VISA OR ESTA?

To make this whole paragraph easier to understand I am going to explain the short forms first. VWP is the short for Visa Waiver Program which citizen from selected countries to travel to the USA without applying for a visa. DHS means Department of Homeland Security and last but not least ESTA is the Electronic System for Travel Authorization.  The ESTA serves the purpose of letting the DHS know weeks before our customers even pack for their trip who is coming to the US and if they could be a threat or not. If they are not a threat they will receive an entry permit within 24h to 72h sometimes it takes longer but this is the average time it takes. I will go into this topic deeper but first things first let’s start with the VWP and with its criteria.

VWP

The VWP is able to allow travelers to stay in the US for up to 90 days and that only for touristic reasons and only if they meet those criteria:

The passport has to have a chip, needs to be valid for the duration of the journey, most importantly it has to be in good condition and machine-readable. If our customers travel with kids their passports need to have a chip as well, if the passports do not have a chip or the kids do not have their own passport but are mentions in the passport of the parent then they either need to get a passport with chip or need to apply for a visa since the VWP does not count in that case.

Also if one of our clients has a (beige) emergency passport he or she needs to get a visa. Another criterion is if you have a dual nationality from Iran, Syria, Iraq or Sudan the VWP does not count.  When our customer traveled to Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya or Syria after March.1st.2011 he or she also needs to apply for a visa, only if he or she was in those countries in this time range because he or she works in the national force then the VWP is valid.

ESTA

The ESTA document and the 1-94W document are the exact same the only difference now is that it is filled out online. Questions can be “Have you ever planned a terrorist attack?”, “Do you plan on staying in the US illegally?” or “What religion do you belong to?”.  Most of the questions are really unnecessary because even if someone is planning to sty illegally in the US they would not tell them because this is a reason that the DHS is not willing to give you an entry permit.  

The website for the ESTA is https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/; the ‘.gov’ already shows the visitor that this is a website from the US Government. A good thing they did is that travelers can translate the website into their native language but the questions still need to be answered in English. The fee for the ESTA currently is $14 so approximately 12.85€. As soon as our customers know when their flights are they should apply for the ESTA or at least they should do it 72h before taking off.

This entry confirmation is normally valid for 2 years or until the passport needs to be renewed, also you can travel in and out of the US without reapplying.  But even if they get the permission to travel into the US, it is still up to the Custom and Border Protection if they actually let someone in or not. If the ESTA does not get approved then the customer needs to apply for a travel visa at the US Embassy or US Consulate.