The United Kingdom has been in the Visa Waiver Program since 1988. British citizens with the right of abode travel to the United States on an ESTA rather than a visa, for stays of up to 90 days at a time.
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
Important for British citizens
Only British citizens with the unrestricted right of permanent abode in the UK, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man can use an ESTA. Holders of British National (Overseas), British Overseas Citizen and similar passports need a visa.
Overview
No overseas country sends more visitors to the United States than Britain. Florida in the October half-term, a long weekend in New York before Christmas, a fly-drive down the Pacific Coast Highway, a cousin's wedding in Boston, a week of meetings in Chicago: the reasons vary, but the paperwork behind nearly all of those trips is the same electronic authorisation.
The United Kingdom was the first country admitted to the Visa Waiver Program, in 1988, and British travellers have not needed a visa for an ordinary holiday or business visit since. What they do need is an ESTA, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It is applied for online, held against your passport number and checked by the airline at Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester or Edinburgh before you are given a boarding pass.
Most British applications are uneventful. The ones that go wrong tend to do so for a short list of very British reasons: a passport that says something other than British Citizen on the photo page, a child's five-year passport about to run out, a holiday in Cuba that nobody thought to mention, or a form left until the night before a half-term flight. This page deals with each of them.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes. A British citizen flying, sailing or driving into the United States for a visit of 90 days or less needs an approved ESTA, unless they already hold a valid US visa. It applies whether you land at Orlando on a package holiday, step off a Cunard crossing in New York or drive south from Vancouver into Washington State, since land crossings from Canada and Mexico have required it since 2022.
The important qualification is the type of British nationality you hold. The waiver covers British citizens with the unrestricted right of permanent abode in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. A passport describing its holder as a British National (Overseas), British Overseas Citizen, British Overseas Territories Citizen, British Subject or British Protected Person does not qualify, however similar the burgundy or blue cover looks.
Dual nationality is the second thing to check, and it affects a meaningful number of British families. If you are British and also hold Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Sudanese, North Korean or Cuban nationality, you fall outside the waiver even when travelling on your UK passport. Many British-Iranians and British-Iraqis discover this only when an application is refused, and the route for them is a visitor visa from the US Embassy in London.
Travel history counts in the same way. A Briton who has been in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Sudan or North Korea since 1 March 2011, or in Cuba since 12 January 2021, is generally not eligible. Cuba is the one that surprises people, because Varadero and Havana are sold as mainstream winter-sun holidays from Manchester and Gatwick.
Stay & validity
For a British applicant an ESTA normally runs for two years from the day it is authorised and can be used for as many trips as you like in that time. Each visit is limited to 90 days. Families who do Florida one year and New York the next will usually find a single authorisation covers both holidays, provided nobody's passport changes in between.
That proviso matters because of how UK passports are issued. Adult passports last ten years, but a child's passport lasts only five, and the ESTA dies with the passport it was issued against. Renewing a ten-year-old's passport in the spring therefore means a fresh ESTA before the summer holiday, even if the old authorisation had a year left on paper.
British travellers who tack Canada or the Caribbean onto an American trip should know how the 90 days are counted. A fortnight in the Rockies followed by a drive into Montana, or a cruise from Miami that calls at the Bahamas, does not reset the clock. Days spent in Canada, Mexico and the adjacent islands are counted as part of the same visit.
There is no way to lengthen a stay once you are there. The Visa Waiver Program allows no extension and no switch to another status from inside the country, so a retired couple planning to winter in Florida from November to March, as many British snowbirds do, need a B-2 visitor visa rather than an ESTA.
Pricing
Live fees for British passport holders, shown all-in — the US government charge and our service fee together, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as United Kingdom
Requirements
Everything British 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.
CBP advises applying at least 72 hours before departure, and British travellers should treat that as the minimum. A large share of UK applications are approved quickly, sometimes within the hour, but a proportion go to a pending status while further checks are made, and there is no way of telling in advance which yours will be.
The sensible moment is when you book. Because British families tend to reserve Florida a year ahead, there is rarely a reason to leave it late, and an ESTA granted in January for an August holiday will still be valid with room to spare. The exception is a passport due for renewal before the trip, in which case renew first and apply afterwards.
Leave extra margin around the school calendar. The weeks before February half-term, Easter, the late-May break and the October half-term are when UK applications peak, and they are also the weeks when a missed flight costs most to rebook. Scottish schools break up for summer in late June, a month before England, so families in Glasgow and Edinburgh hit that rush earlier than everyone else.
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
Britain has more transatlantic seats than any other European country. Heathrow alone serves around thirty American cities, Gatwick carries much of the Florida leisure traffic, and Manchester and Edinburgh have their own nonstops so that travellers in the north need not come through London. A one-stop alternative used by many in Scotland and Northern Ireland is Aer Lingus through Dublin, where US border checks are completed before the flight leaves.
Best time to go
British holiday patterns map awkwardly onto American ones. The English school summer break falls in late July and August, exactly when Orlando is hottest, stormiest and most crowded with American families. The theme parks are still open and still fun, but expect afternoon downpours and temperatures a long way from anything at home.
October half-term is the smarter Florida week if your school gives you one, with lower humidity and Halloween events in the parks, though it sits inside the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June to the end of November. Easter is the other favourite, and it sometimes collides with American spring break in March, when beach resorts and flights within the States fill up.
For cities, the shoulder months suit British visitors best. New York and Boston in May or late September are warm without being oppressive, and New England's autumn colour peaks around early to mid October. The national parks of the West are busiest from June to September, so a Yosemite or Grand Canyon road trip in May or early October means fewer coaches at every viewpoint.
On timing, New York is five hours behind London and California eight, and the two countries change their clocks on different weekends in March and in autumn, which shifts the gap by an hour for a short spell. Thanksgiving, on the fourth Thursday of November, means nothing in the British calendar but a great deal in the American one, with packed domestic flights either side of it.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from United Kingdom — we check for every one of them before submitting.
A British National (Overseas) or British Overseas Territories Citizen passport looks almost identical to a British citizen's, but it does not qualify for the Visa Waiver Program. Check the nationality line on the photo page before applying. If it says anything other than British Citizen, the correct route is a visa.
Cuba has long been a popular all-inclusive destination from UK regional airports, and a week there since 12 January 2021 generally takes a traveller out of the waiver altogether. People overlook it because it was only a beach holiday. Answer the travel-history question accurately and expect to need a visa if it applies to you.
Under UK law many old cautions and convictions become spent and drop off a basic disclosure check. The American eligibility questions are not framed around that concept. Read each question as it is written and answer it truthfully, because a false answer causes far more trouble than the original offence usually would.
British children's passports expire after five years, and parents often renew them in the run-up to a big holiday. A renewal issues a new passport number, and the existing ESTA does not move across to it. Renew first, then apply, or you will be paying for the authorisation twice.
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
British travellers who qualify for an ESTA have no reason to visit any of these offices, because the whole process happens online and no interview is involved. The embassy at Nine Elms and the consulate in Belfast become relevant only if your ESTA is refused or you fall outside the waiver, when a B-1/B-2 visitor visa application and an in-person appointment are the way forward.
FAQs
The questions British passport holders ask most often about travelling to the United States.
No, not for a visit of up to 90 days. British citizens with the right of abode in the UK travel under the Visa Waiver Program and need an approved ESTA instead of a visa. A visa is required only if you plan to work, study for credit, stay longer than 90 days or are not eligible for the waiver.
No. The waiver applies only to British citizens with the unrestricted right of permanent abode in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. BN(O) holders, British Overseas Citizens and other categories of British national must apply for a visitor visa through a US embassy or consulate.
Often it is decided within hours, and many British applicants hear back sooner than that. Some applications are held as pending while more checks are carried out, which is why CBP recommends applying at least 72 hours before you fly. Applying when you book the trip removes the risk entirely.
Generally not. Anyone who has been in Cuba on or after 12 January 2021 is not eligible for the Visa Waiver Program, even if the visit was a package holiday booked through a UK tour operator. You would need to apply for a B-2 visitor visa at the US Embassy in London or the consulate in Belfast.
Yes. Each traveller needs an individual authorisation regardless of age, so an infant on your lap needs an ESTA tied to their own British passport. Bear in mind that a child's UK passport lasts five years, and the authorisation ends when that passport expires.
No. Dual nationals of a Visa Waiver country and Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, North Korea or Cuba cannot use the programme, even when they travel on the British passport and have lived in the UK all their lives. A visitor visa is the route, and it involves an interview.
Yes. The United States has no airside transit for international passengers, so a Briton flying from Heathrow to Cancun via Miami or Dallas is inspected by CBP at the American airport and needs an ESTA or a visa. The same goes for connections to the Caribbean and Central America.
It depends on what it was for. The application asks specific questions about arrests and convictions involving serious harm, and about drug offences, and you must answer them as they are worded. Certain criminal history commonly leads to refusal, in which case you apply for a visa and explain the circumstances at interview.
Your nationality is already set to United Kingdom. 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.
