Israel joined the Visa Waiver Program in October 2023. Israeli citizens holding a biometric passport can now visit the United States for up to 90 days per trip with an approved ESTA, without a consular interview.
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
Until October 2023 a trip from Israel to the United States began with a visa interview, and for decades the queue outside the consular section was a familiar part of planning one. Israel's designation into the Visa Waiver Program changed that. Eligible Israelis now apply online for an Electronic System for Travel Authorization and, once approved, fly without a visa in the passport.
The demand was always there. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have close relatives in New York, New Jersey, Florida and California; the technology sector runs on constant traffic between Tel Aviv and the Bay Area, Boston and Austin; and the post-army trip and the family holiday to Orlando or the national parks are fixtures of Israeli life. Few countries of this size send so many visitors.
Because the arrangement is recent, misunderstandings are common. The waiver is tied to the biometric passport, it does not replace a visa for work or study, and it shuts out certain dual nationals. Each of those points affects a meaningful number of Israeli travellers, so it pays to check where you stand before assuming the old ten-year visa is a thing of the past.
At a glance
Eligibility
An Israeli citizen travelling on a biometric national passport needs an ESTA for short visits: tourism, seeing family, business meetings and conferences, medical treatment and transit. The authorisation is assessed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and held electronically. It is required for flights, for cruises, and for crossing by land from Canada or Mexico.
The passport is the first hurdle. Israel issued non-biometric passports for many years, and some remain in circulation; they cannot be used for the waiver. The same goes for the travel document in lieu of a national passport, the teudat ma'avar, which is not the national e-passport the programme requires. Holders of either apply for a visitor visa in the traditional way.
Many Israelis already hold an unexpired B-1/B-2 visa from the years before the change. A valid visa of that kind can still be used for the purposes it was issued for, and its holder is not travelling visa-free, so an ESTA is not needed on top of it. The question only arises once the visa has expired or the passport containing it has been replaced and you choose the waiver instead.
Dual nationality deserves careful thought. Citizens who also hold the nationality of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, North Korea or Cuba are excluded from the programme, and Israel is home to large communities with roots in the first three. Whether a person born in Tehran or Baghdad, or the child of such a parent, still holds that nationality is a legal question, and the form must be answered truthfully.
Stay & validity
An ESTA granted to an Israeli passport holder is generally valid for two years and for multiple entries, each of no more than 90 days. That is a different rhythm from the old visa, which commonly ran for ten years and could allow up to six months at a time. Travellers who were used to long summer stays with family need to adjust their planning accordingly.
The authorisation ends when the passport does. Israeli biometric passports are usually issued to adults for ten years, with shorter terms for children and in some first-issue cases, so check the date before applying. Replacing a passport, or changing the Latin spelling of a name on a new one, means the existing approval no longer applies and a fresh application is needed.
No extension is possible under the waiver, and no change to another status from inside the United States. Days spent on a side trip to Canada, Mexico or the nearby Caribbean are counted too. An Israeli who plans a winter in Florida with grandchildren, or several months of travel after military service, will often be better served by applying for a visitor visa at the outset.
Pricing
Live fees for Israeli passport holders, shown all-in — the US government charge and our service fee together, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Israel
Requirements
Everything Israeli 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.
Most applications from Israel are answered promptly, though some are held in a pending state for additional review, and the advice from U.S. Customs and Border Protection is to apply at least 72 hours before departure. In practice Israelis should allow longer, because an application that touches on dual nationality or an old visa refusal is more likely to need time.
The calendar matters. Flights fill for Passover in the spring, for the long school holiday in July and August, and for the autumn run of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. Schedules on Israeli routes have also changed at short notice in recent years, with foreign airlines suspending and restoring service, so it helps to have the authorisation settled early and one less thing to rearrange.
A refusal under the waiver is not the end of the road. It sends the traveller back to the visa route, with an application for a B-1/B-2 visa and an interview, most often at the Embassy Branch Office in Tel Aviv. Appointment waits can be considerable, which is why applicants who suspect they may not qualify should find out long before buying tickets.
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
Ben Gurion Airport has long-standing nonstop links with the East Coast and a smaller number of services to Florida and California. El Al is the mainstay, and American carriers serve the New York area. Many Israelis also connect through European hubs such as Frankfurt, Paris, London, Athens or Vienna, especially when direct flights are scarce or priced high.
Best time to go
Israeli school holidays in July and August coincide with the American summer, which makes it the default season for family trips and also the most expensive. Florida is hot and stormy then, in the middle of a hurricane season running from June to November, while the national parks of the West are at their best and their most crowded.
Passover is the other major travel period. It usually falls in late March or April, close to American spring break, when Orlando and Miami are busy but the weather across the South and California is very pleasant. Kosher-for-Passover hotel programmes operate in Florida, Arizona and elsewhere, and are typically reserved months in advance.
The autumn holidays offer the finest conditions of the year in the north-east. Sukkot in late September or October brings mild days in New York and foliage in New England, with fewer American families travelling because their schools are in session. It is worth steering clear of the week of Thanksgiving, the fourth Thursday of November, when domestic travel is at its heaviest.
New York is seven hours behind Israel for most of the year and California ten, with a brief wobble each spring and autumn because the two countries change their clocks on different dates. Overnight flights from Tel Aviv reach the East Coast in the early morning, when immigration halls are filling up. Observant travellers should also plan arrivals around the start of Shabbat, bearing in mind winter sunsets.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Israel — we check for every one of them before submitting.
Not every Israeli passport in a drawer is an e-passport. The older type without a chip is still accepted for some journeys but not for the waiver, and an application based on one will not result in boarding. If the cover lacks the chip symbol, renew at the Population and Immigration Authority before applying.
Israelis born in Iran, Iraq or Syria, and sometimes their children, may still be regarded as nationals by those states. The programme excludes dual nationals of those countries, and answering the citizenship questions as if the link did not exist creates a misstatement on the record. When in doubt, the visa route is the safer choice.
Selling at shopping-mall stands and similar casual jobs were a long-standing reason for young Israelis being refused visas. Nothing has changed under the waiver: employment is prohibited, and an officer at the airport who believes a visitor intends to work can refuse admission regardless of an approved ESTA.
Families accustomed to spending a whole summer and the autumn holidays in the United States on a B-2 visa sometimes book the same pattern on an ESTA. The maximum is now 90 days per visit with no extension, so longer stays still call for a visa.
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 is in Jerusalem, with a branch office on the seafront in Tel Aviv that handles much of the consular work. Under the waiver most Israeli visitors no longer need either. They remain the place to apply for student, work and exchange visas, and for visitor visas when a passport is not biometric or the ESTA route is closed.
FAQs
The questions Israeli passport holders ask most often about travelling to the United States.
No, Israeli citizens with a biometric passport no longer need a visa for visits of up to 90 days; since Israel joined the Visa Waiver Program in October 2023 they travel with an approved ESTA instead. A visa is still required for work, academic study, stays over 90 days, and for anyone who does not meet the waiver's conditions.
No. A valid visitor visa remains usable for the purposes it was issued for, and a traveller entering on a visa is not using the Visa Waiver Program. The ESTA is for Israelis travelling visa-free. Once the visa expires you can choose between applying for an ESTA or renewing the visa.
No. The programme accepts only biometric e-passports, identified by the chip symbol on the cover. If yours is the older type, or you hold a teudat ma'avar instead of a full passport, you would need either to obtain a biometric passport first or to apply for a visitor visa.
It depends on whether you are still a national of that country. Dual nationals of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba are not eligible for the Visa Waiver Program. If you may still hold that nationality, declare it accurately; the likely outcome is that you will need to apply for a B-1/B-2 visa.
Up to 90 days on each visit, compared with the longer periods that a visitor visa could allow. The authorisation itself normally lasts two years or until the passport expires, and covers repeated trips. Time in Canada, Mexico or adjacent Caribbean islands during a journey is counted as part of the 90 days.
Lebanon is not on the list of countries that affect eligibility. Syria is, for any presence since 1 March 2011, but there is a limited exception for people who were there on official military service for a Visa Waiver Program country. Answer the question as asked, and be prepared for the application to take longer.
No. Employment of any kind is outside what the waiver allows, including cash-in-hand and commission-based sales work. Travelling, visiting relatives and attending courses that carry no academic credit are fine. Anyone who wants to work legally needs an appropriate visa obtained through the embassy before travelling.
Use the spelling in your current biometric passport, as shown in the machine-readable lines beneath the photo. Hebrew names are often transliterated inconsistently from one document to the next. Enter the earlier version in the section for other names so that the two records can be connected.
Your nationality is already set to Israel. 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.
