Review Insights · App Store
UK ETA
Home Office · 1,293 ratings · ★ 3.3
3.3
★★★★★
1,293 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 47 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"passport"
20 negative reviews mention this · 43% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Nothing but bugs and frustration. I spent hours trying to use this app. It’s awful. It doesn’t accept any pictures of my passport photo page. It has no useful help. Just a total waste of technology." - RemiBoncoeur
2
"photo"
15 negative reviews mention this · 32% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Nothing but bugs and frustration. I spent hours trying to use this app. It’s awful. It doesn’t accept any pictures of my passport photo page. It has no useful help. Just a total waste of technology." - RemiBoncoeur
3
"chip"
10 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Horrible. You need a teenager to do this for you. All my attempts to take my photo, be it my face or my passport were rejected over and over. It took over 5 attempts to get it to read the chip in my passport. It was so frustrating that I gave it to m…" - VanityFare
4
"through"
9 negative reviews mention this · 19% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Waste of time. This app has one purpose, to get an eta for travel. It doesn’t even work for that. The app was incapable of scanning my passport, which I know works because I had to scan it for a Ryanair flight a week ago. It also was unable to submit my d…" - EKO1990
5
"work"
8 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Passengers paying for flaws. This is a terrible app created to make the user do the work of immigration staff and pay a fee for doing it for them. In addition, LHR by design does not have “sterile” airside transit unlike many airports around the world and foreign trans…" - Heelsara
6
"doesn"
8 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Nothing but bugs and frustration. I spent hours trying to use this app. It’s awful. It doesn’t accept any pictures of my passport photo page. It has no useful help. Just a total waste of technology." - RemiBoncoeur
7
"application"
7 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "they’ll take your $$. The app is not a reliable way to submit your application. You need to take a photo of your passport and a photo of your face and if either photo is even a little off, they’ll deny your application but keep your money." - chromedome 426
8
"scan"
7 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Waste of time. This app has one purpose, to get an eta for travel. It doesn’t even work for that. The app was incapable of scanning my passport, which I know works because I had to scan it for a Ryanair flight a week ago. It also was unable to submit my d…" - EKO1990
9
"process"
6 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Waste of time. This app has one purpose, to get an eta for travel. It doesn’t even work for that. The app was incapable of scanning my passport, which I know works because I had to scan it for a Ryanair flight a week ago. It also was unable to submit my d…" - EKO1990
10
"read"
6 negative reviews mention this · 13% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Horrible. You need a teenager to do this for you. All my attempts to take my photo, be it my face or my passport were rejected over and over. It took over 5 attempts to get it to read the chip in my passport. It was so frustrating that I gave it to m…" - VanityFare
11
"terrible"
5 negative reviews mention this · 11% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Passengers paying for flaws. This is a terrible app created to make the user do the work of immigration staff and pay a fee for doing it for them. In addition, LHR by design does not have “sterile” airside transit unlike many airports around the world and foreign trans…" - Heelsara
12
"accept"
5 negative reviews mention this · 11% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Nothing but bugs and frustration. I spent hours trying to use this app. It’s awful. It doesn’t accept any pictures of my passport photo page. It has no useful help. Just a total waste of technology." - RemiBoncoeur
📋 All 47 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Passengers paying for flaws
This is a terrible app created to make the user do the work of immigration staff and pay a fee for doing it for them. In addition, LHR by design does not have “sterile” airside transit unlike many airports around the world and foreign transit passengers have to pay for this flaw. Typical British style of asking others to pay for them to loot in broad daylight. These thieves never reform.
Nothing but bugs and frustration
I spent hours trying to use this app. It’s awful. It doesn’t accept any pictures of my passport photo page. It has no useful help. Just a total waste of technology.
Waste of time
This app has one purpose, to get an eta for travel. It doesn’t even work for that. The app was incapable of scanning my passport, which I know works because I had to scan it for a Ryanair flight a week ago. It also was unable to submit my documentation once I skipped the scan. This whole process is a waste of time and money and shouldn’t be required of people transiting through UK airports.
Difficult app
Needs help from IT specialist. Cumbersome
App issue
I cant pay with my card, there is no place to put the card number…
Bad.
Garbage camera experience, would have rated 1 star anyway for forcing me to use an app.
If your payment doesn’t go through
Use Mastercard to have your payment go through because I tried using my Visa Card & it kept declining. It was terribly frustrating.
I had spent so much time inputting & re-inputting all my information into the UK ETA app (supposedly easier), but when it came time to submit my application through payment- the BEST form of payment was Mastercard!
I had spent so much time inputting & re-inputting all my information into the UK ETA app (supposedly easier), but when it came time to submit my application through payment- the BEST form of payment was Mastercard!
Terrible
And what’s the point of this again?
No email verification received
I’ve checked every mailbox in my email and haven’t received the verification to proceed. So the app stalls at the first page for me. Text option to verify would be better.
Horrible
You need a teenager to do this for you. All my attempts to take my photo, be it my face or my passport were rejected over and over. It took over 5 attempts to get it to read the chip in my passport. It was so frustrating that I gave it to my teenager to do the rest of the applications for the rest of my children. She had an easier time of it. I’m not a novice with app usage. I do all the travel arrangements for my family and this one was supremely frustrating.
Absolute Racket
UK government pocketing $22 just cuz
Just a Taste of What’s to Come
👁️
Garbage
Terrible app experience. Pic process AND the chip process were impossible with my 14 Pro.
Useless
Utterly useless app that doesn’t work
Terrible
God awful, difficulty with photo capture of passport and also of taking photo of self. Passport scan didn’t work at all.
Accurate representation of any government
It doesn’t work. Photo taking is a waste of time. Chip reading is a waste of time.
Good app but it shouldn’t be required
It’s crazy to make people download an app for 2 minutes to then delete it when it could be a mobile or desktop browser application. For that reason 1 star
This app is useless
It requires you to find a chip in your US passport but it cannot find it
Garbage
Absolute garbage app
Messy
What a pain in the "a". 15 photos to get a picture of my passport to meet requirements. Another dozen to get an acceptable face photo, then the app crashed ("try again tomorrow"). UK ETA needs some different software developers!
What a Nightmare Experience
It is impossible to take a passport photo through the app that it will accept. I, without exaggeration, took 30+ photos that it said were unacceptable. It either said there was a glare/blurry or it said it could not find my passport in the frame. The photos looked fine to me. After about 20 tries, I looked into cancelling my flight & booking a holiday elsewhere, but unfortunately discovered my flight was non-refundable. I tried submitting my application through the website but it just referring me back to the app unless I was submitting an application for someone else. After about 45 minutes of taking photos, I finally just submitted a passport photo that it said was unacceptable. I got an email less than a minute later saying my ETA was approved. Why put people through this?
Horrible. Won’t accept passport photo
It won’t accept passport photo even though it is very clear with no glare. I’ve read others have the same problem.
Bad app
Changing my routing to go through another country….
Works poorly
App works incredibly poorly. I can’t progress past taking a photo of my passport because it won’t accept any photo I took. Use the web version if you can.
WORST VISA APP IN THE WORLD! TERRIBLE!!!
It took my wife and I COUNTLESS attempts to get the app to work. I was one attempt away from cancelling my flights through Heathrow and going through Amsterdam instead. Luckily (?) it finally worked after at least 2 hours of effort on:
1. Getting it to read my US passport
2. Worst was the chip scan. I
3. Saved nothing from before, so every one of our umpteen attempts was starting from scratch and redoing the incredibly broken process.
page
4. Timed out multiple times
All other visa apps I have used put the UK app to shame. This includes those from Third World countries. UK-ETA should be embarrassed as it is a terrible reflection on the country. I have no idea how there user experience people would allow this app to be launched, even in Alpha mode.
SHAME!!!
1. Getting it to read my US passport
2. Worst was the chip scan. I
3. Saved nothing from before, so every one of our umpteen attempts was starting from scratch and redoing the incredibly broken process.
page
4. Timed out multiple times
All other visa apps I have used put the UK app to shame. This includes those from Third World countries. UK-ETA should be embarrassed as it is a terrible reflection on the country. I have no idea how there user experience people would allow this app to be launched, even in Alpha mode.
SHAME!!!
Constantly failing
The app and the service behind it are extremely poor quality and fail constantly. Every time that you get the dreaded message about the service not responding, you’ll have to start over from scratch and go through the email verification step and basic info all over again. I hope this app is not an indication of how the rest of the country functions.
Chip scan doesn’t work
You’ll waste lots of time rubbing your phone on your passport to scan the chip, but it won’t work 😔
Doc scan features difficult to use
Won’t take a pic of my companions passport. Says in Q&A you can skip pass photo of docs if having trouble, but there is no function to do that. Traveling is already stressful enough and now this!? On mine the chip scan took more than 5 minutes of moving the passport around
Horrible payment process
The app wouldn’t process my damn payment information. Horrible interface horrible experience. App had me feeling crazy how I couldn’t process a payment less than a damn Taco Bell payment.
Camera is broken
Won’t let me proceed without a photo of my passport and even though I allowed camera access is not allowing me to take a photo. I even reinstalled the app and the same this keeps happening
App opens but doesn’t work
Upon opening the app, a boiler plate text template appears, but the app does not function it just directs user to the online application
Kept misspelling my name
It gets your name from the passport and cannot be edited. The first time I tried it misspelled my last name (put an “F” where the “E” was)…okay maybe the lighting affected it. The second time through it misspelled my middle name. You have to start all over again. It should ask you to confirm your passport details FIRST before bothering with the chip scan and headshots.
Frustrating difficult to use
I have spent five days trying to it stops working just as I try to put credit card information in. Try applying in line
Horribly bloated app
Takes ages to download
Mind the App
I had to fill out this application literally 4 separate times before it went through. Each step is another pit to fall into a sad abyss. Main issues are when scanning passport you need to be holding the passport up away from another surface to get it to read the chip. Sometimes the app just says “sorry this service isn’t available right now” Lastly I’m not sure what blood sacrifice the face scanner needs but through rolling the dice I got through . That said the eta application went through very fast when I finally submitted so 6 stars to the government employees and -5 stars for the app developer
Suspect !!!!
I went through process of ETA through this app and paid for submitting application. I received approval however there is no record on this app and I can not locate email approval. App help requires reference number but if I can’t locate the email approval I can’t submit inquiry or questions regarding my ETA!! Useless and takes your money without a way of remedying issues!!!
Garbage
When I try to take a photo of my passport, the app doesn’t give me enough time for my phone’s camera to align it and focus on the document, therefore you end up with blurry photos. And the one time I got it right the app crashed. So I ended up locked out of the app.
Genius!
Genius!
Use the website instead
The app has you take a picture of your passport, however it neglects to offer the opportunity to modify the OCRed data so after paying the $22.50 fee I received a payment confirmation email with my name incorrectly spelled. The app does not offer one the opportunity to verify the scanned information is correct and will steal your money if it’s read incorrectly
Horrible design
You have to manually enter your country 3 times. You cannot choose which currency to pay with. Address field does not accept European addresses, and the error message does not say why.
Scam?
Said the ETA was 17 pounds and we we charged $149, twice
BEWARE SCAM
This app is what links directly from the Gov.UK website, but is NOT the official app
they’ll take your $$
The app is not a reliable way to submit your application. You need to take a photo of your passport and a photo of your face and if either photo is even a little off, they’ll deny your application but keep your money.
Clunky
As far as these Apps go, it isn’t the worst. I wish they did better with photo technology - it always takes so many times to get it right. Also, the App gets stuck at postcode and zip code entry and you need to go back and do it again by deleting the page. Something is wrong with the code. Final thing - message says because you are in Canada you need to pay in USD. Unreal. We are a different country. With an established currency. Do you make French people pay in USD? It’s weird as there are well established FX currency portals with easy to implement code. Again, seems like a starter app programmer.
Buggy app
This app takes photo and scans passport chip, but it always clips the last 2 alphabets of my name after multiple tries. Wasted a good amount of processing fee and time. Not happy
Horrendous passport scanning
As soon as your passport comes into frame it snaps a photo without waiting for you to make it a good photo, then yells at you for it being a bad photo. Took me 15 minutes just to scan it.
The rest of the process was easy enough, some small annoyances like fields not being auto capitalized.
The rest of the process was easy enough, some small annoyances like fields not being auto capitalized.
No Option To Verify Status
Why is there no option to verify that one has a valid ETA? I think this is a glaring oversight by the app designers.
App works fine for the most part
Read the other reviews first to figure out how to navigate the common errors. However I’m not a fan of being forced to give my biometric data and personal info (and $21) to the UK government all for a day layover, hence the low rating.
Sentiment summary
55%
Positive (4-5★)
5%
Neutral (3★)
40%
Negative (1-2★)