AustralianETA
reviews and complaints

This was amazing. The app was really easy to use and seemed to work well. It’s awesome that it can read the RF chip in a passport and gather the information that way. I especially liked the part where it used my location to make sure I was applying for the visa outside of Australia. The US government should make something similar for renewing a passport. I’m not used to stuff working when it’s built for government use.

The works great but the instructions are incorrect for newer USA passports with chips. The Chips are located in the back cover. After taking the photo of the information page. Flip to the inside back cover and move super slow. I just laid my iphone on the back page and it picked it up. (And his was after about 20 failed attempted trying to scan the front cover.) so just go to the back page and it should work with no issues.

Bery easy. I like how they sent you videos to watch. Hardest part was scanning the chip in the passports. For USA they were in the back cover but my fathers was in where they said it would be.

Took less than thirty minutes to do three of them. The one part i almost tripped up on was the questions at the end. The yes button was on the bottom not the top so almost said yes to having a criminal record but luckily realized it in time.

This app is difficult for senior citizen. It seems like Australia government uses the app to discourage foreigners to visit her country. We spend whole night to work on this app , got stuck on self photo taking. The next day morning, a bright sunny morning, I open the window blind and choose a bright white background , and the photo taking went through with only one try. And complete rest of the filling information. Get email of visa granted in 7 minutes.

I found the app easy and pleasant to use and it worked perfectly to get the ETA Visa for my family of 4. I was amazed that each Visa was approved within minutes. So fast and efficient.
One tip I think should be added to the app or FAQs. Only one person in a family needs to download the app, and you can queue up each person’s info in the app (using Add Applicant) and then process them all at once. (We first thought each of us needed to download the app to our individual phones).

In this version, which was released in early April 2023, you don’t have to use the chip reader! My iPad doesn’t even have that capability, and the app worked great. The only thing I would mention is that when you go to take your selfie, the camera fires the instant that the oval turns green, and you don’t get to try again or review your picture, you just have to hope for the best. In my case, my ETA application was granted within 3 minutes of my submitting it. No complaints!

I have never been inclined to review an app before - but this worst app I have ever used. It is riddled with glitches that come and go for no apparent reason. I spent 3 hours trying to take my photo. Restarted and magically it worked. Similar issues when trying to enter responses to questions. The Australian government needs a back up for processing this visa type that doesn’t use this app given how unreliable it is. Your visa shouldn’t be held hostage to a poorly performing app.

Even though I read a plethora of bad and mixed reviews I chose to take my chances and apply for my wife and mine’s ETA Visa’s using this app vs. the website. The app took less than 10 minutes per person and we got an instant approval. Also, my wife had started her application on line but before she could finish I received my approval via this app and then I also did hers via this app. Could not have been easier and no series of detailed questions like the website. #wehaveNOcomplaints

I was at first a little bit annoyed that this was even an app. Why could it not just be a webpage like it used to be? That said, it did a really good job of using the Phone hardware, from the. NFC reader, and the camera and even GPS. May be a little bit intrusive, but that’s kind of the point of applying for a visa, they are asking for lots of information, so overall it is a fairly efficient process and better than filling out some dumb piece of paper. Took 5-8 minutes. Try that anywhere else in the world.

I'm traveling with a friend and we got to the airport and found we had to get the ETA. A helpful gate agent helped us download the app and we stepped aside and filled out all the info. My application was granted within minutes but my friend's came back with a message: More info needed. The link to provide more info took us to a page that had to be downloaded, filled out, and mailed in which was useless for us, as we were only going to Australia for a week and we were at the airport, ready to get on the plane.

I wasted about an hour trying to take my photo over and over again, getting the same error message that “photo verification failed” or that the image quality wasn’t good enough. Tried with and without glasses, in different light, with different backgrounds, and nothing worked. Finally gave up and deleted the app and started over, and it worked on the first try and my visa was granted within minutes!
I did read other users’ reviews that said that an American passport chip is in the BACK cover of the passport, so that was good information.

This is one of the worst app experiences I have ever had. It took 15 tries to get the passport document reader to work and then just continued to give me an error on the biometrics facial scan “failed to load data”

I tried closing the app, restarting my phone, took the photo in multiple locations with different lighting and backgrounds. Nothing works.

This needs to be resolved. There are so many identity verification solutions out there. If you didn’t build this software yourselves, I would recommend changing providers. It’s insanity for the consumer.

Using an iPhone 13 mini.

Why would you move to a new and largely untested system and remove the old website option that always worked (clunky but worked) right after a pandemic where you have not been processing ETAs?
The scanning works ok but the process just hasn’t been thought through. For contact details in Australia I put our rental address but then was mandated to put an Australian phone number. There is no phone at a rental. I’m an Australian with a foreign mobile phone, doing an ETA for my kid. His contact is me. My phone doesn’t start with 61. The old system let me enter my phone. This one mandates a 61 number as if we all have landlines. Please do better and have a backup for an untested system.

This is a horrible app. I spent hours trying to get it to scan the NFC in my US passport using my iPhone 14 Pro. I watched their instructional video twice to make sure I was doing it correctly. It never worked. I tried it with the other two iPhones in the house (12 & 13). Still didn’t work. Called the department of Home Affairs in Australia and they suggested that I try more iPhones or apply for a tourist visa online, which costs $150 and takes 25 days.

Finally and inexplicably the app let me bypass the NFC scanning step and complete the process without it. I got my ETA within minutes.

Bottom line? The app doesn’t work very well and there’s nowhere to go for help. What a mess.

I watched the video prior to starting the application process and it showed taking your live photo in portrait mode, and to fit the image of your head within the oval. Makes sense. However, when it came to that step, the oval is horizontal and it stretches your face horizontally to fit the oval! You can turn your device so that the oval is portrait, but the your head is horizontal (landscape). Also it said my face was too far so when I brought my mobile device in closer, the outside lines turned green and immediately captured my face sans forehead and chin, and stretched horizontally. And it doesn’t allow you to review and retake. I looked like a frog! Other than that, it was fairly straightforward and easy.

This app is actually very solid but has a few problems.

1. When you know the passport is USA, the NFC scan should use copy "Open passport and move phone slowly along the inside of the back cover" (With appropriate graphic). American Airlines does this right. Scanning it the way suggested fails most of the time but is good for non-USA passports.

2. When you know the Applicant is under 2 years old, dial back all the stuff around taking a photo. It is *reallyhard to get a 1 year old to hold still, not smile etc.

3. The error message for a failed photo attempt is unhelpful and frustraiting: "Face Image Quality Failed. The Face Image captured doesn't meet the quality requirement. Please Retry." It doesn't say specifically what should be fixed.

4. Location permissions are requested with no explanation toward the end of the flow. Best say something.

This app is not published by the Australian government, but since it is endorsed by them, it is pretty much the only way to get an Electronic Travel Authority (eTA) visa. Once you get through the app, the visa is approved quickly – ours took minutes to receive by email.

It’s the app itself that is buggy enough to make the process unnecessarily aggravating:

1. Country name autocomplete doesn’t work unless you omit the first letter of the country name
2. Cannot paste the verification code from the email they send
3. Applying for another visa with the same email address requires verifying the email again
4. Cannot paste your home address or phone number
5. Cannot paste your destination address or phone number

Basically, if you try to do this in a rush or with just your phone, it is going to be a hassle. I recommend doing this several days ahead of your trip, using this app on your phone or iPad while you sit in front of a computer that can receive the verification email and display your destination address.

Stuck in loop with photo feature. Photo will not load after screen turns green and camera takes photo. It says “unable to load” and “try again”.

For some reason the nfc tag reader on my phone doesn’t work, so I can’t complete an application. Really need an option to manually enter passport info.

iPhone 11. iOS 15. This app doesn’t know how to use nfc. I use nfc all day just fine for ApplePay, but this app can’t seem to make it work. Total PITA.

App cannot scan passport. Keeps giving an « expired passport » message (the passport is not expired). The phone times out before the app is done!
Unfortunate 0 star is not possible !

I waited months to see if it would get approved - there’s no customer service to help. Just an automated email. It’s basically a scam because you have to pay and then they never approve the visa.

Someone needs a kick to the groin for this camera functionality.

It has to be completely flat but also lit but also no glare and also no shadow etc etc etc.

It’s 2023, this shouldn’t be that hard

I have been getting these for years- it was simple - less then 5 mins on a website and you were done. Now, download this, do this, do that, Australia get over yourself- you are driving tourism into the ground!

App is very inflexible, doesn’t allow saving partial apps, no delegation capabilities, unclear error messages, doesn’t allow to use existing photos. Feels like someone built a consumer toy for a complex process.

Seems great in theory but the face scan feature doesn’t recognize my face at all. Like others have said it skews your face out of shape and does not turn green regardless of angle or distance. Completely unusable.

The app has a really hard time reading the chip in my US passport. It failed at least 5 times. Not sure why it eventually worked but I was about ready to give up. Using 1 year old iPhone 13 with updated current iOS.

I travel to Australia every year. It’s good in theory to have an app for an ETA, but honestly just miss using online service. Not as easy to input data on my phone that needs to be 100% accurate. I think this should just be optional.

You NEED to get the app to get an ETA, no website available like other countries. And if there’s an update, you can’t get onto the app until you’ve updated it. So if you’re at customs you’re screwed waiting. Impossible to get done quick and easy.

Not every American passport has a chip in it. So any effort to use this becomes invalid unless of course you’ve a chip in the passport in the page directly across from the information page. The passport was just issued two months ago. Kind of useless

It only gives you the option to take livephoto by tilting the phone upright. How can one take the photo of a newborn who can’t even sit upright by tilting the camera! Feel like suing the responsible people as my baby almost got hurt trying to keep him still.

I put in a request three days prior to an urgent work trip. After I put in my request, I got no updates. I ended up flying from Miami to LAX to transfer to my flight to Australia hoping my visa would be approved. No approval, no answers when calling and ultimately no flight.

App was easy to use once we got the passport to read/scan. That took a really long time, moving to different locations, adjusting lighting..etc. once it worked, everything else was easy to fill out and approval was quick. I doubt my senior parents could figure it out though, as they are not tech savvy.

If you have an iPhone 12 or older, you cannot use this app to scan your passport chip as your phone is not NFC capable.

Then you should be able to do it the old way on the website, right? Wrong! The app is the only way to apply for the ETA. Have not been able to find out any other workaround.

Thanks, Australia.