San Marino has been a Visa Waiver Program country since 1991. With a biometric Sammarinese passport and an approved ESTA, citizens of the Republic can visit the United States for up to 90 days, often to see family in Michigan or New York.
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
For a republic of some thirty-four thousand people perched on Monte Titano, San Marino has a remarkably large presence in America. Emigration in the last century created lasting Sammarinese communities around Detroit and in New York, and many households in Borgo Maggiore or Serravalle have an aunt, uncle or set of cousins on the other side.
Visiting them has been straightforward since 1991, when the Republic was brought into the Visa Waiver Program. A Sammarinese citizen needs no consular visa for a stay of up to 90 days. What is required is an ESTA, the online authorisation managed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and checked by the airline at an Italian airport.
Two things set Sammarinese applications apart. The first is that many citizens hold an Italian passport as well and must decide which to travel on. The second is that every journey starts in Italy, at Bologna, Rome or Milan, which affects timing and connections. Both are explained here.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes. Citizens of San Marino who wish to enter the United States without a visa must be in possession of an approved ESTA, whether the plan is a family reunion in the Detroit suburbs, a holiday in California or a connection at Miami to South America. Sea arrivals are included and, from 2022, so are overland entries from Canada and Mexico.
If you have both Sammarinese and Italian passports, apply with the one you will actually present at check-in and at the US border, and declare the other citizenship in the relevant question. The authorisation is tied to a single document, so switching passports between application and travel leaves you without a valid ESTA.
The waiver is unavailable to anyone who has visited Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen or North Korea since 1 March 2011, or Cuba since 12 January 2021. It is also closed to people holding the nationality of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, North Korea or Cuba in addition to that of San Marino. Such travellers apply for a visa instead.
Activities must stay within visitor limits. Staying with relatives, touring, attending meetings and seeing a doctor are fine. Working in a cousin's restaurant in Michigan is not, even informally, and neither is studying for credit or filming for San Marino RTV.
Stay & validity
The usual grant is two years with multiple entries, and you may remain for up to 90 days each time. As the ESTA cannot outlive the passport it is attached to, check the expiry date in your Sammarinese booklet first; if renewal is due within the next year or so, it makes sense to renew and then apply.
Grandparents who cross the ocean to spend time with family should be especially clear about the limit. Ninety days is the maximum, a trip over the bridge from Detroit to Windsor in Canada does not restart it, and the visit cannot be stretched once under way. Those wanting to stay from one season into the next need a B-2 visa.
You must also apply again if your circumstances change. A new passport, a change of name on marriage or the acquisition of another citizenship each make the existing authorisation unusable, as does any change in your answers to the eligibility questions.
Pricing
Live fees for Sammarinese passport holders, shown all-in — the US government charge and our service fee together, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as San Marino
Requirements
Everything Sammarinese 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.
Outcomes for Sammarinese applicants usually come through on the day. CBP asks travellers to apply at least 72 hours beforehand, a sensible buffer given that some applications are marked pending and released only after further review.
The practical deadline is earlier than the flight. With a train or a long drive to Fiumicino or Malpensa before the transatlantic departure, and sometimes an overnight stay near the airport, the approval should be in your inbox before you leave the Republic. Apply as soon as dates are agreed with the relatives you are visiting.
A refusal sends you to the visa process in Italy, since San Marino hosts no American embassy. The Republic lies within the district of the Consulate General in Florence, which is where a Sammarinese applicant would ordinarily look for a visitor visa interview.
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
San Marino has no commercial airport, and nearby Rimini handles little long-haul traffic. Bologna Marconi, around an hour and a half by road, is the closest sizeable airport and connects to America through Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, Amsterdam and London. For nonstop flights, Sammarinese travellers take the train from Rimini to Rome Fiumicino or Milan Malpensa.
Best time to go
Summer on the Adriatic is high season at home. Tourism on Monte Titano and along the Rimini coast peaks in July and August, and many Sammarinese are busiest precisely when schools are shut. Families who can get away find the American summer hot in the cities and crowded in the parks.
Schools in the Republic close from mid-June until the middle of September, a longer break than in most of Europe. The first half of September is therefore a valuable window: American children have returned to class, fares ease, and the national holiday on 3 September can be combined with leave.
Michigan and New York, where so many relatives live, have severe winters. Christmas visits are a cherished custom, yet snow regularly disrupts flights into Detroit, so allow slack in the itinerary. Spring and early autumn are gentler, and autumn colour around the Great Lakes is a bonus in October.
San Marino shares Italian time: six hours ahead of New York and Detroit, nine ahead of California. Calls to family work best in the Sammarinese evening, and after the westbound flight most visitors are ready for bed by what is early evening in Michigan.
Avoid these
Refusals are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the problems that come up most often on applications from San Marino — we check for every one of them before submitting.
Dual Sammarinese and Italian citizens sometimes enter whichever passport is nearest to hand and travel with the other. The airline looks up the number of the document you present. If it differs from the application, no authorisation is found.
A Sammarinese passport is issued by the Republic of San Marino, which appears as a separate entry in the form's country list. Choosing Italy because the airport, the phone network and the language are Italian produces an application that cannot match the document.
Surnames like D'Amico and given names like Niccolò need care. The machine-readable lines drop the apostrophe and the accent, and the application should do likewise instead of substituting a space or a different letter.
Relatives in America may run restaurants, shops or building firms and welcome an extra pair of hands. Pitching in counts as work, which the waiver does not permit, and saying so innocently to a border officer can result in being turned back.
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 United States has no mission in San Marino itself; the Consulate General in Florence looks after the Republic. Because ESTAs are decided online by CBP, Sammarinese citizens need Florence or Rome only for visa matters and consular help.
FAQs
The questions Sammarinese passport holders ask most often about travelling to the United States.
No. Sammarinese citizens can enter the United States without a visa for stays of up to 90 days, as San Marino has participated in the Visa Waiver Program since 1991. An approved ESTA is mandatory. Visas remain necessary for work, credited study and longer visits.
Either is acceptable, as both countries are in the programme, but you must travel on the one you applied with. Mention the other nationality where the form asks about additional citizenships.
San Marino is served by the American Consulate General in Florence, and the embassy is in Rome. This matters only if you need a visa. An ESTA does not involve an appointment at any consular office.
For New York, take the train to Rome or Milan for a nonstop flight, or connect from Bologna through a European hub. Detroit generally requires one change, for example in Amsterdam or Paris, or at an East Coast airport after clearing immigration.
Yes. San Marino is a Visa Waiver Program country in its own right and has its own entry. Select it for both citizenship and passport-issuing country when applying on a Sammarinese passport.
No. The limit is 90 days per visit and there is no extension. For a longer family stay you would need to apply for a B-2 visitor visa before leaving, which involves an interview in Italy.
Generally two years from approval, or until your passport expires if that is sooner. During that time you can travel repeatedly, which suits citizens who visit American relatives every year.
Yes. Every traveller, including an infant, must have an individual ESTA connected to their own passport. Complete a separate application for each child and double-check each passport number before submitting.
Your nationality is already set to San Marino. 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.
