Passports and the USA

gt568

Hi,

The wife and myself are looking at visiting the states in August and I've got a couple of passport queries. What are the current regs regarding passports and the visa waiver programme? My passport expires in Apr 08 so is quite old, I seem to recall somewhere about everybody having to have boimetric passports to get in these days. Does this mean I need a visa or am I worrying about nothing. MTIA.

dixie_dean_2

Provided your passport was issued in this country and you have no criminal convictions or are a Liverpool fan you're fine.

moonrakerz

All the info is here.

http://www.airfares.co.uk/VisaHealth/US_Visa_Waiver_Scheme_Machine_Readable_Passports.asp

monkeyspanner

You need a machine readable passport full british passport.

floyd

You can tell if its machine-readable by looking on the photo page. At the bottom there will be a few rows of letters and numbers at the bottom. As long as you have one of those and it is valid for at least 6 months then you can fill in a visa waiver form (green) on the plane which the staff will hand out.



If its not machine readable then you need a Visa

paulinespens

floyd wrote: »

You can tell if its machine-readable by looking on the photo page. At the bottom there will be a few rows of letters and numbers at the bottom. As long as you have one of those and it is valid for at least 6 months then you can fill in a visa waiver form (green) on the plane which the staff will hand out.



If its not machine readable then you need a Visa

Its going to be alot easier to get a new passport then get a visa. Then you can travel on the Visa Waiver Programme.

BornSloppy

dixie_dean wrote: »

Provided your passport was issued in this country and you have no criminal convictions or are a Liverpool fan you're fine.

I'm FROM Liverpool..hope that doesn't count?! Was thinking of going on New york shopping trip at christmas!

Voyager2002

floyd wrote: »

You can tell if its machine-readable by looking on the photo page. At the bottom there will be a few rows of letters and numbers at the bottom. As long as you have one of those and it is valid for at least 6 months then you can fill in a visa waiver form (green) on the plane which the staff will hand out.



If its not machine readable then you need a Visa

A common error is repeated here: for the USA, your passport does NOT need to be valid for six months, just for the whole of your trip.

Beautiful photo on that sample passport: was that you?

alanrowell

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Beautiful photo on that sample passport: was that you?

Given the standard of most passport photos, think of what she looks like in real life!!!

moonrakerz

floyd wrote: »

As long as you have one of those and it is valid for at least 6 months then you can fill in a visa waiver form (green) on the plane which the staff will hand out.

The 6 month red herring arrives again ! Below is a repeat of an earlier post of mine.

"According to Wilkepedia you need 6 months on your passport to visit the US (wrong again !). There is a link to a pdf document (purporting to support this) which leads you onto various other bits of info. Amongst all this there is an obscure agreement between the US and 27 (I think) other countries who:-

"have agreements with the United States whereby their passports are recognized as valid for return to the country concerned for a period of six months beyond the expiration date specified in the passport. The effect of these agreements is to extend the period of validity of the passport for six months beyond the expiration date appearing on the face of the document, for the purposes of INA 212(a)(7)(B)(i)(I)."
Whoever quoted this on Wilkepedia actually interpreted it the wrong way round, as I daresay have many others.

There you have it, your passport can actually be 6 months out of date, when you leave the US, rather than the other way round !"

floyd

Cheers for pointing that one out, just goes to show Wiki doesn't know everything

Not my passport unfortunately, mine is one of the typical horrendous ones that even your mother couldn't love!