Three documents that you cannot forget when traveling to the United States are:
1. Passport
Your passport must be valid and remain so during your stay in the United States. It must be a British passport (or from another country belonging to the Visa Waiver Program). For example, if you are a Indian with a Indian passport, even if you have permanent residency in UK, you cannot travel with an ESTA visa and must go to the US Embassy in your country to apply for a B-2 tourist visa.
These are the 39 countries whose citizens can travel with an ESTA visa: Germany, Andorra, Australia, Austria, Brunei, Belgium, Chile, South Korea, Denmark, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Norway, New Zealand, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, San Marino, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, and Taiwan.
2. ESTA Authorization
The ESTA authorization is an online entry authorization to the United States issued by the Department of Homeland Security for citizens of the 38 previously mentioned countries. It allows you to visit the US without a visa.
The ESTA visa allows you to travel to the United States for a maximum of 90 days for tourism or business. It should not be used as a way to stay in the United States by repeatedly leaving and entering the country every 90 days, as this will result in entry being denied and the possibility of obtaining a new ESTA being almost certainly lost.
It is crucial to avoid lying when filling out an ESTA and committing errors when applying, as this usually results in the denial of the ESTA. If our ESTA visa is denied, we will not be able to re-apply for it and will have to apply for a B-2 tourist visa, which is more time-consuming and expensive and usually requires a personal interview.
3. Hotel reservation and return flight confirmation
This used to be essential for traveling to the United States, but today it is not as necessary. However, it is recommended to have everything printed. It is also recommended to scan these documents and send them to a personal email account for retrieval at any time. It is also advisable to carry a printed copy of the ESTA visa in case the authorities or the airline require it at any time.
It is convenient to know the hotel or the place where we will stay (even if we have not made the reservation yet) before applying for the ESTA visa, as this is information that will be asked for (contact point and stay). In any case, the ESTA form allows you to fill in the contact point and stay with UNKNOWN if we do not have it clear yet. Another option is to put the data of a hotel in the city where we will land.
Regarding the flight reservation, it is not so important to have it when applying for the ESTA visa, as no data concerning it is required.
Customs
When we fill out the ESTA application, we are not guaranteed entry into the US. We are only eligible to enter, meaning that we meet the necessary conditions to enter. By applying for this visa, we also waive the right to request a review or appeal the decision of the immigration officer if they do not let us in. Relax, this usually doesn’t happen!.
That’s why it’s so important to process the visa without errors, where all the information we provide is correct and corresponds to our passport and our real life. That’s why one of our extra services when we process a visa (which the US Government does not offer) is error correction before processing. If the ESTA visa is denied, we cannot request it again. Better to be safe.
Customs is the first thing the traveler must pass through in the first city they land in the United States. In the airports of large cities like New York, long queues can form. Immigration police usually ask about the reason for the visit, the duration of the stay, whether you have a return ticket, etc. It goes without saying that all this information we give must be consistent with the information we provided when filling out the ESTA.
