US to require up to $15K bond from visitors in new visa trial
- The U.S. will implement a 12-month pilot program requiring some visitors to pay a bond of up to $15,000 for a visa.
- The program targets visitors from countries with high visa overstay rates or where screening information is lacking.
- Citizens of Canada, Mexico, and Visa Waiver Program countries are exempt.
Some visitors to the U.S. may soon have to post a bond of up to $15,000 before they are granted a visa to visit the country.
In a notice posted to the Federal Register on Monday, the State Department said it would begin a 12-month trial of visa bonds starting in 15 days.
The requirement could apply to business and leisure visitors from countries the department identifies as "having high visa overstay rates, where screening and vetting information is deemed deficient," according to the notice.
The pilot program will require some visa applicants to post a bond of $5,000-$15,000 to obtain a business or tourist visa to the U.S., and will require applicants to travel via certain U.S. airports, which have not yet been announced.
Citizens of Canada, Mexico, and countries that are part of the Visa Waiver Program are exempt from the bond requirement.
For those who are required to post a bond, funds will be returned to travelers if they depart in accordance with the terms of their visas.
A similar pilot program was launched in November 2020 during the last months of President Donald Trump's first term in office, but it was not fully implemented due to the drop in global travel associated with the pandemic.
The State Department was unable to estimate the number of visa applicants who could be affected by the change. Many of the countries targeted by Trump's travel ban also have high rates of visa overstays, including Chad, Eritrea, Haiti, Myanmar and Yemen.
Paste BN reached out to the State Department for additional comment.
Numerous countries in Africa, including Burundi, Djibouti, and Togo, also had high overstay rates, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data from fiscal year 2023.
Contributing: Reuters
Zach Wichter is a travel reporter and writes the Cruising Altitude column for Paste BN. He is based in New York and you can reach him at zwichter@usatoday.com.