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Last reviewed: August 2026. This page is general information, not legal advice about any particular case. The list of participating countries and the mechanics of ESTA change from time to time — verify current requirements before you book. See also our overview of Travel Without a Visa.
The Visa Waiver Program lets nationals of designated countries travel to the United States for business or tourism for 90 days or less without obtaining a visa. It is run by the Department of Homeland Security in consultation with the State Department, and it is reciprocal: participating countries must let Americans visit on similar terms.
Two points frame everything below. First, the program covers exactly the same purposes a B-1 or B-2 visa would cover — business or pleasure, nothing more. If your purpose would not qualify for a visitor visa, the waiver program will not help. Second, the program is a convenience, not a right, and it is purchased at a price in flexibility and in legal rights. Understanding that price is the most important thing on this page.
A traveler admitted under the program:
By contrast, someone admitted on a B visa can request an extension, can apply to change status, and retains ordinary procedural protections. That is why a person who qualifies for the waiver program may still be better served by applying for a visa — particularly anyone whose plans might lengthen, anyone with a complicated immigration history, and anyone who thinks a job offer or a marriage may materialize while they are here. You are entitled to apply for a B visa even if you are eligible to travel visa-free, and consular officers are expressly instructed not to discourage that choice.
To travel without a visa under the program, all of the following must be true.
You must be seeking admission as a visitor for business or pleasure, for a period not to exceed 90 days. Transit through the United States is generally permitted. Foreign media representatives coming to work in that capacity are not eligible, because journalism is not "business" for these purposes; they need an I visa.
You must be a citizen or national of a participating country, travelling on a passport issued by that country. Residence in a participating country is not enough. As of August 2026 there are 42 participating countries:
Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.
Two qualifications on that list. British citizens qualify only if they have the unrestricted right of permanent abode in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. And Taiwan is included by operation of the Taiwan Relations Act, which directs that references to foreign countries in U.S. law be read to include Taiwan. The list itself changes — Qatar was added at the end of 2024 — so check it rather than relying on a page you read last year.
You must hold an electronic passport: one with an embedded chip carrying the data-page information, identifiable by the international symbol on the cover. This applies to every traveler including infants, and it applies to emergency and temporary passports too. The passport must ordinarily be valid for at least six months beyond your intended stay, unless your country has an agreement with the United States exempting it from that requirement.
The phased machine-readable-passport rules that applied in the mid-2000s are obsolete. The e-passport requirement has replaced them.
You must obtain approval through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization before boarding an aircraft or vessel bound for the United States. ESTA is a CBP system; it collects biographic information and answers to eligibility questions, screens them, and returns a decision. It replaced the old paper Form I-94W, which no longer exists.
Practical points. Apply as soon as you begin planning the trip, and in any event before buying tickets — CBP recommends exactly that, because a refusal means you will need a visa instead and visa appointments take time. An approval covers multiple trips over a fixed period, but you should check the status of an existing authorization before every journey and update it if your passport or circumstances have changed. There is a fee, payable by card, and the amount has been revised recently: pay it only through the official CBP application, never through a third-party site offering to file for you.
Most importantly: an approved ESTA is not permission to enter. It only establishes that you may board. Admissibility is decided by the CBP officer at the port of entry.
If you arrive by air or sea, you must travel aboard a carrier that has signed an agreement with the U.S. government undertaking to remove you if you are found inadmissible. You must also hold a return or onward ticket to a destination outside the United States, other than contiguous territory or an adjacent island — unless you are a resident of an adjacent island, the requirement has been waived by regulation, or you are a business traveler arriving on a private aircraft whose operator has a valid removal agreement.
You must satisfy the examining officer that you are clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to be admitted and not inadmissible under section 212(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, you must not present a safety threat, and you must not have failed to comply with the conditions of any previous admission under the program. An earlier overstay under the waiver program is, in practice, the end of visa-free travel for that person.
The Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 removed eligibility from two groups. This is the single most common reason a traveler who used to enter visa-free is now turned away at the ESTA stage.
Travel history. Nationals of participating countries who have travelled to, or been present in, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria or Yemen on or after March 1, 2011, or in Cuba on or after January 12, 2021, are excluded. There are limited exceptions for travel in the service of a participating country's military or as a full-time government employee, though those exceptions do not extend to accompanying family members.
Dual nationality. Nationals of participating countries who are also nationals of Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria are excluded, and the military and official-duty exceptions do not rescue them.
DHS may waive either restriction case by case where doing so serves law enforcement or national security interests. Several waiver categories are built into the ESTA application itself, so no separate application is needed — these have included travel for work with a recognized international organization or NGO, travel as a journalist for reporting purposes, legitimate business travel to Iran after the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in July 2015, legitimate business travel to Iraq, and current membership in Global Entry.
Being excluded from the waiver program is not a visa refusal and is not a finding of inadmissibility. It simply means you must apply for a visa in the ordinary way, and the exclusion is not itself a ground to deny that visa.
Ninety days is a hard ceiling, and it is not renewable by leaving and coming back. A trip to Canada, Mexico or an adjacent island during a waiver-program stay does not reset the clock: time spent in contiguous territory or on adjacent islands counts toward the same 90 days, and you may be readmitted only for the remainder of the original period. The exception is a traveler who is resident in the country visited.
If you need longer than 90 days, or if you cannot be confident in advance that you will not, apply for a B visa instead. There is no mechanism to extend a waiver-program admission once you are here, and overstaying it carries the ordinary consequences of unlawful presence plus the loss of visa-free travel for the future.
A different and shorter waiver applies to visits to Guam and the CNMI, with its own list of eligible nationalities, a 15-day limit, and its own electronic travel authorization. See our overview of Travel Without a Visa.
The two situations we are asked about most often are a traveler who has been refused ESTA and does not understand why, and a traveler who used the waiver program when the trip really called for a visa and is now stuck — needing more time, or wanting to change status, with no way to do either. Both are much easier to handle before travel than after. If you are in either position, or you are weighing the waiver program against applying for a visa, please contact our office.