Visit the United States It’s about to become exorbitantly costly for some travelers.
The US State Department announced that a pilot visa bond program will be launched. This program will require business and tourist travelers from certain countries to post bonds of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 in addition to their visa fees. visa application process.
Officials published a notice Federal Register, on Tuesday August 5, announced the 12-month program trial. According to the notice the bonds will be applied to visitors coming from countries that have high rates of visa overstay or where the Department of Homeland Security has determined there are insufficient screening and vetting information for travelers. Official list of countries to be included has not yet been announced.
The notices state that the program trial will apply to all B1 visa and B2 visa applications from a list of countries in the future. B1 and B2 Visas can be used for either business or tourism. According to the notice, the B1 and B2 Visas were chosen for the pilot program because they will have their US admission period completed within the year-long pilot. “This allows for data collection throughout the entire process,” the notice states. Student visas and other visa types are not eligible for bonds under the pilot program.
The notice states that the amount of bond each visa applicant is required to post “depends on the applicant’s situation as determined by the consular officers but cannot be less than $5,000 unless waivers are granted.” Documents indicate that consular officials will generally be told to set the bond amount at $10,000.
Officials announce that the list will be published on the State Department’s website The bonds will be in effect by the end of August. Countries could be added and removed in a cyclical manner after the initial list has been published. According to DHS statistics, the notice claims that over 500,000 travelers may have overstayed their US Visas by 2023.
Travelers who comply with all the terms of their visas—including departing the US on time and not accepting unauthorized employment—will have their bonds refunded. Travelers who do not adhere to their visa requirements will forfeit the bond. Visa applicants receive an email from State Department at the address listed on their visa application. The email contains a link that allows them to deposit their bond amount using the US Treasury Pay.Gov system.
Visitors to the 42 countries As they don’t need a visa for stays under 90 days, those countries with whom the US has a Visa Waiver Agreement are automatically exempted from the Bond Program. The new bond payment will be applied to all B1 or B2 visas issued for the list of countries.
The Visa Bond Program is set to go into effect 15 days following its publication in the Federal Register. This would be on August 20, 2025. The initiative will allow travelers to only travel to and from specific countries when it launches. US airports The federal notice states that participating airports are those with the capacity to automatically confirm the departure of travelers from the US. The federal notice states that airports will be selected for the program based on “their capacity to confirm automatically” that travelers are leaving the US. This likely means hubs. facial recognition technology At the Customs and Immigration Checkpoint. The list will be released 15 days in advance of the launch and updated as needed.
Many federal officials, including the first Trump administration, have suggested visa bond policies. But past policies were always deemed too complex and cumbersome for a realistic implementation. According to the federal announcement, this pilot program aims to determine whether visa bonding is feasible on a continuous basis.
As the US plans to charge some travelers, it has also announced a bond program. $250 “visa integrity” fee. The fee is expected to be implemented by the end this year. Travelers who adhere to the terms of their visas could receive a refund.
