---
title: "The $7 Form That Costs $87 If You Google It: Every Official ETA Link, Bookmarked"
slug: "official-eta-application-links-avoid-scams"
category: "Trip Planning"
read_time: "6 min read"
excerpt: "Canada's eTA costs CA$7. I paid $87 for mine, because I clicked the first result like an idiot. Here is the only table of official application links you need, plus how the copycat sites get you."
author: "Vanpelt"
author_url: "https://travelmaxing.app/about"
date_published: 2026-07-31T09:09:11.277Z
date_modified: 2026-07-31T09:09:11.277Z
canonical: https://travelmaxing.app/blog/official-eta-application-links-avoid-scams
---
# The $7 Form That Costs $87 If You Google It: Every Official ETA Link, Bookmarked

> Canada's eTA costs CA$7. I paid $87 for mine, because I clicked the first result like an idiot. Here is the only table of official application links you need, plus how the copycat sites get you.

Canada's eTA costs seven Canadian dollars. In 2023, booking a last-minute Vancouver trip from a hostel lobby in Cusco, I paid US$87 for it, to a website with a maple leaf in the logo and "eta" somewhere in the domain. The form took the same four minutes it takes on the government site. The extra eighty dollars bought me nothing except this article.

The scam is legal, mostly. These sites really do submit your application; they charge you a "service fee" of 3 to 12 times the government price for retyping your passport number into the official form. They live in the ad slots above the real site, which means the first Google result for almost any travel permit is a middleman.

Bookmark this table and never scroll a results page again.

## The only links you need

| Destination | Real price | The only place to apply |
|---|---|---|
| USA (ESTA) | US$40 | [esta.cbp.dhs.gov](https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov) |
| UK (ETA) | £16 | [gov.uk/eta](https://www.gov.uk/eta) or the "UK ETA" app |
| Canada (eTA) | CA$7 | [canada.ca](https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/visit-canada/eta.html) |
| Australia (ETA) | A$20 | the "AustralianETA" app — [details](https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/electronic-travel-authority-601) |
| New Zealand (NZeTA) | NZ$17 app / NZ$23 web, + NZ$100 levy | [immigration.govt.nz](https://www.immigration.govt.nz/visas/new-zealand-electronic-travel-authority-nzeta/) |
| South Korea (K-ETA) | ₩10,000 (~US$8) | [k-eta.go.kr](https://www.k-eta.go.kr) |
| Kenya (eTA) | ~US$30 | [etakenya.go.ke](https://etakenya.go.ke) |
| Europe (ETIAS) | €20 | [travel-europe.europa.eu](https://travel-europe.europa.eu/en/etias) — **not open yet** |

That ETIAS row deserves its own paragraph. The EU's travel authorization doesn't launch until late 2026, and applications are not open. [Frontex has already counted more than 100 websites](https://www.frontex.europa.eu/media-centre/news/news-release/beware-of-risks-posed-by-unofficial-etias-websites-eNZniu) offering ETIAS help anyway, some charging €50 to €100 for a permit that cannot be bought yet.

Every site selling ETIAS today is selling nothing. That's the easiest scam-detection rule ever written.

## How they get you

The economics are simple: governments don't buy search ads for their own forms, and middlemen do. [CBP's own warning](https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-warns-against-third-party-site-use-esta-applications) says third-party ESTA sites charge $80 to $150 for the $40 application, and adds the detail that stings: the US government will not refund a cent of what you pay a middleman. The UK's rollout went the same way, with copycat sites charging [up to £85](https://www.yahoo.com/news/tourists-heading-uk-beware-eta-135724010.html) for the £16 permit, dressing the markup up as a "review service" or "express handling".

Express handling is my favorite lie in this genre. Your ESTA goes into the same queue whether you paid $40 or $150; most come back within minutes and the official guidance is to allow 72 hours. There is no fast lane. There is only a checkbox that costs $60.

Australia has a quirk worth knowing: the ETA is app-only. There is no official web form. So every website offering to "process your Australian ETA online" is, at absolute best, a stranger installing an app on their phone and typing in your passport details. At worst it's someone harvesting exactly the data needed to open a bank account in your name.

## The three checks, thirty seconds

First: the domain. Real applications live on .gov, .gov.uk, canada.ca, govt.nz, go.kr, go.ke, or europa.eu. A .com, .org, or .info selling a travel permit is a middleman, full stop, whatever the logo says.

Second: the price. It's in the table above. If the checkout says more, close the tab. Nobody legitimate charges £79 for a £16 form.

Third: the timing. If the thing isn't launched (ETIAS) or your nationality doesn't need it, no website can sell it to you. Check your actual requirement for your actual passport in our [visa checker](/visa-checker) first, because 22 nationalities currently skip Korea's K-ETA entirely under a waiver, and Kenya [dropped its eTA for most African passports](https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/realtime/2025-01-21-cabinet-approves-eta-exemption-for-african-countries) in January 2025. The saddest version of this scam is paying €65 for a permit you didn't even need.

## Why there are so many of these forms now

Short version: the toll booth is the growth industry of modern borders. Thirteen countries already charge for entry they call visa-free, and when ETIAS switches on, that club hits 43 and some 1,770 visa-free routes get a price tag overnight. Cass [ran the full numbers](/blog/visa-free-toll-booths-eta-etias) on where this is heading, including the fee-inflation table (spoiler: they only go up). More permits, more launches, more confused travelers googling at midnight: the copycat industry's market grows every year by government decree.

My CA$7 eTA is still valid, by the way. Five years. The $80 I donated to the maple-leaf site would have covered two nights in a Vancouver hostel or roughly eleven pints in Gastown, and I think about that arithmetic every time I watch someone at an airport gate frantically clicking the first ad for "urgent ESTA".

Four minutes, the official link, the real price. That's the whole how-to.

*Fees verified July 2026 against the official sites linked above. If a government hikes a fee after publication (they will — see the [toll-booth piece](/blog/visa-free-toll-booths-eta-etias)), the official link still wins.*