ETA / eVisa

An electronic travel authorisation replaces the paper visa or stamp with an online approval linked to the passport. The traveller applies before departure, answers a short set of suitability questions, pays a fee, and — for most eligible applicants — gets a decision in minutes. The approval then sits digitally against the passport, so there is nothing to collect.

The idea is consistent, but the schemes are not. Australia's ETA (subclass 601) is issued through an official app; Canada's eTA and the US ESTA cover their respective visa-waiver travellers; the UK ETA became required for many visa-exempt visitors during 2026; and the EU's ETIAS is expected to bring visa-exempt travellers to the Schengen Area into a similar pre-screening regime once it launches. Fees, validity and eligibility differ by scheme and change over time, so confirm the current rules for each. Agencies can generally submit on a client's behalf through the official channel.

VisaCRM lets an agency offer all of these under its own brand, screening eligibility at intake and loading the right questions for the scheme that applies to each traveller.

Because an ETA or eVisa is tied to the exact passport details submitted, a single mistyped passport number or misspelt name can render the approval invalid — and the traveller may only discover it at the airport. In high-volume eVisa work, accuracy is not a nice-to-have; it is the product.

VisaCRM's structured intake captures passport and biographic data cleanly, validates it before submission, and collects payment online through your checkout, so operators aren't re-keying details under time pressure. For agencies exploring automation, our AI visa processing guide covers where machine assistance genuinely helps at this volume.

eVisas are the clearest example of a visa product that should run like a factory: thin margins, huge volumes, and travellers who expect instant confirmation. That only works if intake, payment and notifications are automated end to end and a small team can supervise thousands of cases.

This is the pattern behind Visarunway going from zero to 2,000 monthly applications with around 60% fewer support enquiries — because applicants could self-serve and were notified automatically. VisaCRM lets travellers track their own status and receive instant approval alerts, removing the follow-up load that otherwise scales with volume.