Do you even need a visa? The ETA question
Before anything else, establish which of two categories you are in, because it changes everything.
Visa nationals must obtain a visitor visa before travelling. Arriving without one means being refused entry at the border.
Non-visa nationals do not need a visa in advance — but most now need an Electronic Travel Authorisation, an ETA, obtained online before they travel. This is the change most travellers have not registered. People who have visited the UK for years without doing anything beforehand now need to apply, and turning up without one causes problems at check-in rather than at the border.
An ETA is not a visa. It is a permission to travel, obtained online, valid for multiple trips over a period, and it does not guarantee entry — a Border Force officer still decides that on arrival.
Nationality coverage for the ETA has expanded in stages, so check your own position rather than relying on what a friend of a different nationality was told last year.
Visitor rules, permitted activities and the Electronic Travel Authorisation requirements have all changed recently and the position here was correct at August 2026. Check GOV.UK or ask us before travelling.
The test every visitor application turns on
Whatever the purpose, the caseworker is deciding one thing: are you a genuine visitor who will leave at the end of the visit?
Everything else is evidence towards that. Your finances, your ties to your home country, your travel history, the coherence of your plans, and who is inviting you all feed into it.
What persuades is a picture that hangs together. Someone with a job to return to, a family at home, a settled address, a sensible itinerary and money that plainly belongs to them is a straightforward case. Someone whose funds appeared last month, whose plans are vague, and who has no obvious reason to go home is not — however truthful they are.
Two particular traps. Serial visits that add up to living in the UK through repeated stays will be refused, even where each individual visit was within the rules. And a previous refusal, from any country, has to be declared and will be looked at, so it needs addressing openly rather than hoping it went unnoticed.
What you cannot do as a visitor
The prohibitions matter as much as the permissions, because breaching them affects every future application.
- Take employment in the UK Including filling a role, doing work for a UK company, or providing services to UK clients. The exceptions are narrow and specific.
- Run or work in a business here Attending meetings about your overseas business is fine. Operating a business from the UK is not.
- Live in the UK by repeated visits Frequent or successive visits that amount to residence will be refused, however compliant each trip was.
- Access public funds Visitors have no recourse to public funds and no entitlement to non-emergency NHS treatment without paying.
- Marry, without the right visa Marrying or giving notice requires a Marriage Visitor visa, not a standard one.
- Switch to another route in-country With very limited exceptions, you cannot switch out of the visitor route from inside the UK. You must leave and apply from abroad.