What if I have dual citizenship and/or have a passport from more than one country?

Each Visa Waiver Program participant must have an approved travel authorization for the passport he or she plans to use before traveling to the United States. If the traveler receives a new passport, the traveler must submit a new application for a travel authorization to ESTA using the new passport. There is a processing fee for each new application submitted.

If you have dual citizenship and have registered with ESTA, you must use a VWP-eligible passport to board the plane when you leave your country of origin and when you arrive in the United States. If both countries of your citizenship are VWP-eligible, we strongly recommend that you choose the one you want to use for purposes of traveling to the United States and use that country’s passport for each trip. One person with two different ESTA permits creates confusion that will only delay your trip.

If you are a U.S. citizen as well as a citizen of a VWP country, you should not apply for an ESTA. One of the requirements of a naturalized U.S. citizen is to obtain and use a U.S. passport for your travels. While we know that in some cases naturalized U.S. citizens use their alternate country’s passport for travel, we expect you to use a U.S. passport to travel from another country to the United States at both points of travel – when leaving the other country and when entering the United States.