Luxembourg has been in the Visa Waiver Program since 1991, so its citizens visit the United States with an ESTA instead of a visa. With a five-year passport and no nonstop flights from Findel, timing matters more here.
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
Luxembourg is small, wealthy and exceptionally mobile. Its residents take more foreign trips per head than almost anyone in Europe, and the United States features heavily: fund managers and lawyers flying to New York, families heading for Florida or California, and people tracing relatives among the descendants of the Luxembourgers who settled in Wisconsin, Minnesota and around Chicago in the nineteenth century.
The Grand Duchy has belonged to the Visa Waiver Program since 1991. A Luxembourg passport holder can visit the United States without a visa provided an ESTA has been approved beforehand. Because there are no passenger flights from Findel to America, the check is made by whichever airline carries you on the first leg, usually at the Luxair or Lufthansa desk before you have even left the country.
Two features set Luxembourg apart from its neighbours on this subject. Its passports are valid for only five years, which regularly cuts an ESTA short. And close to half the population holds a foreign passport, while many citizens hold two, so the first question in a Luxembourg household is often not whether an ESTA is needed but which passport each person should apply with.
At a glance
Eligibility
Luxembourg citizens do need an ESTA to enter the United States under the visa waiver, for holidays, business, medical visits and transit alike. The requirement covers air and sea arrivals and land crossings from Canada and Mexico. It applies even if you are only changing planes at Newark or Miami on your way somewhere else.
Eligibility follows the passport and not the place of residence. A Portuguese, French, Belgian, German or Italian national living in Esch or Differdange applies on that national passport, under that country's membership of the programme, and a Luxembourg residence card adds nothing. Residents from countries outside the programme need a visa however long they have lived in the Grand Duchy.
Dual citizenship has been permitted in Luxembourg since 2009, and tens of thousands of people have acquired the nationality since then, many through ancestry. If you hold two eligible passports, choose one and use it consistently for the application, the ticket and the journey. If your second nationality is Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Sudanese, North Korean or Cuban, the programme is closed to you and a visa is the route.
The Luxembourg identity card, sufficient for a weekend in Trier or Metz, is not accepted for travel to the United States. Children need passports and authorisations of their own. And the waiver is for visits only: a traineeship at a New York bank, a paid assignment or an academic term for credit each call for a visa.
Stay & validity
Luxembourg issues passports for five years to everyone aged four and over, and for two years to younger children. Since an ESTA expires with the passport, the full two years is available only during the first three years of a passport's life. Apply in year five and you may get a few months.
That makes sequencing important. If your passport has less than a year left and you expect to travel to the States more than once, renew through your commune or the Bureau des passeports first, then apply. Done the other way round, the authorisation is lost on the day the new passport is issued, since it cannot be moved to a new number.
While valid, the ESTA permits as many entries as you wish, with a ceiling of 90 days on each. Days spent in Canada, Mexico or the nearby Caribbean in the course of a trip are counted in that total. There is no procedure for extending a visa-waiver stay, so anyone from Luxembourg who wants a longer sabbatical should apply for a visitor visa in advance.
Pricing
Live fees for Luxembourg passport holders, shown all-in — the US government charge and our service fee together, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Luxembourg
Requirements
Everything Luxembourg 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.
Applications from Luxembourg are processed the same way as any other and usually return quickly, but CBP's recommendation of at least 72 hours stands. A status of pending means exactly that, and no office in Luxembourg, the embassy included, can intervene in the queue.
Because every journey from Luxembourg involves a connection, there is an extra reason to be early. The first airline on your itinerary, often on a dawn feeder to Frankfurt, Munich, Amsterdam or London, will refuse to check you through if no authorisation is found. Discovering the problem at Findel before sunrise leaves no time to fix it.
Plan around the Luxembourg calendar. The long summer holiday from mid-July to mid-September, the Pentecost week and the days surrounding National Day on 23 June are when most long-haul trips are taken. Have the ESTA approved before you pay the balance on a package or commit to a non-refundable fare.
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
There are no nonstop passenger flights between Luxembourg and the United States; Findel's long-haul traffic is Cargolux freight. Travellers connect through a European hub reached by a short flight, or go overland to a larger airport. The TGV reaches Paris in a little over two hours, and Frankfurt and Brussels are each around two and a half hours away by road.
Best time to go
Luxembourg's school year ends in mid-July, later than in most of Europe, and resumes in mid-September. The late finish is a disadvantage for prices in July and August but a real advantage in early September, when Luxembourg families are still free to travel and American schools have gone back. The national parks, Florida's theme parks and New York hotels are all quieter in those two weeks.
The Pentecost holiday, a full week in late May or early June, is the other strong option. Days are long, the East Coast is warm without being sticky, and California's coast road is clear of summer traffic. It falls just before the American school holidays begin, which keeps queues short.
Winter trips divide into two types. New York in December is a tradition for many, cold and bright and busy with Christmas markets that will look familiar to anyone who knows the ones in the Ville Haute. Florida from January to March offers reliable warmth when the Moselle valley is grey, though March brings American spring-break crowds to the beaches.
The time difference from Luxembourg to the East Coast is six hours, and nine to the Pacific. With a connection added, door-to-door travel to New York takes most of a day, so the first evening is best kept free. If your first American airport is only a transfer point, remember that immigration and baggage reclaim happen there, and book a connection of two to three hours.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from Luxembourg — we check for every one of them before submitting.
Luxembourg passports expire after five years, and travellers used to hearing that an ESTA lasts two years are surprised when theirs ends after seven months. The authorisation stops with the passport. If the passport is in its final year, renew it before applying so that the new ESTA runs its full term.
Many Luxembourg citizens also carry a Portuguese, French, Italian or Belgian passport. An ESTA approved on one is not recognised on the other. Decide which passport you will travel with, check that it has the longest remaining validity, and use it for the application, the booking and both border crossings.
The Visa Waiver Program looks at citizenship only. A long-term resident of Luxembourg with, say, a Cape Verdean, Serbian or Brazilian passport is not covered by Luxembourg's membership and needs a visa from the embassy. A residence permit, however permanent, cannot be entered on the ESTA form in place of a qualifying passport.
With no direct service, the first check happens on a short European hop where staff are less used to American formalities and have less time. If the authorisation is missing or attached to an old passport number, you will not be issued the onward boarding pass, and the long-haul flight leaves without you.
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 American embassy on Boulevard Emmanuel Servais is the only US mission in the Grand Duchy. It plays no role in an ESTA, which is requested online without an appointment or an interview. Its consular section deals with visitor, work and student visas, and is where residents who do not qualify for the waiver, or whose ESTA has been refused, must apply.
FAQs
The questions Luxembourg passport holders ask most often about travelling to the United States.
No, Luxembourg citizens do not need a visa for visits of up to 90 days, but they must have an approved ESTA before setting off. Luxembourg has been a Visa Waiver Program country since 1991. The authorisation is applied for online and verified by the first airline on your itinerary.
No. Luxembourg Airport has no nonstop passenger service to the United States. Most travellers connect in Frankfurt, Munich, Amsterdam, London or Zurich, or take the TGV to Paris and fly from Charles de Gaulle. Expect a total journey of around eleven to twelve hours to New York.
In most cases, yes. An ESTA ends when the passport it is linked to expires and cannot be transferred to a new one. If you renew first, the new five-year passport gives you a full two-year ESTA. If you apply now, the authorisation will last only until next year's expiry date.
Yes, as a Portuguese citizen. Portugal is itself a Visa Waiver Program country, so you apply with your Portuguese passport and select Portugal as your country of citizenship. Your Luxembourg address goes in the residence section. Where you live does not change which rules apply.
Either will do, since both countries are in the programme, but use the same one throughout. Apply with the passport that has more validity left, declare the other citizenship on the form, book the flight to match and present that passport at check-in and on arrival.
No. The identity card is accepted within Europe only. To use the Visa Waiver Program you need a biometric Luxembourg passport, and the ESTA is issued against its number. Order the passport through your commune and wait for it to arrive before submitting the application.
A maximum of 90 days on each visit, for tourism, business, medical treatment or transit. The stay cannot be extended from inside the country. The ESTA allows repeat visits for up to two years, or until the five-year passport runs out if that is earlier.
Yes. Infants need their own ESTA and their own passport, whatever the routing. Bear in mind that Luxembourg passports for children under four are valid for just two years, so the baby's authorisation may expire sooner than yours. Lufthansa will check all the family's authorisations at the first departure.
Your nationality is already set to Luxembourg. 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.
