Americans who gave up their US citizenship can no longer assume they will be waved through on ESTA for a visit home, according to immigration and tax practitioners cited in a Forbes column published November 10.
The column, by US international tax attorney Virginia La Torre Jeker, cites a November 10 report from IMI Daily describing a development confirmed by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at an October 23 liaison meeting with the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA): individuals who were born in the United States, or who currently or previously held US citizenship, may not be eligible to travel under the Visa Waiver Program using the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) — even if they hold a passport, such as a Swiss, German, British or Australian one, that would normally qualify.
Practitioners say the denials follow a pattern: applicants who answer truthfully that they once held US citizenship are increasingly being refused ESTA and directed instead to the standard B-1/B-2 visitor visa process, which requires an application, a fee, an interview appointment and a wait for issuance — a materially slower and costlier route than online pre-authorization. The reported denials appear to date back to a CBP system update in June 2026. Jeker notes there is no publicly announced CBP rule categorically barring former citizens from ESTA, and CBP’s official guidance still describes the system simply as a tool for determining Visa Waiver Program eligibility — leaving open whether this is a deliberate policy shift or an unannounced change in screening practice.
The issue reaches beyond people who formally renounced citizenship: it may also affect US-born individuals who later acquired another nationality, and in some reported cases, people who still hold US citizenship. For anyone who expatriated on the assumption that a Certificate of Loss of Nationality and settled tax obligations would be the end of their formal relationship with the US, the development raises a practical question that goes beyond travel convenience, toward the broader immigration consequences of giving up citizenship.
References
Forbes – Renounced U.S. Citizenship? Your Next Trip Home May Not Be ESTA Simple
