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What this page covers. Most people who come to the United States for a short stay — for a meeting, a holiday, a family visit or medical care — arrive as temporary visitors. This page is a broad map of how that works: the category itself, the difference between permission to travel and permission to enter, the alternative of traveling without a visa, and the limits that attach to a visitor's stay. Each of those subjects is treated at length elsewhere in this handbook, and the links at the end lead to those pages.
The visitor category. The governing definition is 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(B), which describes a person who keeps a residence abroad that will not be abandoned and who comes to the United States temporarily for business or for pleasure. The two purposes carry different labels, B-1 for business and B-2 for pleasure, and a combined B-1/B-2 visa is commonly issued. The State Department regulation at 22 C.F.R. 41.31(b) supplies the working definitions: business covers conventions, conferences, consultations and comparable commercial or professional activity, but not local employment or labor for hire, while pleasure covers tourism, visits to family and friends, rest, medical treatment and social or fraternal activity. The statute expressly excludes coming to study, to perform skilled or unskilled labor, or to serve as a representative of foreign information media; those purposes belong to other categories.
Temporary intent is the central requirement. Under 8 U.S.C. 1184(b), a person seeking a nonimmigrant visa is presumed to be an intending immigrant until the contrary is established, and the burden falls on the applicant twice: before the consular officer when the visa is sought, and again before the immigration officer when admission is sought. Refusals in this category commonly rest on that presumption rather than on any allegation of wrongdoing.
A visa is permission to travel, not permission to enter. The distinction is statutory. Under 8 U.S.C. 1201(h), a visa entitles no one to be admitted, and a traveler found inadmissible on arrival may be refused entry while holding a valid visa. Every arriving traveler is an applicant for admission subject to inspection under 8 U.S.C. 1225(a)(3), and the decision to admit rests with the inspecting officer. A visa may also be revoked at any time in the issuing authority's discretion under 8 U.S.C. 1201(i). A visa is a document, admission is an event, and status is the legal condition that follows admission; the three are routinely conflated and are worth keeping apart.
Traveling without a visa. Nationals of designated countries may seek admission as visitors without a visa under the program established by 8 U.S.C. 1187, which waives the documentary requirement of 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(7)(B)(i)(II) for a visit of ninety days or less. The program carries conditions. It requires an electronic passport meeting international standards, an approved authorization obtained through the electronic travel authorization system before admission is sought, as 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(11) provides, and — a point often overlooked — a waiver under 8 U.S.C. 1187(b) of the right to review an admissibility determination or to contest removal, other than by applying for asylum. Eligibility can also be lost through nationality or earlier presence in countries and areas designated under 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12). Separate arrangements permit certain other travelers to enter without a visa.
A note on the program's name. Older material, and some surviving regulatory text at 8 C.F.R. 214.2(b)(3) and 8 C.F.R. 214.1(c)(3)(i), still calls it the Visa Waiver Pilot Program. The pilot phase ended when Congress made the program permanent, and 8 U.S.C. 1187 establishes it simply as the visa waiver program.
Admission, not the visa, fixes the length of the stay. A visa's validity period governs the window in which a traveler may present at a port of entry; it says nothing about how long the traveler may remain. The authorized period is set at admission and recorded on Form I-94, which 8 C.F.R. 235.1(h) describes as evidence of the terms of admission. For visitors, 8 C.F.R. 214.2(b)(1) allows admission for not more than one year with extensions in increments of not more than six months, and 8 C.F.R. 214.2(b)(2) provides that a B-2 visitor issued a Form I-94 is admitted for a minimum of six months unless an individual exception is approved. Travelers admitted under the visa waiver program stand differently: 8 C.F.R. 214.1(c)(3)(i) makes them ineligible for an extension of stay, and 8 U.S.C. 1258(a)(4) bars a change to another nonimmigrant classification, with narrow exceptions.
What a visitor may not do. A visitor for pleasure may not work. 8 C.F.R. 214.1(e) prohibits employment outright in that category, and prohibits it for any nonimmigrant not classified in a category that authorizes employment. Enrolling in a course of study falls outside the category as well. Travel whose primary purpose is to give birth in the United States in order to obtain citizenship for the child is excluded by 22 C.F.R. 41.31(b)(2)(i). A visitor already admitted who wishes to remain longer, or to move into a different category, applies on Form I-539 under 8 C.F.R. 214.1(c)(2); the application is a request, not a right, and filing it is not the same as receiving it.
Staying past the authorized date carries consequences beyond the trip. Remaining after the period authorized at admission voids the nonimmigrant visa by operation of law under 8 U.S.C. 1202(g), so the visa cannot be used again and a replacement must ordinarily be sought in the country of nationality rather than at a convenient post. An overstay also accrues unlawful presence, which can trigger the reentry bars at 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(9)(B). What matters is the date recorded at admission, not the expiration date printed on the visa — another reason the two documents should not be read as though they said the same thing.
Entry rules can change independently of the category. Entry by classes of travelers may be suspended or restricted by presidential proclamation under 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), and country designations, program membership and documentary requirements are all revisable. Eligibility should be confirmed against current agency sources close to the time of travel rather than inferred from an earlier trip.
Related pages. The visitor category is treated in detail at Visitor Visas. Entry without a visa is covered at Travel Without a Visa and, for the visa waiver program specifically, at Visa Waiver (for visitors). For the wider range of temporary categories, including study and work, see Temporary Visas (Work, Study, Tourist). For the parent section of this handbook, see Other Matters. To discuss a particular trip, see Contact.