Zain Ali Khan
From 25 February the UK will begin enforcing pre-departure checks which require carriers to confirm that passengers have permission to travel. This has raised concerns that dual British nationals who only hold a foreign passport will be denied boarding or refused entry to the UK.
But there is a large population of dual UK/foreign nationals only holding a valid foreign national passport (referred to as dual nationals here) who have an existing electronic travel authorisation (also known as an ‘ETA’). This article looks at the status of that ETA, and how they can seek entry.
This is a sweeping change that will affect a lot of cohorts. Let’s take the example of a British citizen traveller who is also a national of a non-visa national country (i.e. someone who doesn’t need to apply for a visit visa in advance of their journey to the UK). They only hold a valid passport from the foreign country (with no certificate of entitlement), and they are coming to the UK for a visit from 25 February 2026. Let’s assume they are not intending to work or stay for longer than six months, etc., and generally would qualify for entry as a visitor were they not British. Are they going to be able to travel to the UK?
First let’s suppose they already have an ETA linked to their foreign passport. Until a few days ago, the UK ETA app allowed you to apply using a foreign passport even if you also declared that you were a British citizen, and such applications were granted. The ETA would support boarding. In a letter to ILPA on 17 December 2025, the Home Office reconfirmed that, all commercial aviation carriers flying directly to the UK are integrated into the iAPI (interactive advance passenger information) service and will be using the system to check permission to travel from 25 February 2026. As you are aware, carriers submit passenger data via the iAPI system, and for each submission, the Home Office returns a response confirming whether the passenger has valid permission to travel. Where carriers receive a ‘valid permission to travel’ response, no further proof is required.
The fact that the dual national has an ETA means that the airline is assured that there is no possibility they will receive a section 40 carrier charge, pursuant to the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. This is the case even if we entirely set aside the fact that they are a British citizen, which is also a defence.
None of this should be construed as advice to dual nationals to travel to the UK using an ETA from 25 February, or to apply for one now. And indeed, the latter course is now impossible. The app asks the user to “Add any other nationalities you have, including any you have had in the past”. But with ‘British citizen’ having been quietly removed from the resulting dropdown menu in the last few days, this means that users must at this point stop the process, on pain of submitting false data in a government form which is inadvisable on any view. The looming ETA enforcement date has already deeply antagonised dual national British citizens living abroad. That cohort is large and their goodwill is a significant part of the UK’s international reach.
The Home Office’s decision to remove the British citizenship option from the app seems odd and may increase ETA applications from dual nationals, many of whom would have happily declared their British citizenship but had no way to do so, as the form contains no free text field.
