Applying Australian Electronic Travel Authority for Tourism Activities

Visiting Australia has always been a hassle-free, at least for the travel visa application lol.... Many years ago, when I visited Perth with my sister, we applied the travel visa via online and I was thinking, this got to be the most convenient government services that I ever encountered. Think about saving the hassle to visit the Embassy, not to mention the terrifying KL traffic and parking woes!!

Image credit: https://www.gapyear.com/articles/215790/the-ultimate-3-week-australia-itinerary

As I am visiting Australia again soon in coming October, again I visited the Australian Immigration website to apply for the travel visa, which is actually called "Electronic Travel Authority (ETA)".

This is the website for the online application: https://www.eta.immi.gov.au/ETAS3/etas

​What is an ETA?

An Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) provides authorisation to travel to and enter Australia and is electronically linked to your passport.

It is for short term stays for tourism or business visitor activities.

Business visitor activities do not include work. If you want to do short-term, highly specialised, non-​ongoing work in Australia, you can apply for a Temporary Work (Short Stay Activity) visa (Subclass 400).

I am not going to elaborate long on what the ETA entitlements or what are the Australia Visa types available; you can read further at the website or this to find the correct Visa for your needs: 

https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Visa-1

Long story short, if you are going for a holiday in Australia for less than 3 months, ETA is the travel visa that you need. However, to apply the ETA from the website, you must hold a passport from one of the following countries or regions:

• Brunei - Darussalam
• Canada
• Hong Kong (SAR PRC)
• Japan
• Malaysia
• Singapore
• Korea, Rep of (South)
• United States

In this post, I would be just sharing on how applying the ETA is darn easy via online. And it costs you only AUD20 for the service.

First of all, go to this website: https://www.eta.immi.gov.au/ETAS3/etas

Make sure you have your passport ready with you. Click the button [Apply for an ETA] at the bottom right.

You'd be greeted the next page as following. Just fill in all the required information.

At Step 2, you'd find this field called "Issuing Authority" (at the bottom last). I am not sure about other countries' passports, however my passport does not have this information. I just filled in with my country name though.

Continuing on with Step 3...

Once you have done filling all required information at Step 2 and 3, you'd come to Step 4 for you to review the information that you've entered. Make sure all information is correct because no amendment is allowed! If you have entered wrongly and made payment, then you got to make a new application. (better use that AUD20 to buy a nice dinner!)

Step 5 would be the payment page. Choose any of the options that you are convenient with.

Once payment done, you'd be given a Reference Number for your application. Should you want to check your ETA status later, this is the number that you need to enter.

Finally, Step 7 is the confirmation page that you have now a valid ETA!! Pack you bag and go :D

An email will also be mailed to you; so just to reassure, check your email too!

As you can see, the approval is almost immediate and you do not have to wait anxiously for days or weeks whether your ETA will be approved. This is what I call a top-notch service!!

To check on your application, just click on the [Check an ETA] at the homepage, and you'd be brought to this page. Enter the application Reference Number given.

Did I mention you can save you application too? If during the middle of entering the information, say at Step 3, you don't feel like proceeding at that point of time but would like to come back later, just click on the button [Save & Exit].

You'd be given a Reference Number for your application.

When you decide to resume the application, just click on [Resume Saved Application] at the home page, and enter the Reference Number just now. Upon click on [Next], you'd be brought to the page you last worked on :)

Isn't that extremely easy??? Compared to going physically to apply at Embassy, the ETA is issued free with a service charge of AUD20 only.

Now, if you do a quick search on "australia travel visa" (or similar), you'd be amazed that there are many third parties offering the travel visa cost lower than AUD20; for e.g. at 50% cheaper. 

However, personally, I am not comfortable of giving out my private information to these third parties websites. I am not sure of the websites' origins, and have no idea how the third parties process my private information. It's not just information like name and address, but sensitive information like passport number the expiry dates and what not. You do not want to give out these sensitive information to unknowns only to have sleepless nights and constant worries about someone using your data for whatever reason.

If anyone ask my advice, I would say, please go to the legit Australia Government Immigration website to apply for your ETA. Cheers and happy travel to Australia :D

ETA Application: https://www.eta.immi.gov.au/ETAS3/etas

Australia Immigration: https://www.border.gov.au/

Australia Visa Types: https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Visa-1

ETA Information: https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Visa-1/601-