Do children and babies need a UK ETA?
Yes — every child, at any age
There is no age exemption. GOV.UK states plainly that each person travelling needs an ETA, including babies and children. A newborn on a parent's lap needs one exactly as an adult does.
Each child's ETA is linked to that child's own passport, so it cannot be added to a parent's application or attached to a parent's passport. A family of four needs four separate ETAs and pays the £20 official fee four times.
An adult may complete and submit the application on a child's behalf. The child does not need their own email address or payment card.
Checked against GOV.UK guidance on 2026-10-12.
What catches families out
- Children's passports expire faster. A child passport typically runs five years, not ten, and an ETA dies with the passport it is linked to. Check the child's expiry date before you rely on an ETA you bought last year.
- A renewed child passport means a new ETA. This is the most common repeat cost for families, and it catches people mid-booking.
- A British child does not need one at all. If your child holds a British or Irish passport they cannot apply for an ETA and must travel on that passport.
- Names must match the passport exactly. Shortened or anglicised first names are a frequent cause of mismatch at check-in.
Which queue your family joins at the border
This is the question families actually ask, and it changed in 2026. Since 8 July 2026 a child aged 8 or 9 can use the automatic eGates, where the minimum used to be 10. The Home Office put the number affected at around 1.5 million children a year across more than 290 gates.
To use an eGate a child must be 8 or over, at least 120cm (3ft 11in) tall, and hold a passport with the biometric symbol on the cover. Anyone between 8 and 17 must be accompanied by an adult. The gates work by facial recognition against the passport photo — which is precisely why a child who has changed a great deal since the photo was taken is better sent to a staffed desk.
Age is not the only test. The gates are open to British and Irish citizens, to ETA or eVisa holders from the EU, Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland or the USA, and to members of the Registered Traveller Service. Most ETA nationalities — including all six Gulf states — are not on that list, so an ETA on its own does not get a Gulf family through the eGates. You go to a staffed desk, whatever your children's ages. Can Gulf travellers use UK eGates?
A child under 8, or under 120cm, goes to a staffed desk — and in practice the whole family goes with them.
A baby who does not have a passport yet
Get the passport first. An ETA is issued against a passport number and cannot exist without one, so there is nothing to apply for until the child's own document is in your hands. For a newborn this is the step that sets your earliest possible travel date, not the ETA — which is usually decided in minutes.
Nor can a baby travel on a parent's passport. That practice ended long ago in most countries, and no ETA can be attached to another person's document.
Children travelling without their parents
A child flying alone, with a school group, with grandparents, or with one parent only still needs their own ETA on their own passport. The requirement follows the child, not the adult beside them.
The adult who fills in the form does not have to be the adult who travels. GOV.UK allows you to apply on someone else's behalf, so a parent at home can obtain an ETA for a child going on a school trip, and a trip organiser can do it for a group — each application separately, each against that child's passport.
An ETA is not permission to travel unaccompanied, and it says nothing about custody or consent. Airlines set their own rules for unaccompanied minors and may want a consent letter; that is a separate matter from immigration, and holding an ETA does not satisfy it.
Applying for a whole family
You can add every traveller to a single application with us and pay once, and we check each child's passport details against each child's form before anything is filed. The official fee is still £20 per person — that part is the Home Office's, not ours, and nobody can discount it.