Former US citizens who are also citizens of Visa Waiver Program (VWP) countries are being refused Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) approvals. They are being told to apply for visas instead, according to an October 27 practice alert from the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).
The alert says US Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations (CBP OFO) has confirmed that people born in the US, or who have or once held US citizenship, “may not be eligible for travel under the VWP through ESTA.”
The VWP lets citizens of 42 countries, including the UK, Germany, Australia, and Japan, visit the US for up to 90 days on a $40 online authorization rather than a consular visa.
Losing access to it does not bar entry; instead, it turns a ten-minute form into a B-1/B-2 visa application with an interview, a fee, and a wait that can run to months.
What is known, and what is not
The AILA alert followed an October 23 liaison meeting between the association’s CBP committee and CBP OFO, and it circulated within days through client notes from Withers (October 27), Greenberg Traurig, and Immigration Solutions LLC (both October 29).
Of the three, only the last explains the mechanics: the denials began after an ESTA system update in June 2026, AILA’s committee first suspected a technical error, and CBP replied that the change was intentional.
None of this has surfaced in any public government document. CBP’s own ESTA FAQ was last modified in January 2025 and says nothing about former citizens, while the State Department’s page on relinquishing nationality still tells former citizens they need a visa or must show they are “eligible for admission pursuant to the terms of the Visa Waiver Program.”
No Federal Register notice exists, and no legal basis or eligibility criteria have been stated.
Two readings of the same facts
George Ganey of Ganey Law Group in Washington, DC, reads it as a decision. His firm has “not yet seen this happen with our own clients, but we have certainly heard reports of it happening,” and given that CBP “recently clarified that individuals who have renounced U.S. citizenship may not be eligible for ESTA,” he concludes it “definitely appears to be a deliberate policy shift rather than a technical error.”
Mona Shah of Mona Shah & Associates in New York draws a different conclusion from the same absence of paperwork. “If it were a genuine policy decision it would have a document attached,” she argues; what exists instead is “an internal policy, reportedly dating from around June 2026, communicated through the ESTA customer service line, applied inconsistently.”
The practical result, in her words, is that “a policy that officially does not exist is being applied to people who cannot see it, and the only witnesses are the people it has happened to.”
Shah’s point is that the substance is old. The Reed Amendment, section 212(a)(10)(E) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), has made anyone found to have renounced to avoid US tax inadmissible since September 1996, and State’s guidance has long warned former citizens they may need a visa or be excluded.
“What changed is that a latent ineligibility that used to be discovered at a consulate window, occasionally, by a human being, is now being screened automatically by a database at the point of application,” says Shah.
That is worse than a published rule, she adds, because “a published rule can be challenged, and a helpdesk script cannot.”
Why the timing matters
Those affected are a growing group, though not evenly. The Treasury’s quarterly expatriation list carried 3,243 names in the first half of 2026, up 38.5% on the 2,342 published a year earlier. The third-quarter list, published October 30, fell to 1,331 from 1,781 in the second quarter. That leaves the nine-month total at 4,574, about 16% ahead of the same period in 2025.
Shah attributes the first-half surge to the State Department cutting the Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN) fee from $2,350 to $450 on April 13, “a backlog-clearing move with an unintended demand effect.”
The list is an imperfect gauge of that, however: it records when the IRS receives a name, often a year or more after the renunciation itself, so neither the spring rise nor the summer dip maps cleanly onto the fee change.
What to do before booking
Both lawyers advise applying for ESTA before booking any non-refundable travel. Ganey’s firm “will likely suggest they first request ESTA to see if it is granted,” though “the assumption will be that they will need to obtain a B-1/B-2 visa.”
Shah is blunter: “assume the ESTA you already hold is worth less than the email that approved it.”
If refused, Shah advises going straight to a B-1/B-2 application rather than reapplying, since “applying again, or applying from a different device, produces the same answer and burns months you needed for the consulate queue.” AILA’s alert suggests a parallel route: send the ESTA office a copy of the CLN and request a review.
Carry the CLN regardless. It is, in Shah’s words, “the only document that settles who you are when the database disagrees with you,” and anyone whose renunciation is pending without one “is in the worst position of the three categories.”
Expect, eventually, some form of the Reed Amendment question about tax motive, “a judgement about your state of mind made by an officer you will never meet, on a record you cannot read.”
Shah says Canadians are unaffected; they need neither ESTA nor a visa. Everyone else holding a visa-waiver passport “should stop assuming the same privilege.”
