Italy entered the Visa Waiver Program in 1989. With an approved ESTA on an electronic passaporto, Italian citizens can spend up to 90 days in the United States visiting family, touring, or on business.
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
Italy and the United States are bound by family as much as by tourism. Millions of Americans claim Italian descent, and behind many trips from Naples, Palermo or Bari is a branch of the family in New Jersey, Boston or Chicago. Alongside those visits run the classics of the viaggio in America: New York at Christmas, the coast-to-coast drive, the parks of the West, Miami in winter and honeymoons that take in all of them.
Italians have travelled visa-free since 1989, when the country was added to the Visa Waiver Program. In place of a visa stands the ESTA, an online authorisation granted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and linked electronically to the passaporto. ITA Airways, Delta, American and United look it up at Fiumicino and Malpensa when you check in, and boarding depends on its being there.
Italian documents and travel habits have their own particular catches. Surnames with apostrophes and accents, short-lived passports for children, citizens born and raised abroad, old jobs in Libya and a strong national fondness for Cuban beaches account for most of the applications that stall. Knowing about them before you start saves a great deal of anxiety at the airport.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes, an Italian citizen needs an ESTA for any trip to the United States made without a visa. It is checked on flights from Rome and Milan, on Mediterranean cruise lines repositioning ships to Miami or New York, and at the land border for Italians touring Canada who drive down to Niagara Falls on the American side or on to Boston. The land-border requirement dates from 2022.
A carta d'identità, even the electronic CIE, is not a document for American travel. You need a passaporto elettronico with the chip symbol on the cover. The passaporto temporaneo that a questura can issue in urgent cases is not electronic, and so its holder cannot use the waiver and must seek a visa from a consulate.
Italy passes citizenship down by descent, and many Italian passport holders were born in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela or elsewhere. They qualify for an ESTA on the Italian passport like anyone else, and holding a South American nationality as well does not affect that. The exclusion applies only where the other nationality is Cuban, Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Sudanese or North Korean, which is relevant to Italo-Cubans in particular.
Travel to certain countries also removes eligibility. For Italians, Libya is the one that stands out: the two countries have deep commercial links, and technicians and energy-sector staff who have been there on or after 1 March 2011 are generally barred from the waiver. So are those who have been in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan or North Korea in that period, with a limited exception for military and diplomatic missions.
Stay & validity
An Italian citizen's ESTA is usually valid for two years and for multiple journeys, each limited to 90 days. Someone who visits relatives in the States every summer and returns for a wedding or a christening in between can rely on the same authorisation until it or the passport expires.
The passport term is short for the youngest Italians. Adults receive a passaporto valid for ten years, but children under three are given one lasting three years and those aged three to seventeen one lasting five. Because the ESTA cannot outlive the passport, a toddler's authorisation may have a much shorter life than the parents', and families should check each one separately.
Long stays with relatives are a feature of Italian travel to America, and they need planning. Grandparents who go over to help with a new baby often want to remain for several months. The limit is 90 days, including any days spent on a side trip to Canada, Mexico or the nearby Caribbean, and a longer visit calls for a B-2 visa.
There is no procedure for staying on. A waiver visit cannot be extended and cannot be turned into residence, study or work status from inside the country, whatever a relative's lawyer may suggest, so the correct visa has to be in place before leaving Italy.
Pricing
Live fees for Italian passport holders, shown all-in — the US government charge and our service fee together, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Italy
Requirements
Everything Italian 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 recommends that the application is made at least 72 hours before departure. Italian applicants often have an answer far sooner, but a number are held as pending for additional checks, and that status can last up to the full three days.
Passport timing matters more in Italy than in most countries, because appointments at the questura have at times been hard to obtain and delivery can take weeks. Anyone whose passport needs renewing should deal with that months before an American trip, and only then request the ESTA on the new number.
August is the month to watch. Much of Italy closes around Ferragosto and travels at once, so applications bunch in late July. The Christmas to Epiphany fortnight and the Easter break produce smaller peaks. In each case a request made when the flights are booked, not during the final week, avoids the risk of a pending result on the eve of departure.
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
Rome Fiumicino and Milan Malpensa carry almost all nonstop traffic between Italy and the United States, with ITA Airways and the three big American carriers on the main routes. In summer, seasonal flights also link Venice and Naples with the East Coast. Travellers from Sicily, Sardinia, Puglia and other regions typically connect in Rome or Milan, or through a northern European hub such as Frankfurt, Paris or Amsterdam.
Best time to go
Italian holidays cluster in August, and that is a demanding month for the United States. New York is hot and humid, Florida is in the middle of hurricane season and the national parks of the West are at peak crowding. It can still be done well, especially in the northern Rockies, New England and along the Pacific coast, but lodging should be reserved many months ahead.
The ponte dell'Immacolata in early December and the days before Christmas are when Italians fill Manhattan, drawn by the lights, the shop windows and the skating rinks. It is cold, often below freezing, and wonderfully atmospheric. Fares rise steeply for those dates, so the long weekend around 8 December rewards early booking.
For value and weather together, look at May, June and September. School in Italy runs until early June and restarts in mid-September, leaving a window at each end of the summer when American attractions are open but less crowded. Easter is another opportunity, though it may overlap with spring break in Florida and California.
New York is six hours behind Rome and Los Angeles nine. Clocks change on different weekends in the two countries in spring and autumn, briefly narrowing the gap to five hours. Flights from Fiumicino mostly leave in the morning and reach the East Coast in the early afternoon, so the first evening is the hardest to stay awake through.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Italy — we check for every one of them before submitting.
Names such as D'Amico, Dell'Orto and D'Alessandro appear in the machine-readable zone without the apostrophe, as DAMICO, DELLORTO and DALESSANDRO. The form should follow that version. Typing the apostrophe, or replacing it with a space, yields a surname that does not correspond to the passport's coded lines.
Italian women keep their own surname by law, and the passport is issued in it. Trouble starts when a flight has been booked for a couple under one family name, or when someone long resident abroad uses a married name on other documents. The ESTA and the ticket must both carry the surname printed in the passport.
Italy's ties with Libya mean a significant number of engineers, technicians and business people have spent time there since 2011. Presence in Libya on or after 1 March 2011 generally makes a traveller ineligible for the waiver. It has to be declared, and the practical consequence is a visa application.
Italians are among Cuba's most loyal European visitors, with direct charter flights to Havana and the cayos for many years. Having been there since 12 January 2021 normally rules out an ESTA. Travellers sometimes answer no because the trip was a simple villaggio holiday, and that inaccuracy creates a second problem.
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
Applying for an ESTA involves no visit to the embassy on Via Veneto or to any consulate, and Italian travellers who qualify will never need one. The missions in Rome, Milan, Florence and Naples handle visa applications for those who intend to work or study, who plan to stay beyond 90 days, or whose ESTA has been refused.
FAQs
The questions Italian passport holders ask most often about travelling to the United States.
No. Italian citizens can enter the United States without a visa for up to 90 days for tourism, business, transit or medical care, on condition that they hold an approved ESTA and an electronic passport. Work, study for credit and stays of more than 90 days all require a visa.
No. Neither the paper identity card nor the electronic CIE is accepted for entry to the United States. You must travel on a passaporto elettronico, and the ESTA is registered against its number. Children need a passport of their own as well.
Follow the machine-readable zone at the bottom of your passport's data page, where the apostrophe is simply removed. D'Angelo becomes DANGELO and Dall'Olio becomes DALLOLIO. Accented vowels lose their accent in the same way, so Niccolò is entered as NICCOLO.
Yes. Eligibility depends on citizenship of a Visa Waiver Program country, not on place of birth, so Italians by descent who hold an Italian electronic passport can apply in the usual way. State your country of birth and your Argentine nationality truthfully where the form asks.
Until the passport expires or two years have passed, whichever is sooner. Italian passports for children under three are valid for three years and those for older minors for five, so a young child's authorisation can end well before the usual two years are up.
No. The maximum on each visit is 90 days and it cannot be extended once they have arrived. Italian parents or grandparents planning to stay longer should apply for a B-2 visitor visa at the embassy in Rome or a consulate general before travelling.
Yes. Anyone who has been present in Libya on or after 1 March 2011 is generally not eligible for the Visa Waiver Program, unless the stay was on military or diplomatic service for a member country. A contract for a private company does not qualify, so you would need a visa.
As soon as the flights are confirmed, and no later than 72 hours before leaving. Late July is the busiest time of year for Italian applications, and a request that goes to pending can take days to resolve. Check first that every passport in the family is valid for the trip.
Your nationality is already set to Italy. 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.
