Brent Pin­heiro

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go pass­port hold­ers will soon need an elec­tron­ic trav­el au­tho­ri­sa­tion (ETA) to vis­it the Unit­ed King­dom.

Be­gin­ning Jan­u­ary 8, 2025, T&T pass­port hold­ers, along with those from 48 oth­er coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries, must ob­tain an ETA be­fore trav­el­ling to the UK. Ap­pli­ca­tions will open on No­vem­ber 27, 2024, and can be sub­mit­ted on­line or via the UK ETA app.

The UK Home Of­fice ex­plained that ETAs, in­tro­duced in 2023, are dig­i­tal­ly linked to a trav­eller’s pass­port and en­hance se­cu­ri­ty checks be­fore de­par­ture. This mea­sure aims to pre­vent mis­use of the im­mi­gra­tion sys­tem. An ETA costs £10 and al­lows for mul­ti­ple vis­its to the UK for stays of up to 6 months at a time, valid for two years or un­til the pass­port ex­pires, whichev­er comes first. Every­one trav­el­ling needs to get an ETA, in­clud­ing ba­bies and chil­dren.

ETAs are not need­ed for those with:

• A visa

• Per­mis­sion to live, work, or study in the UK (in­clud­ing set­tled or pre-set­tled sta­tus un­der the EU Set­tle­ment Scheme)

• A British or Irish pass­port

• A British over­seas ter­ri­to­ries pass­port

The UK gov­ern­ment stat­ed that this new re­quire­ment is part of its ef­fort to “digi­tise the UK bor­der and im­mi­gra­tion sys­tem.”