Hepatitis A virus can be released from cells as quasi-enveloped virions (eHAVs); that is, enclosed in host membranes that lack virus-encoded surface proteins. Naked HAV virions have a role in faecal–oral transmission between individuals, whereas eHAVs mediate cell-to-cell spread within the infected hosts. How these two virion types enter cells was not well understood. Lemon and colleagues report that both naked virions and eHAVs enter cells through clathrin-dependent and dynamin-dependent endocytosis, and the entry process is mediated by integrin β1. They went on to show that both virion types are trafficked through the endosomal compartments and that uncoating of naked virions occurs in late endosomes. By contrast, eHAVs are trafficked to the lysosome, where the quasi envelope is degraded and the genome is uncoated. In sum, naked and quasi-enveloped virions enter cells via similar endocytic pathways, but uncoating of HAV and eHAV capsids is temporally and spatially different.