ESTA eligible countries
The ESTA Visa Waiver Program offers numerous advantages for visitors who wish to travel to the United States for a stay of less than 90 days. However this simplified procedure is only available to citizens from member countries of this system. To know if you can benefit from this online authorisation, below you can find a list of all the member countries and some pertinent explanations.
Most of the countries that are visa-free for the United States are ESTA member countries and travellers from these countries must still have ESTA to travel to the United States. Only American and Canadian citizens can travel to the USA without a visa or ESTA. If you do not yet have an ESTA, you should apply quickly.
To benefit from the visa waiver, you can apply for an ESTA online in a few minutes. To do this, you simply go to the website of a service provider offering this service and fill in an online form. You fill in your personal details and email address and answer some simple questions about your health and character and then pay the fee by credit card.
The ESTA, like the visa, are both travel authorisations for the USA. But there are some major differences. Firstly, the ESTA is only available to travellers from certain countries and has restrictions on the length of stay and the purpose of the stay. It must not exceed 90 days and must be for tourism or business purposes.
Travelling to the United States does not necessarily require a visa as there has been a visa waiver programme with the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA) since 2008. This system allows travellers from certain countries that meet certain conditions to travel to the USA without a visa, simply by means of an authorisation that is applied for online and attached to the passport by computer. The list of countries included in this scheme was chosen by the US government because they are deemed safe by US Homeland Security. In this article we will explain everything about this system and give you the complete list of visa-free countries for the USA.
List of countries which require ESTA: Key points
- European Union countries are generally exempt from visa requirements but require ESTA authorization to travel to the United States.
- The list of ESTA countries for the USA changes according to the country's agreements
- Only Canada is a country exempt from both visa and ESTA requirements for the USA.
Of course, the vast majority of countries in the world are not eligible for the ESTA service to travel to the USA and only those countries on the list determined by the US government are entitled to this exemption. Of course, many of these countries are EU countries, probably because there are many tourists from these countries.
If you want to know more about the countries on this list, here are the details:
Andorra, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brunei, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia, 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, Slovakia, Slovenia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and United Kingdom.
It is therefore imperative that you are a national of one of these countries to be able to travel to the United States without a visa with a simple ESTA authorization. But what does it really mean to be a national of one of these countries? It simply means that you must be a national of that country and that your passport must be issued by that country, even if you live in another country. You must also have a valid passport, which must be a biometric or electronic passport, which is systematically the case for passports issued after 1 April 2016. This condition is necessary because the ESTA authorisation will be electronically linked to this passport in an electronic and computerised manner. We therefore invite you to check that your passport meets these standards before applying for ESTA.
We are now going to look at countries whose nationals can travel freely to the United States without a visa or ESTA. These are special cases, including American nationals, even if they have dual nationality, on the sole condition that the passport used is an American passport.
The same applies to Canadian nationals who, like American nationals, can travel freely to the USA without an ESTA or visa. However, there is an additional exclusion, as permanent residents of Canada who are also nationals of one of the ESTA member countries will have to apply for this electronic authorisation before they can enter the territory.
Finally, dual nationals, one or both of whom are nationals of one of the countries listed above, must apply for this authorisation, provided of course that they are travelling on a passport issued by one of these countries.
If you were aware of the conditions of access to the Visa Waiver Programme a few years ago, you may not be aware of some of the changes that took place in 2016.
It should be noted that the ESTA electronic travel authorisation system was set up mainly to simplify the administrative procedures for certain categories of travellers and to maximise territorial security by adding a check of this authorisation before boarding the plane. This system is therefore bound to evolve over time and according to the United States' international relations in order to maintain a constant quality of border controls. Thus, because of the recent attacks in Europe, the system has been updated and the programme has been strengthened to exclude certain travellers.
These exceptions concern travellers who have visited Iran, Syria, Iraq or Sudan since 1 March 2011 and people who have the nationality of one of these countries, even if they have dual nationality with a nationality on the list of member countries. The latter travellers must therefore apply for a visa in order to be able to travel to the USA. Of course, full-time civil servants and military personnel who are on official business in one of these countries can continue to benefit from ESTA authorisation and are therefore exempt from the visa requirement for the USA.
ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) is an electronic travel authorization allowing citizens of Visa Waiver Program (VWP) member countries to travel to the United States without a visa for tourist, business or transit purposes for up to 90 days. This guide details the steps to follow when applying for an ESTA, as well as the essential conditions and information for eligible nationalities.
To apply for an ESTA and travel to the USA without a visa, you must:
Steps to apply for an ESTA
Access the official website or service provider: Go to the official US government website or via a private service provider.
Fill in the online form: The ESTA form contains several sections to fill in:
Check your information Make sure that all information is correct before submitting the application. An error could lead to your application being rejected or to complications during your trip.
Pay the application fee The cost of the ESTA is USD 21, payable online by credit or debit card. This fee includes a processing fee and an authorization fee.
Receive confirmation Once you have submitted your application, you will receive a reply within a few minutes to 72 hours. There are three possible statuses:
Validity and renewal
The ESTA is valid for two years or until your passport expires, whichever comes first. You can use it for several trips to the United States, provided that each stay does not exceed 90 days. If your personal details or those on your passport change, you will need to make a new application.
Practical advice
By following these steps and advice, eligible nationals will be able to travel to the United States without a visa, in compliance with the rules of the VWP programme.