How Much ESTA Actually Costs UK Travelers in 2026
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You booked flights to New York for half term, and the airline's checkout page just slid a "travel authorization service" into your basket for £34.99. You close the tab. You open a new one and type ESTA into Google. Six paid results show up before the actual government form does. One of them wants £89. You are two clicks away from finding out which one is real, and the answer changes how much you pay by a factor of three or more.
The real ESTA fee for UK travelers in 2026 is $40.27 (about £30), confirmed on the official U.S. government portal usa.gov and set by federal regulation. It rose from $21 to $40 on September 30, 2025, then to $40.27 on January 1, 2026 under an annual inflation adjustment. Pay it at exactly one place: esta.cbp.dhs.gov. Every other site charging more is a paid middleman, not a government fee. And the separate $250 "Visa Integrity Fee" you may have seen in the news doesn't apply to ESTA travelers at all, more on that below.
Applies to You If
This guide is for a specific traveler, and it's worth checking the list before you read further. You're in scope if any of these are true:
- You hold a UK passport and are flying, sailing, or driving to the United States for tourism, business, or a layover under the Visa Waiver Program
- Your trip is 90 days or shorter, and you aren't applying for a work, study, or immigrant visa
- You don't currently hold a valid ESTA, or your existing one has expired, or your passport has changed since you last applied
- You saw a headline about a new $250 "visa fee" and want to know if it applies to you
If you're applying for an actual US visa (a B1/B2, a student visa, a work visa), this isn't your guide; a different fee schedule and a different, much larger, integrity fee apply to you instead. If you're planning a UK to Europe trip and also need ETIAS or the UK's own ETA, our UK ETA vs ETIAS guide covers that separately. This one is only about the US system.
What Changed: The New ESTA Fee, Explained
The ESTA fee for UK travelers went from $21 to $40.27 in two steps within four months, and both steps are federal regulation, not a rumor - Euronews covered the jump as it happened, and MIT's International Students Office published its own summary of the same CBP notice. The first step happened because Congress said so. The second happened because a formula says so, automatically, every year.
On July 4, 2025, the president signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law as Public Law 119-21. Section 100014 amended section 217(h)(3)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to raise the ESTA fee from $21 to $40. Customs and Border Protection confirmed the rate: CBP started charging the new rate on September 30, 2025, per a Federal Register notice published August 28, 2025. Pay before that cutoff, and you kept the $21 rate.
Then the fee moved again. HR-1 doesn't just set a number, it sets a formula: one component must be adjusted every year for inflation, tied to the Consumer Price Index. That index rose 2.70 percent between July 2024 and July 2025, which pushed the $10 processing component to $10.27. CBP published the recalculated total in a second Federal Register notice on November 19, 2025, effective January 1, 2026: $40.27. The official portal, usa.gov, states it plainly: "The total cost is $40.27."
Expect that formula to fire again around January 2027. Nobody can tell you the exact new number in September 2026, so don't trust any site that already claims to.
What You Have to Do
One legitimate portal. One legitimate price. Here is the sequence.
- Go to esta.cbp.dhs.gov, and nowhere else. This is the only official ESTA application website. The FTC's own consumer guidance is direct about it: apply through the official website, esta.cbp.dhs.gov. You can also apply through the official ESTA Mobile app, which gov.uk confirms is available on both Android and iOS.
- Fill in your own passport and trip details. There's nothing on the form a paid agent can do that you can't. Name, passport number, travel dates, and a short set of eligibility questions.
- Pay $40.27, in USD, directly through the .gov checkout. That's the whole fee, no separate "service charge" on top of it. If a payment page adds anything else to that number, you aren't on the government site.
- Screenshot or download your approval once it lands. Most approvals arrive within minutes, though CBP recommends applying at least 72 hours before you travel in case yours gets flagged for manual review. Keep it with your other travel paperwork, not buried in an email you can't find at check in. Our travel document checklist is built around exactly this problem, and it's where an app like TripProf earns its keep: store the ESTA confirmation alongside your passport scan, available offline at the gate.
- Don't reapply for a trip that reuses the same passport. One approval covers every VWP visit for up to two years, so long as nothing on it has changed.
ESTA Fee Cost and Timing Table
Here is what the fee breaks down into.
Add those three together and you get $40.27, exactly as CBP's own notice lays it out.
| Item | Fee (USD) | Processing time | Validity |
|---|---|---|---|
| ESTA, as of Jan 2026 | $40.27 | Usually minutes; apply 72+ hours ahead | 2 years or until passport expires, whichever is sooner |
| ESTA fee if application is denied | $10.27 | N/A | N/A, must apply for a visa instead |
| ESTA rate before Sept 30, 2025 | $21.00 | N/A, historical | Still valid until its own 2 year window ends |
| Visa Integrity Fee | N/A for ESTA | N/A | Applies only to actual nonimmigrant visas |
That last row is the one that causes the most panic, and it's also the easiest to clear up. More on it below.
The Exceptions People Get Wrong
Three things trip up UK travelers every time this fee makes the news, and getting any one of them wrong costs real money or real stress at the worst possible moment.
The $250 Visa Integrity Fee isn't yours to pay
A separate, much bigger fee has been all over the travel press since mid-2025, and it gets conflated with ESTA constantly. It shouldn't be. The Visa Integrity Fee, created by the same HR-1 legislation, is $250 and applies "to foreign nationals applying for non-immigrant visas," effective October 1, 2025, per KPMG's summary of the statute. It names visa applicants specifically. The same analysis states the carve-out directly: "The Visa Integrity Fee does not apply to individuals who are visa-exempt, such as Canadian nationals or nationals of Visa Waiver Program (VWP) countries." One caveat worth stating exactly: KPMG also notes that "any fees associated with the ESTA application will still be applicable" for VWP travelers. The exemption removes the $250 charge, not the $40.27 one. The clearest primary breakdown of this exemption is on travel.state.gov, which blocks automated verification - if you want to see it in the government's own words before you travel, check the State Department's nonimmigrant visa fee page yourself.
Third-party sites aren't illegal, and that's exactly the problem
CBP's own newsroom has warned travelers directly against using third-party ESTA sites.
Skip the paid "assistance" sites. Every one of them. This isn't a hedge, it's the single clearest piece of advice in this entire guide. These sites aren't scams in the criminal sense - they're legal businesses charging a markup for a form you can fill in yourself in ten minutes. The FTC's own guidance is blunt about it: apply through the official website, esta.cbp.dhs.gov, only.
A MoneySavingExpert investigation from June 2026 found one reseller, Sherpa, charging £51 for a US ESTA that costs about £30 direct - and flagged that British Airways was routing customers to it instead of the official site.
Pay one of these and there's no government refund process for the markup: your only real recourse is a chargeback through your card issuer, and you should still finish the application on esta.cbp.dhs.gov to be sure the record is correct. Our roundup of common tourist scams covers the same markup playbook applied to hotels and airport transfers.
You already have a valid ESTA? Leave it alone
If your ESTA was approved before September 30, 2025, or between then and the start of 2026, it's still valid at whatever rate you paid, for up to two years from approval or until your passport expires. The fee increase doesn't require early reapplication. The only triggers for a fresh application are a new passport, a legal name change, a citizenship change, or a changed answer to one of the yes/no eligibility questions, per CBP's own FAQ. There's no such thing as an ESTA "renewal." It's always a new application, at whatever the fee happens to be that week.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does ESTA cost UK citizens in 2026?
$40.27, as of January 2026. That's confirmed directly on usa.gov and matches the CPI-adjusted figure CBP published in the Federal Register. Pay it only at esta.cbp.dhs.gov.
Is ESTA the same thing as a US visa?
No. ESTA is a travel authorization under the Visa Waiver Program for short tourism and business trips, not a visa. A visa is a separate, more involved process with its own fees, including the $250 Visa Integrity Fee, which ESTA travelers don't pay.
Why do some ESTA websites charge £80 or more?
Because they're paid resellers, not the government. They fill in the same form you could complete yourself and add a service charge, sometimes several times the real fee. Only esta.cbp.dhs.gov charges the actual $40.27.
Does the $250 Visa Integrity Fee apply to my ESTA application?
No. It applies only when the US government physically issues you a visa. ESTA travelers under the Visa Waiver Program are explicitly exempt, though they still pay the standard ESTA fee.
What happens if my ESTA application is refused?
You still owe part of the fee. CBP keeps $10.27 of the $40.27, the portion that covers processing the application regardless of outcome, per the Federal Register notice, and you would need to apply for an actual visa instead.
How long is an approved ESTA valid?
Two years from approval, or until your passport expires, whichever comes first. One approval covers unlimited short trips within that window as long as your details don't change.
Key Takeaways
- The real ESTA fee is $40.27, and it only goes to one place. Pay it at esta.cbp.dhs.gov. Anywhere else charging more is a paid middleman, not the government.
- The fee moved twice in four months, both times by law. $21 to $40 on September 30, 2025 under HR-1, then to $40.27 on January 1, 2026 under an annual CPI adjustment that will run again in 2027.
- The $250 Visa Integrity Fee isn't your fee. It applies to nonimmigrant visa applicants, not ESTA travelers under the Visa Waiver Program.
- A denied application still costs $10.27. ESTA isn't free to apply for, even if it doesn't go through.
- An existing valid ESTA doesn't need reapplying for. It runs two years or until your passport expires, whichever is first, and stays at the rate you originally paid.
- Save the confirmation the moment it arrives, not the night before you fly. Store it with your other travel documents, in an app like TripProf or otherwise, so it's there offline when an officer asks for it.
Fee figures here are current as of January 2026. HR-1 requires a fresh CPI adjustment every fiscal year, so re-verify the exact amount at esta.cbp.dhs.gov or usa.gov before you pay, especially after January 2027. Our pre-trip countdown checklist puts ESTA in the right place in your timeline.
Last verified: September 2026, against the sources below.
Sources
- Federal Register, Aug 28, 2025: notice setting the $40 ESTA fee
- Federal Register, Nov 19, 2025: FY2026 CPI adjustment, setting the $40.27 fee
- USA.gov: official confirmation of the current $40.27 total cost
- esta.cbp.dhs.gov: the only official ESTA application portal
- CBP FAQ: validity and reapplication rules
- CBP newsroom: warning against third-party ESTA sites
- FTC Consumer Alert, Mar 11, 2026: official-site guidance for ESTA applicants
- gov.uk: confirms the official ESTA site and mobile app
- MoneySavingExpert, Jun 9, 2026: third-party ESTA markup pricing example
- KPMG Flash Alert: Visa Integrity Fee and the ESTA/VWP exemption
- Euronews, Sept 5, 2025: coverage of the fee rise ahead of the cutover
- MIT International Students Office: summary of the CBP fee notice
- Bureau of Labor Statistics: the CPI release behind the 2.70 percent adjustment
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