European travelers can apply for an EEA certificate for their trip from the fifth day of March onwards. The certificate is mandatory from April 2.
Finns traveling to Great Britain must fill out an electronic ETA application from April next year.
The UK government updated the information this week of its ETA application practices.
The ETA requirements apply to all European travelers, and the certificate must be approved from the second day of April. The application, which can be filled out online or in a separate application, costs 10 pounds, or about 12 euros.
European travelers can apply for an EEA certificate for their trip from the fifth day of March. The certificate is valid for two years at a time, if the passport connected to it does not expire first.
ETA, i.e. electronic travel authorization, has been in use for a long time when traveling to, for example, the United States and Australia.
Currently, UK EEA permits are required in six Gulf countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Also applies to connecting flights
The new regulations also apply to stopovers. Changing flights in the UK also requires an ETA certificate.
British newspaper Independent writethat the new requirements regarding stopovers can be expensive.
According to the newspaper, in July Heathrow airport said that the number of connecting flights had clearly decreased.
Around 90,000 potential passengers had switched to another airport in the months since the EEA requirements were introduced for nationals of the first six countries.
According to Independent’s calculations, the ETA requirements for transiting passengers can also bring losses of up to 3–6 billion euros to the Kingdom.