Applying for an ETA?

[azafata2]

Hi

Please can anyone help. My partner is Spanish and has a Spanish passport. He has lived in Britain with me for 27 years. He is travelling On Friday to visit his family first time in ages. His brother in Spain said we need an ETA. So downloaded the app as instructed, followed everything photo of passport, him. Got to your address. Put in our address and then at the end of the address it asks which country (ie I am assuming the country where the address is) and there is no option for UK where the address is! It will not let you continue without stating the country. I am getting mixed messages from the internet saying yes he need on to return to the UK after short trip and some saying he does not. What a Pavala! Can anyone help me? Thanks

What kind of visa allows your partner to live in the UK?

I've linked the official government guidance below for you. It says if he has a UK visa or permission to live, work or study in the UK (including settled or pre-settled status or right of abode) then he doesn't need an ETA when returning to the UK. As he's been here for 27 years I assume he has one of those things and therefore won't need one?

www.gov.uk/guidance/apply-for-an-electronic-travel-authorisation-eta#who-does-not-need-an-eta

Thank you so much. Yes, I think he has a settlement agreement. I will check my e-mails it will be going back years I think but should fine it.

Thank you again.

Utterlyincandescently.

Hi. He is Spanish. We were in the EU then. You could go to any European country freely, work and stay. You did not need a visa. Hope that helps.

If he has settled status in the UK then he doesn't need an ETA.

We just had this! Took us by surprise on our way back from a 3 week holiday in Colombia as ETAs had only been introduced and they had completely passed us by. At the airport in colombia the airline tried to tell us that my husband (Dutch, lived in UK for nearly 40 years) needed to show a visa or ETA to return home to the UK! He doesn't. He has settled status as I imagine your husband does too as this was required post Brexit. There is somewhere on the gov.uk website where you log and it gives you a code to show to immigration to prove settled status.

Did he apply for settled status when we left the EU? And was he successful?

See link here View your eVisa and get a share code to prove your immigration status online - GOV.UK

So did he apply for settled status? If he has that, he'll be fine.

I am aware of the EU and brexit, thank you.

If he's not got settled status, then he has a problem!

Assuming he has, he needs to get the code to be able to prove it, from the website above. It's a bit of a pain if you travel a lot.

Thank you all so much. Yes he has settled status. Have checked on the website and I have the code as well.

Thank you once again. I did not have a clue about any of this. You have helped so much.

Have a great evening.

His brother is wrong. But he will need his fingers crossed that the people at the Spanish airport don't decide that he needs an ETA anyway. The absence of physical proof of settled status (i.e., a residency card) is going to cause all kinds of hassle over the coming decades.

And at least he has a passport. 1.5 million EU citizens who arrived in the UK before Brexit with only an ID card run a gauntlet of badly-trained check-in/gate staff every time they return to the UK on a plane, because the staff have had it hammered into them that "Everyone. Going. To. The. UK. Must. Have. A. Full. Passport." and directing them to the UK government website doesn't help. 😢

Just asked my DH about his trip back from the NL to the UK recently and this time they didn't ask about proof of settled status. He thinks it automatically comes up when they do the passport check (just not in Cartagena, or they didn't know how to interpret it). Best know how to prove it just in case, but in all likelihood he won't need it.

Yes it would be much easier if there was a stamp in the passport like a visa, rather than this code business.