Visa Waiver Passport Requirements

With the Visa Waiver Program’s (VWP) recent expansion and the upcoming mandatory use of the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) after January 12, 2009, we wanted to review the passport requirements for visa-free travel to the U.S. under VWP.

Passports Issued on or After October 26, 2006.  Any passport issued by a VWP country on or after October 26, 2006, must be an e-Passport which has an integrated computer chip capable of storing biographic information from the passport’s information page as well as certain biometric information.

Passports Issued between October 26, 2005 and October 25, 2006.  Older passports, issued between October 26, 2005, and October 25, 2006, can still travel to the U.S. without a visa, providing your passport has a digital photograph printed on the data page.

Passports Issued before October 26, 2005.  Passports issued before October 26, 2005, can still travel to the U.S. without a visa under VWP if the passport has a machine-readable zone.

Visa Required for All Other Passports.  If the VWP passport does not have any of the requirements described above, the VWP country national would have to obtain a U.S. visa in order to enter the U.S.