Greek citizens have been able to visit the United States without a visa since 2010, with an ESTA approved before departure. Use the Latin spelling in your passport, check which passport term you hold, and apply before you fly from Athens.
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
Ask a Greek family about America and there is usually a name attached: an uncle in Astoria, cousins in Chicago, a grandmother's brother who went to Tarpon Springs for the sponge boats. Those ties, together with students visiting campuses, shipping executives with business in New York and Houston, keep Athens airport busy with transatlantic passengers each summer.
Greek citizens have travelled visa-free since 2010, when Greece joined the Visa Waiver Program, later than most of western Europe. Anyone old enough to remember queuing outside the embassy on Vasilissis Sofias Avenue knows how much simpler things became. The condition is an ESTA, obtained online from U.S. Customs and Border Protection before the journey.
What follows deals with the Greek details: which Latin spelling of your name to use, how the older five-year passports affect validity, why seafarers and engineers should think carefully about the travel-history questions, and how to time an application around Orthodox Easter and the August exodus.
At a glance
Eligibility
Greek citizens do need an ESTA, and with it they need no visa for trips lasting up to 90 days. Holidays, visits to relatives, trade fairs, medical consultations and airport connections are all within its scope. It is checked for air and sea arrivals alike, and has also been required since 2022 when entering overland from Canada or Mexico.
Your police-issued identity card, old or new, is irrelevant here; the authorisation attaches to a biometric Greek passport. That holds for each traveller separately. Parents taking children to meet the American side of the family apply once per child, however young.
Travel history is the question Greeks should read slowly. A country with one of the world's largest merchant fleets has many officers, engineers and contractors who have been in Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Syria or Iran since 1 March 2011, and that presence generally removes Visa Waiver eligibility. If it applies to you, the correct path is a visitor visa, where the circumstances can be explained.
Purpose matters as well. Taking up a job, enrolling for a degree, or covering a story for Greek television or press falls outside the ESTA, as does any stay beyond 90 days. Applicants with a previous American visa refusal, perhaps from the years before 2010, or a past overstay should expect a refusal and prepare for the B-1/B-2 process instead.
Stay & validity
The standard grant is two years of validity with multiple entries, each limited to 90 days. Someone who flies to New York for a nephew's baptism and returns the next summer for a tour of the national parks does not have to reapply in between.
Passport dates decide whether you get the full term. Since September 2022 Greek adults and teenagers from 14 have received ten-year passports, but the earlier five-year booklets are still in circulation and nearing their end, and children under 14 are issued passports for three years. An ESTA stops when the passport stops, so a nearly expired document is better renewed before you apply.
No part of the 90 days can be recovered by leaving briefly. Days spent in Mexico, Canada or on a Caribbean island in the course of the same trip are added to the count, and the stay cannot be prolonged from within the country. A replacement passport after loss or theft, or a change in your name, calls for a new authorisation.
Pricing
Live fees for Greek passport holders, shown all-in — the US government charge and our service fee together, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Greece
Requirements
Everything Greek 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.
Three days before the flight is the latest that CBP suggests applying. In practice Greek applicants tend to get an answer quickly, yet a number are placed in pending status, and those can take the whole of that window.
Greek summers encourage late decisions, and transatlantic seats for July are often bought in June. That is still plenty of time, provided the ESTA is done the same day as the booking. What does not work is remembering at Eleftherios Venizelos, at the check-in desk, with the bags already on the belt.
One moment merits a longer margin. Passport offices are at their busiest before the summer, so if a renewal is needed first, start in spring.
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
Athens is the only Greek airport with scheduled nonstops to the United States, and the choice swells in summer, when Delta, United and American all add flights for the tourist season. Emirates also links Athens with Newark throughout the year. From Thessaloniki, Heraklion, Rhodes or Corfu the usual pattern is a domestic hop to Athens or a connection through Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich or Istanbul.
Best time to go
Greek schools close in mid-June and stay shut until around the second week of September, so family trips cluster in exactly the months when American prices and temperatures peak. If you can, go in the first half of September: Greek children are still off, their American counterparts are back in class, and the parks and cities are far easier.
Orthodox Easter often falls a week or more after the Western date, which works well for travel. The American spring-break crowds of March have gone, hotel rates in New York and Washington are moderate, and Greek communities from Astoria to Chicago hold their own midnight services, so you need not miss the Anastasi.
Leaving Greece in August means swapping one heat for another, and the American version is more humid across the East and South. Florida and the Gulf Coast are also in hurricane season from June to November. Autumn, around the 28 October holiday, is drier and cooler, with New England in colour, and winter visitors should pack for cold well below anything Athens sees.
Athens is seven hours ahead of New York and ten ahead of Los Angeles. Westbound that makes for a long first day, since flights leaving around midday arrive in the mid-afternoon after ten or eleven hours in the air.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Greece — we check for every one of them before submitting.
Greek names can be romanised several ways, and many people use a version on bank cards or diplomas that differs from the official transliteration in the passport. The ESTA must copy the passport. Giorgos, Yiorgos and Georgios are three different names to a database.
Seafarers, marine engineers and construction staff may have been in Libyan, Iraqi, Yemeni or Sudanese territory years ago and forgotten the dates. Presence there on or after 1 March 2011 has to be declared and normally means a visa is required. Check your seaman's book or old passports before answering.
Because Greek surnames change ending with gender, a mother, father and daughter can have slightly different spellings across their passports. Copying one parent's surname into every application is a common slip. Each form must reflect the individual passport, ending included.
Booklets issued before September 2022 are reaching expiry now. An authorisation granted on one of them lasts only as long as the booklet, and the ten-year replacement will need its own. Renew first if your trip is not imminent.
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
The embassy stands on Vasilissis Sofias Avenue in central Athens, and there is a consulate general in Thessaloniki. ESTA applicants have no reason to contact either, as nothing about the process involves an appointment or an interview. Visa cases, including those arising from the travel-history rules, are handled through the embassy's consular section.
FAQs
The questions Greek passport holders ask most often about travelling to the United States.
No, Greek citizens do not need a visa for stays of up to 90 days, but they must have an approved ESTA before travelling. Greece has been part of the Visa Waiver Program since 2010. The authorisation is suitable for tourism, family visits, business, medical treatment and transit only.
Use the Latin-character version in the machine-readable zone, the two lines of capitals at the foot of the passport's photo page. Ignore any alternative shown after OR, and ignore the spelling on your cards or degree certificates if it differs.
No. Greek identity cards, including the newer biometric ones, are not accepted for entry to the United States. A biometric passport is required, and the ESTA is linked to it electronically.
If you were present in Libya on or after 1 March 2011, you are generally not eligible for the Visa Waiver Program and should apply for a visa instead. The same applies to Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Somalia and Yemen, and to Cuba from 12 January 2021.
Normally two years from approval. It ends sooner if the passport expires first, which is common with the older five-year passports and with the three-year passports issued to children under 14.
A maximum of 90 days per visit, and the period cannot be extended. Greeks spending a summer with relatives should count carefully, because a side trip to Canada or Mexico does not restart the allowance.
Yes, each child needs one, including babies. Use the surname exactly as it appears on the child's own passport, which for a daughter may end differently from her father's.
At least 72 hours before departure, according to CBP, and preferably when you book. If your passport needs renewing beforehand, allow extra weeks in the busy pre-summer period, since the application cannot be made until the new passport number exists.
Your nationality is already set to Greece. 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.
