WASHINGTON — Summer’s winding down and that might have you thinking about your fall or even 2024 travel plans. Following the announcement that travelers to Europe will now need to add extra paperwork to their pre-trip plans, searches on the internet for travel requirement details have skyrocketed. So what do you need to know right now?
THE QUESTION:
Do you now need a visa to get to Europe?
THE SOURCES:
- Shay Harrington, VP, Leisure Sales and Partnerships at First in Service
- The European Union's ETIAS information dashboard
- The Department of State
THE ANSWER:
No. But new requirements for travel are set to begin in 2024.
WHAT WE FOUND:
The new requirements recently announced are not technically a visa, but that’s how you’ll hear a lot of people and even official sources refer to it, informally. Along with an updated passport you’ll need an ETIAS authorization to travel to Europe. The ETIAS, the "European Travel Information and Authorisation System," is an additional layer of border security.
“The European countries are very, very busy with travelers, especially from the US, and they want that safety and security,” said Shay Harrington, travel expert and agent at First in Service.
To be clear, you don’t actually need one of these yet, but the EU announced US passport holders (among others) traveling to any of these countries for any business or personal reasons will need ETIAS authorization, beginning in 2024:
Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
They will be good for 90 days, and allow for travel between any of the countries in the area of Europe known as the “Schengen Area.”
“We recommend you put your visa application in at least 30 days in advance because it should spit it out for you in about a few minutes, 10 minutes tops. But it could take a little bit longer,” said Harrington. “So it's just important to kind of keep that in the background, know that it's something you have to do in order to travel and have your details and information ready.”
Harrington says once you’ve put in your ID and travel info, the ETIAS will be digitally connected to your passport. It will cost 7 euros, or about 8 US dollars.
This part’s important: Once applications are open, they will only be only available via the official website. Don’t fall for any third-party sites offering to get you through the process.
“While these applications are processed very quickly normally, they may see something that is a little off and it could take a little bit longer, and you risk that by doing and using any other form of this application,” said Harrington.
While ETIAS forms aren’t available yet, if you know you have travel plans outside the country anytime soon and your passport is up for renewal, don’t delay: a backlog of processing is still causing issues for travelers.