Andorra has belonged to the Visa Waiver Program since 1991. Holders of an Andorran biometric passport can visit the United States for up to 90 days with an approved ESTA, usually setting out from Barcelona or Toulouse.
90 days
Maximum stay per visit
2 years
ESTA validity
Multiple
Entries permitted
72 hours
Apply at least this far ahead
100% online
No embassy visit
Overview
Andorra is one of the smallest countries whose citizens can travel to the United States without a visa, and it has enjoyed that status since 1991. The principality has no airport capable of handling an airliner and no railway, so a journey to America starts on the mountain road down to Catalonia or over the Envalira pass towards France.
The formalities are light by comparison with the drive. An Andorran citizen needs a biometric passaport and an ESTA, the electronic authorisation that U.S. Customs and Border Protection issues online. The airline at El Prat or Blagnac confirms it against your passport number before letting you check in for the transatlantic flight.
One feature of Andorra shapes almost every question we receive from there: fewer than half of the people who live in the valleys hold Andorran nationality. Spanish, Portuguese and French residents apply on their own national passports, not as Andorrans. This page is written for citizens of the principality, with notes for mixed-nationality households where relevant.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes. An Andorran travelling visa-free must have an approved ESTA before departure, for a holiday, a business visit, medical treatment or a simple transfer between flights on American soil. It is required on arrival by air or sea and, since 2022, when entering overland from Canada or Mexico.
The country you select on the form must be the one that issued the passport you will carry. In an Andorran family where one parent is a citizen of the principality and the other is Spanish or Portuguese, each adult applies under their own nationality, and the children under whichever passport they hold. All three neighbouring nationalities are in the Visa Waiver Program, so the household can still travel together.
Eligibility is lost through certain travel or a certain second nationality. Presence in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen or North Korea since 1 March 2011, or in Cuba since 12 January 2021, means applying for a visa. Cuba is the relevant one in practice, being a familiar winter destination sold by agencies in Andorra la Vella and Barcelona alike.
As for purpose, the waiver suits shopping and sightseeing in New York, a ski trade convention in Colorado or a visit to friends in Florida. It does not allow you to take up a job, to study for academic credit or to report as a journalist for Andorran radio and television.
Stay & validity
Approval normally lasts two years and permits repeated visits of up to 90 days. Adult Andorran passports are issued for ten years, so the two-year term is seldom cut short; children's passports have a shorter life, and a child's ESTA expires with the booklet it was issued against.
People from a country you can cross in half an hour sometimes underestimate how the 90-day rule treats borders. Leaving the United States for Canada, Mexico or a nearby Caribbean island does not pause or reset the count. An Andorran who spends two months in California and then a fortnight in Baja California has used seventy-odd days, not sixty.
The stay cannot be prolonged from within the country, nor exchanged for a different status. Andorrans planning an extended period abroad once the ski lifts close, say a full spring and summer in the Rockies, must secure a visitor visa beforehand.
Pricing
Live fees for Andorran passport holders, shown all-in — the US government charge and our service fee together, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Andorra
Requirements
Everything Andorran passport holders need before starting an application. The first five items apply to every applicant; the rest are specific to your nationality.
A biometric e-passport from a Visa Waiver Program country, carrying the chip symbol on its cover
A valid email address, which is where the decision is sent and which you should keep accessible while travelling
A credit or debit card to pay the government ESTA charge and our service fee together
Your home address, phone number and an emergency contact
Employer details and, if you have them, the address of where you are staying in the United States
Simple process
Four steps, entirely online, with our team checking every field before anything reaches U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Enter your passport details exactly as printed, your contact and employment information, and answer the eligibility questions. Most applicants finish in about fifteen minutes.
Our team checks your passport number, name spelling, dates and declarations against CBP requirements before anything is submitted.
Your application goes to U.S. Customs and Border Protection with the government charge paid, and we track its status until a decision is issued.
There is nothing to stick in your passport. The authorisation is held electronically against your passport number, and the airline verifies it when you check in.
Applications from Andorran citizens are few in number and are normally processed as quickly as any other, with many decisions on the day of submission. CBP still recommends a minimum of 72 hours before travel, and a pending status can occasionally last longer than that.
Since an Andorran trip to America involves a three-hour transfer before the flight even begins, last-minute surprises are particularly unwelcome. Apply when you reserve the flights. If you intend to drive down the evening before and sleep near the airport, make sure the approval has arrived before you leave the parishes.
Should the application be refused, you would need a visa from the American mission in Spain. There is no US diplomatic post inside Andorra, so plan for travel to an interview as part of that process.
On arrival
An approved ESTA gets you on the plane. This is what happens once you land, and how to make the arrival as quick as possible.
Visa Waiver travellers are seen by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the first American airport they land at, even when connecting onward. The officer takes a photograph and, for most adults, fingerprints.
There is no paper form to fill in on the aircraft. Your arrival record, the I-94, is created digitally and shows the date by which you must leave. You can look it up online afterwards.
Expect to be asked where you are staying, for how long and what you do for a living. A return ticket and the address of your first night are usually all it takes.
Queues at the busiest gateways can run past an hour at peak arrival times. If you are connecting to a domestic flight, leave a generous margin, since you also reclaim and recheck your bags.
Getting there
Every Andorran journey to the United States begins by road. Barcelona El Prat, about three hours south by car or direct coach, is the main gateway and has nonstop flights to several American cities; Toulouse-Blagnac, a similar distance north, offers one-stop connections through Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London. Road conditions over the French side can be difficult in winter, which pushes most travellers towards Barcelona.
Best time to go
Andorra's working year is governed by snow. From December to Easter the resorts of Grandvalira and Vallnord, and the shops and hotels that depend on them, are at full stretch, and few locals can get away. The natural time for an Andorran to travel far is the quiet interval in May and early June or again in October and November.
Those shoulder months happen to be kind to visitors in America. May brings warm days in New York and Washington without the humidity of July, and the western national parks are open but not yet overrun. Late October suits New England and the desert states, though Florida remains within hurricane season until the end of November.
Families tied to school terms travel in July and August, when the principality's Andorran, Spanish and French school systems are all on holiday. That coincides with the American summer peak, so book transatlantic seats from Barcelona early and expect queues on arrival.
Andorra keeps the same time as Spain and France, six hours ahead of New York and nine ahead of California. After an early start from the mountains, a midday departure and an afternoon arrival on the East Coast, most travellers have been awake for close to a full day by the time they reach the hotel.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Andorra — we check for every one of them before submitting.
Living in Escaldes or Encamp with a residence permit does not make you Andorran for ESTA purposes. A Portuguese national resident in the principality applies as Portuguese, with the Portuguese passport number, and lists Andorra only as the place of residence.
Andorrans generally carry a paternal and a maternal surname. Entering only the first, as airline bookings sometimes do, creates a record that differs from the passport. Reproduce both, exactly as the machine-readable zone sets them out.
A pending application is a nuisance anywhere; it is worse when the airport is three hours away and the coach is booked. Do not set off for Barcelona on the assumption that approval will arrive during the drive.
Havana and the Cuban beach resorts are well served from Madrid and popular with travellers from the Pyrenees. Any visit since 12 January 2021 removes the waiver and has to be declared when the form asks about it.
Travel to a restricted country
Anyone who has been in Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia or Yemen on or after 1 March 2011, or in Cuba on or after 12 January 2021, is generally not eligible for the Visa Waiver Program and needs a visa instead.
A previous visa refusal or overstay
An earlier refusal of a US visa, a denied entry or a past overstay must be declared. Each one commonly leads to an ESTA being refused and the traveller being directed to apply for a visa.
Passport details that do not match
A single wrong character in the passport number, or an expiry date typed in the wrong order, produces an authorisation the airline cannot find at check-in.
Conditions
These conditions are set under the Visa Waiver Program and do not vary by nationality. The 90-day limit and the passport-linking rule catch out a great many otherwise well-planned trips.
Your authorisation is held electronically against the passport number you enter. If you renew or replace that passport, change your name or change citizenship, the ESTA no longer applies and you need a new one.
Every person travelling under the Visa Waiver Program needs their own ESTA, including babies and children, each linked to that traveller's own e-passport.
An approved ESTA generally lasts two years from the date of authorisation, or until the passport it is linked to expires, whichever comes first.
Within its validity you can make repeated trips. Each stay can be up to 90 days, and time spent in Canada, Mexico or the nearby Caribbean islands during a trip counts towards those 90 days.
A Visa Waiver stay cannot be extended and cannot be converted into another immigration status from inside the United States. Anyone who needs longer must apply for a visa before travelling.
An ESTA lets you board a carrier bound for the United States. Admission is decided by a CBP officer at the port of entry, who can ask about your plans, your funds and your ties to home.
Consular services
There is no American embassy in Andorra; the principality is covered by the Consulate General in Barcelona. ESTA applicants have no reason to contact it, as the authorisation is granted online. Check with the mission in Spain where visa interviews are held if you need one.
FAQs
The questions Andorran passport holders ask most often about travelling to the United States.
No. Andorran citizens may visit the United States for up to 90 days without a visa, because Andorra has been in the Visa Waiver Program since 1991. An approved ESTA is required instead. Work, study for credit and stays beyond 90 days need a visa.
No. Apply under the nationality of the passport you will travel on, in this case Spanish, and give your Andorran address as your residence. The same principle applies to Portuguese and French residents of the principality.
Barcelona El Prat in most cases, roughly three hours away by road, with nonstop flights to New York and Miami and connections elsewhere. Toulouse is the alternative on the French side and involves a change at a European hub.
Andorra has no resident American mission and is covered by the Consulate General in Barcelona. You do not need to go there for an ESTA. It becomes relevant only if you require a visa or consular help.
Put both in the family name field in the order shown on your passport. Follow the machine-readable zone for spacing and for whether the linking i appears, and leave out accents and the cedilla.
Two years from the date it is granted, unless the passport expires earlier. With a ten-year adult passport most Andorrans receive the full period and can make as many trips as they wish within it.
No. Teaching at an American resort is employment and needs a work-authorised visa sponsored by the employer. The waiver would cover a holiday on the same slopes or attendance at an industry conference, but not paid instruction.
Yes, each child needs an individual authorisation linked to their own passport, from birth. In families of mixed nationality, make sure every child's application is made under the country that issued that child's passport.
Your nationality is already set to Andorra. Complete the form in about fifteen minutes, and our team will check every detail before it reaches CBP.
Other nationalities
Routes, passport rules and the practical details differ by country. Here are the guides for other Visa Waiver Program nationalities.
