This is for an electronic travel authorization, which the US, Australia and Canada already require of all visitors. It's simple and takes minutes online, hardly a 'visa.'
Except when it doesn't. If your visa waiver is refused then you have to visit the US embassy to get a "traditional" visa, and sometimes that's not even possible to get.
- The title of the article is "US citizens will need to register to visit parts of Europe starting in 2021"
- The article includes the quote "The [US State Department] official added that the "ETIAS authorization is not a visa.""
Where did the "visa" in the HN title come from?
Then when they tried to get an authorization, they got rejected and told their EU passport is worthless and to get a Canadian/US one).
It’s a lot messier for the EU because of jus sanguine. Toooons of EU citizens that haven’t/won’t bother to get the passport.
I guess I’ll have to do it and waste the embassy’s time in a language I know 20 words of.
Canada does not require any visa for Americans tourists. All I need to do is bring a passport (or passport card if driving in)
Lots of dual citizens.
If Canada required Canadian passports from dual US/Canada nationals, an American in that situation could lose their security clearance.
(Usually the US is okay with being a dual citizen if you haven’t taken advantage of it in any way).
(There are a few ferries between British Columbia and Washington state that are also treated as a land border.)
For me, arriving at the US by land was by far a worse experience than arriving by air, as my passport was taken until they had time to process me, waiting in a room i was not allowed to leave, then filling out an additional form and paying additionally. Contrasted to arriving by air "do you have esta? -> yes -> have fun" at the immigration.
Some other countries don’t have advance electronic approval, but do distinguish between visa-on-arrival and visa-free transit, and it would be advisable to follow each country’s terminology. Australia does refer to its ETA and eVisitor programs as a “visa” in official literature.
Otherwise you could end up confused and say the wrong thing. For example if you arrive at the border and the officer asks “Do you have a visa?” and you answer “Yes” but only have a travel authorization, you have suddenly made a false statement and could be in trouble.
A hat and a helmet both protect your head, but you wouldn't call them by the same name.
>A visa (from the Latin charta visa, meaning "paper that has been seen")[1] is a conditional authorization granted by a country to a foreigner, allowing them to enter, remain within, or to leave that country.
Why does it matter to you if it goes into the passport or not? If I recall correctly my F1 Visa for the US didn't go into my passport either, but was a separate document.
ESTA roughly as annoying as booking a plane ticket if you don't already have an account with a pre-filled profile, and usually granted instantly.
A visa request, even if done online, can easily cost you many hours filling out forms, scanning documents, etc., and often takes weeks to process.
It's also much rarer for an ESTA to be denied than for a visa to be denied.
There's a reason why passportindex.org distinguishes mostly between "real" visa requirements, and mostly pro-forma stuff like ESTA, visa-on-arrival etc.
They're all visas.