France has been a Visa Waiver Program member since 1989. French citizens holding a biometric passeport can visit the United States for up to 90 days with an approved ESTA, whether flying from Paris, Nice or Papeete.
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
The French relationship with America is long, slightly argumentative and very well travelled. New York is the default first long-haul trip for many French couples, the Ouest américain of canyons and Route 66 is a rite of passage, and Miami draws both holidaymakers and a resident French community large enough to support its own bakeries and lycée. Louisiana, with its Francophone history, gets a steady stream of visitors that few other nationalities send.
Since 1989 none of this has needed a visa. A French citizen travels under the Visa Waiver Program, and the practical requirement is an ESTA, an electronic authorisation issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and attached to the number of a biometric passeport. Air France, Delta and French bee all verify it at check-in at Charles de Gaulle or Orly, and a passenger whose record cannot be found stays in Paris.
Where French applications run into difficulty, the cause is usually one of four things: a name that appears on the passport in two forms, a passeport d'urgence issued in a hurry, a second nationality inherited from a parent, or a holiday in Cuba. It also matters that France extends well beyond Europe, and that a traveller leaving from Fort-de-France or Tahiti is subject to exactly the same requirement.
At a glance
Eligibility
Every French citizen entering the United States without a visa needs an ESTA, and the obligation follows the nationality rather than the place of departure. It applies on the morning Air France flight to JFK, on a ferry or cruise arriving from the Caribbean, and at the road crossings from Quebec into Vermont and New York State that French visitors to Montreal often use. Land borders have been included since 2022.
The carte nationale d'identité, which takes French travellers all over Europe, has no role in American travel. You need a passeport, and it must be the biometric version with the chip symbol. France also issues a passeport d'urgence valid for one year when someone has to leave at short notice. That document is not electronic and does not qualify for the waiver, so its holder must obtain a visa.
Dual nationality is common in France and usually irrelevant, but six nationalities change the answer. A French citizen who also holds Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Sudanese, North Korean or Cuban nationality cannot use the Visa Waiver Program. Franco-Iranians and Franco-Syrians form the largest affected groups, and for them the route is a visitor visa requested through the consular section in Paris.
Journeys already made can also close the door. A French passport holder who has spent time in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen or North Korea since 1 March 2011 is generally ineligible, which catches reporters, humanitarian staff from the many French NGOs working in those regions, and oil-sector contractors. Military and diplomatic service for France is treated as a limited exception.
Stay & validity
A French traveller's ESTA is ordinarily valid for two years and permits any number of entries, with each stay capped at 90 days. People who divide their time between Paris and a second home in Florida, or who visit children studying in Boston several times a year, can do so on one authorisation as long as each visit stays within the limit.
The link to the passport is the detail to watch. An adult French passeport lasts ten years and a minor's lasts five, and the authorisation ceases the moment its passport expires or is replaced. French préfectures and mairies can take weeks to deliver a renewal in spring, so a family that renews before the grandes vacances must then request new ESTAs against the new numbers.
The 90 days deserve attention from anyone combining America with its neighbours. A favourite French itinerary pairs New York with Quebec, or California with Mexico's Baja peninsula, and some cruise from Florida through the Antilles. Time in Canada, Mexico and the adjacent Caribbean islands is counted within the same 90-day visit, so the total across the whole trip is what matters.
A stay under the waiver ends when the 90 days end. It cannot be renewed on the spot or exchanged for a student or employment status, and a French graduate hoping to stay on for a stage or a job offer has to return home and apply for the relevant visa.
Pricing
Live fees for French passport holders, shown all-in — the US government charge and our service fee together, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as France
Requirements
Everything French 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 asks travellers to apply at least 72 hours before departure. In practice a large proportion of French applications are settled within a few hours, but some are marked pending while further verification takes place, and there is nothing an applicant can do to speed those up.
The French habit of booking long-haul holidays early works in your favour. If the flights for a July road trip are bought in January, the ESTA can be requested the same week and will still have eighteen months to run when you come home. The only reason to wait is a passport that will be renewed before travel.
Three periods generate last-minute trouble in France: the fortnight before the Toussaint break, the run-up to Christmas in New York, and the February ski-season weeks when Parisians who would rather have sun fly to Miami instead. Requests filed the evening before a flight in those weeks leave no margin if the answer is not immediate.
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
Paris Charles de Gaulle is one of Europe's three great transatlantic hubs, and Air France with its partner Delta links it to more than a dozen American cities. Orly adds low-cost long-haul with French bee. Travellers from Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux or Marseille generally connect through Paris or another European hub, while Nice has summer nonstops to New York. From French Polynesia, flights from Papeete reach the West Coast directly.
Best time to go
French school holidays are organised into three zones for the winter and spring breaks, but the Toussaint fortnight in late October and the summer holidays are national. Toussaint is a popular time for New York, and with good reason: the humidity has gone, Central Park is turning, and Halloween gives children something to do in the evenings.
The grandes vacances in July and August coincide with the American peak. That is when the national parks are fullest and when the deserts of Arizona, Nevada and Death Valley are dangerously hot in the middle of the day. Those set on the Ouest in summer should favour higher, cooler ground such as Yellowstone, Yosemite's high country and the Pacific coast.
Winter belongs to Florida and, for travellers from the Antilles, to the short hop from Fort-de-France or Pointe-à-Pitre into Miami. December to April is dry and mild there. The hurricane season on the Florida and Gulf coasts runs from June to November, which is worth weighing if you are tempted by low summer rates in Miami Beach or New Orleans.
East Coast time is six hours behind Paris and the Pacific coast nine. The two countries move their clocks on different dates in March and again in autumn, so for a week or three the gap is an hour less. American public holidays differ too: Thanksgiving in late November fills domestic flights, while 14 July passes unnoticed.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from France — we check for every one of them before submitting.
French passports print the nom de naissance as the surname and can add a married or usage name on a separate line beginning with épouse or usage. Only the birth name is carried into the machine-readable zone. An application made in the married name will not match the passport when it is scanned at the airport.
When a passport is lost a week before departure, the préfecture can issue an emergency one very quickly. Because it has no chip, it is not accepted under the Visa Waiver Program, and an ESTA requested against it is of no use. Holders need a visa from the consular section before they can board.
The form should mirror the machine-readable lines, where é, è, ç and ï lose their marks. Applicants named Gaëlle, Jérôme or Benoît sometimes paste the accented spelling from another document. Check also how a hyphenated first name is rendered on your own passport and follow it exactly.
Cuba is a well-established destination for French tour operators, and many visitors have been since 2021 without knowing the consequence. Presence on the island on or after 12 January 2021 generally removes Visa Waiver eligibility. If that describes you, plan for a visa interview well ahead of your American dates.
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
French travellers eligible for an ESTA complete everything online and never need an appointment on the avenue Gabriel. The embassy's consular section in Paris is where visitor visa interviews take place for residents of France, including those from the overseas departments, so it becomes relevant only when an ESTA is refused or the waiver does not apply to you.
FAQs
The questions French passport holders ask most often about travelling to the United States.
No. French citizens can travel to the United States without a visa for stays of up to 90 days, as long as they have an approved ESTA linked to a biometric passport. A visa is needed for employment, for study leading to credit, for longer stays and for travellers who are excluded from the Visa Waiver Program.
No. The carte nationale d'identité is accepted within Europe but not for American travel. You need a biometric passeport, and the ESTA is issued against that passport's number. This applies equally to children, who each need a passport of their own.
Use the name in the machine-readable zone at the foot of the passport's data page, which for French passports is the nom de naissance. A married name shown as a nom d'usage is not part of that zone. Book your airline ticket in the same name to avoid questions at check-in.
No. The passeport d'urgence is not an electronic passport, and the Visa Waiver Program requires a chip even in emergency and temporary documents. Anyone travelling on one must apply for a US visa through the embassy in Paris, or wait for a standard biometric passeport to be produced.
Yes. The requirement depends on your French nationality, not on where you set out from. A resident of Papeete flying to Los Angeles, or of Fort-de-France heading for Miami, needs the same ESTA as someone leaving from Paris, on the same kind of biometric passport.
CBP recommends at least 72 hours before departure. A good rule is to apply the week you buy your tickets, because some applications are held pending for further checks. The authorisation normally lasts two years, so an early request rarely costs you any useful validity.
No. A person holding Iranian nationality alongside French nationality is not eligible for the Visa Waiver Program, even when born and raised in France. The same applies to dual nationals of Iraq, Syria, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba. A B-1/B-2 visa application is the alternative.
Not any more. Since 2022 an ESTA has been required at land crossings as well as for air and sea arrivals. French visitors touring Quebec who plan a day in Vermont or a drive to Boston should have the authorisation approved before they reach the border post.
Your nationality is already set to France. 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.
