When you check the entry requirements for a country, the result usually falls into one of several categories: free movement, visa-free, electronic travel authorization (ETA), e-Visa, visa on arrival, visa required, or entry not permitted. People online tend to use these terms interchangeably, but they’re procedures with very different implications, and mixing them up is one of the most common causes of last-minute airport trouble. On VisaRadar, every passport-and-destination combination is classified into exactly one of these categories; this guide walks through what each one actually means.
Free movement and “same country”
Before we even get into visas properly, two cases don’t fit any of the categories below because they aren’t, strictly speaking, an immigration check at all. Free movement applies within the European Union, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland: a citizen of one of these countries doesn’t need any kind of authorization to enter another, beyond a valid ID document. The same country case is the most trivial of all: when your passport and your destination are the same country, there’s no entry requirement to check. If you hold two nationalities, the category that applies to you depends on which passport you present at each check: we explain this in the guide on which passport to use with dual nationality.
Visa-free
This is the simplest category among the ones that are a genuine immigration check: you can enter with just your passport, no prior paperwork, usually up to a maximum number of days set by the destination country (often, though not always, 90 days). There’s no application and no advance approval: the check happens at the border, with the officer confirming you meet the rest of the entry conditions (a valid passport, sufficient funds, a consistent purpose of travel).
Traditional (consular) visa
This is the oldest and, today, the most restrictive route: an application submitted to an embassy or consulate of the destination country, usually with an appointment, an interview, and physical paperwork. Processing times are the longest of any category, and it’s the only type where an official evaluates your full application before you even buy the ticket, not just on arrival.
e-Visa
The key difference from a traditional visa is that the entire application happens online, without visiting a consulate. It’s still a real visa, the country evaluates your application and can deny it, but the process has been fully digitized. We already have verified data on VisaRadar for several destinations that use this system, such as Vietnam’s e-Visa or India’s e-Visa.
A pattern that shows up in almost every e-Visa we’ve researched: third-party sites imitate the official portal and charge extra fees without warning. Before paying anything, confirm you’re on the destination country’s real government domain.
Electronic travel authorization (ETA / ESTA / K-ETA…)
This is where most confusion happens. An electronic travel authorization is not a visa: it’s a pre-approval to board your flight, but it doesn’t guarantee entry: the final decision is still made by the border officer when you arrive. This is the category that includes systems like the US ESTA or the UK’s own ETA, both already documented with real data on VisaRadar (fee, processing time, and what each one actually covers).
The ETA landscape shifts fairly often, so it’s worth double-checking rather than assuming last year’s status still holds. A live example right now: South Korea is temporarily exempting nationals of 22 countries (including the UK and Spain) from K-ETA, an exemption South Korea’s Ministry of Justice has extended through 31 December 2026. The requirement is due to resume for everyone from 1 January 2027, though applying voluntarily during the exemption is still an option and skips the electronic arrival card requirement at entry. The EU, for its part, still doesn’t have its own system (ETIAS) operational: see our dedicated ETIAS guide for the current status.
Within this category there’s an important distinction worth not skipping: a genuine electronic travel authorization is not the same as a plain arrival card, which only collects a basic health or accommodation declaration without actually assessing whether you can enter. Thailand’s TDAC, Singapore’s SG Arrival Card, and China’s E-Arrival Card are arrival cards, not travel authorizations, a distinction we verify destination by destination because plenty of sites blur it.
Visa on arrival
This is processed physically at the destination’s own border checkpoint, not before you travel. It’s the riskiest of the categories in practice: queues, usually cash-only payment (bring the exact amount or the specific denomination requested, because many checkpoints don’t give change or take cards), and a real possibility of being denied right there at the destination airport, with no time to react and nowhere to appeal from the counter itself. If your itinerary has a tight connection, this is the procedure most likely to make you miss the next flight.
Entry not permitted
This is the least common category and the most clear-cut: no procedure, whatever it is, lets you in, usually because of a bilateral restriction, an international sanction, or the total absence of consular relations between the two countries. When VisaRadar flags a combination this way, there’s no “how to get one”: the flag itself is the answer.
How you’ll see this reflected on VisaRadar
Every pair page uses exactly these eight categories, not a rough simplification, each with its own colour and icon, so you can tell at a glance whether your situation is straightforward (green), needs prior paperwork (amber), or is more restrictive (red).
How to find out which one applies to you
There’s no fixed rule per country: the same destination can require a different procedure depending on which passport you hold. That’s why VisaRadar doesn’t generalize by country: check your exact passport-and-destination combination on the home page, and if your pair is among the ones we’ve researched in depth, you’ll also see real practical data (fee, processing time, documentation, vaccinations) beyond a simple yes/no on the visa.
Guide verified 04/09/2026. Sources: per-destination data already researched and cited on each VisaRadar pair page; the K-ETA exemption extension through 31 December 2026 is confirmed by multiple sources citing South Korea’s Ministry of Justice announcement (we weren’t able to access the official Korean announcement directly while writing this guide, so confirm on the official K-ETA portal before travelling if your trip date is close to 2027).