MPs have urged the UK government to relax new Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) rules on day one, citing the risk of them being stranded abroad and concerns over the high cost dual nationals face in proving their citizenship.
Under new rules coming into force today, international visitors to the UK will be barred from entry if they do not have digital permission to travel. UK citizens are exempt, but dual nationals will be required to present either a valid UK passport or a Certificate of Entitlement when travelling to the UK.
Certificates of Entitlement will be issued in digital format and cost £589, but only need to be applied for once – they do not expire with a passport. At their own discretion, airlines may accept some expired British passports as alternative documentation.
But the change has caused a scramble for dual nationals who had allowed their UK passport to lapse or had never obtained one. This particularly affects people who have British citizenship through birth but have never obtained a British passport.
MP Manuela Perteghella raised the issue with Minister for Migration and Citizenship Mike Tapp in an urgent question in the House of Commons on Tuesday. She claimed the government’s “mishandling” in publishing information meant “British citizens are at risk of being prevented from returning to their own country”.
“Dual nationals cannot apply for an ETA. They do not have any visa,” said the Liberal Democrat MP, a British-Italian dual national. “So unless they hold a valid British passport, they must produce a Certificate of Entitlement, costing £589. That's simply to prove that you are British.
“When Canada introduced a similar scheme, it delayed enforcement and created a low-cost temporary authorisation, and it worked. Why has this government refused to adopt the same common-sense approach?”
Labour MP Imran Hussain said that “many British citizens will be left stranded abroad. Many will be priced out of returning home, and this just adds them to a growing list of people who are effectively second-class citizens.
"The minister will also know that hundreds of thousands of people could be affected by these ill-thought-out, rushed reforms, lacking any parliamentary scrutiny. So I say to the minister gently, please pause these new rules to allow for meaningful consultation.”
But Mr Tapp said the new rules have been public knowledge since 2023 and information has been on the government website since 2024, with “significant funds” spent on media campaigns. “Of course, communication is always going to be difficult, and if this was extended for another year, there would still be people who may not know about it," he said.
"Travelling to the country if you're a British citizen on a British passport is not controversial, and we have built in measures to ensure that anybody who has missed the messaging does have those transitional arrangements to make it easier to come back to the country.”
British dual nationals are told by the Home Office that they can also apply for an emergency travel document, which costs £125 and takes two days to process.
However, this can take "several weeks", according to the Gov.UK website, for people whose passport has expired, for children under 16, and in the event that the applicant is asked to provide further supporting documentation. People with passports issued before 2006 cannot apply online.
