us holiday

[Jackieann]

what i would realy like to know is do you realy need a visa to the us as a british citizen am going on holiday shortly

thanks

[SteveD]

PART 1

From the Foreign & Commonwealth Office web site:

Most British Citizen passport holders do not need a visa to visit the US on business, pleasure or in transit if they intend to stay in the US for less than 90 days and as long as they have a Machine Readable Passport. This is called the Visa Waiver Programme, and more information on this is available on the US Embassy website (details at the end of this section). The requirement to have a machine readable passport was introduced on 26 October 2004.

On 15 June, the US Department of Homeland Security announced a one-year extension of its Visa Waiver Programme (VWP) to 26 October 2006.

VWP countries, including the UK, are required to have a biometric passport issuing system in place by 26 October 2006, in order to continue as members of the Programme and benefit from visa free travel to the US after that date. Biometric passports will contain data about the holder�s face, and may also contain other unique personal information such as fingerprints and iris details.

The US also announced a requirement that all new passports issued on or after 26 October 2005, must contain a digital photo image to enable the holder to travel to the USA visa free.

[SteveD]

PART 2

This means that in order to travel under the VWP:
If you are holding a British Citizen passport, you can enter the US with a machine-readable passport, with or without a digital photo image (since 2003 all UK passports have been issued with digital photographs).
From 26 October 2006, all passports issued on or after that date will have to include biometric data. The UK is on course to meet this deadline.


Quite frankly, this completely puts me off going!

http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket% 2FXcelerate%2FShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029390590& amp;a=KCountryAdvice&aid=1013618385531 />
http://www.usembassy.org.uk/

[swills9]

I seem to get the impression that they really don't want anyone to visit them!