Visa-Free Travel to the USA for British Visitors

Information about requirements to enter the USA under the visa waiver programme follows, but we advise you to check the US Embassy website, www.usembassy.org.uk and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s latest travel advice for the USA, at www.fco.gov.uk for further details.

The United States Visa Waiver Programme (VWP) is available to British Citizens holding a valid machine-readable passport and travelling to the US on business, pleasure or transit for 90 days or less. Please find below further information about the type of passport required.

Machine-Readable Passports:

The US requires all British visitors, including children, to hold valid machine-readable passports from 26 October 2004.

After 26 October 2004, children who are currently on another person’s passport will need to obtain their own machine-readable passport for visa-free travel to the US.

British Citizen machine-readable passports will continue to be valid for visa-free travel to the US under the VWP until the passport expires.

All British passports currently issued in the UK or at British Missions overseas are machine-readable. However, some older passports may not be machine-readable. Before travelling to the US and seeking entry under the VWP, you should check that your current passport is machine-readable.

If it is not, the likelihood is that you will not qualify for entry to the USA under the VWP on that passport after 26 October 2004.

To help you carry out this check, a British passport is machine readable when there are two lines of letters, numbers and chevrons (>>>>>) printed across the long edge of the personal information page (the page with photograph and personal details). The machine-readable text will appear on a white strip on older passports and directly on the pink page of newer passports.

If there are no such lines of text on the personal information page, the passport is not machine-readable.

Biometric Passports:

US law originally required that travellers under the Visa Waiver Programme carrying passports issued after 26 October 2004 would need to hold biometric passports. The President has agreed a one-year deferral of this requirement, to October 2005.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and UK Passport Service (UKPS) welcome this decision, which will now enable British travellers with valid machine-readable passports issued before the new deadline to travel to the US under the Visa Waiver Programme up to, and beyond, October 2005.

The primary biometric identifier approved by the International Civil Aviation Organisation is a facial recognition biometric (which can be derived from a passport photograph).

The UKPS and FCO, in collaboration with international partners, (including the US), have a programme of work in place to implement this biometric in British passports from late 2005/early 2006.

 

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