Effective immediately, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has updated the country's visa waiver policy around ESTA eligibility and countries visited by applicants.
Libya, Somalia and Yemen have been added as countries of concern but at this time this only applies to individuals who have visited one of these countries since 01 March 2011.
People from an eligible visa waiver country (Australia, UK, New Zealand among others) may apply for an ESTA to visit the United States.
The following exceptions apply and these people will be required to apply for a visitor visa:
- People who are also dual citizens of Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria (unchanged policy from previous updates)
- People who have visited Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria or Yemen since 01 March 2011 (Libya. Somalia and Yemen were added to this list on 18 February 2016)
Read the full DHS announcement.
Please note that this policy will continue to be reviewed and may be updated again at any time.
We expect the ESTA site and application questions to be updated soon to reflect these new criteria.
