453,056), study visas (443,854), family visit visas (86,942) and other categories (90,709), the latter group notably including the visa program for Ukrainians (24,130).
“As many people will not require a visa or ETA to enter the UK, and some people may enter the UK multiple times on the same visa, there are considerably fewer visas granted than there are passenger arrivals,” explains the UK government, which also reports 36,949 irregular arrivals in the year to September 2024.