It’s technically not a visa but an electronic travel authorization much like the US and Canada have.
I love Americans freaking out about being subjected to the same shit they force all others to go through.
Americans have no idea how border checks work. Remember that next time they share opinions about immigration.
I know how boarder checks work. And I know that the schengen area has the best border crossings.
I want more schengen. The US and Canada should make their own north american schengen area, it will cut down on so much unnecessary government expenditure.
Why not world wide shengen? Why shouldn’t all human beings have freedom of movement on the entire globe? Why do you have to ask permission before being able to move freely?
That would be ideal, but the different social securities make it economically impossible.
Because they haven’t paid taxes to run the services they want to consume.
Because we can’t all live in the same place and people shouldn’t be forcibly evicted from their homes by violent people.
Because it ruin the lives of people who don’t live on the absolutely lowest rung of quality of life.
Because we can’t all live in the same place
Actually we can: “Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, the entire world’s population could fit within the 500 square miles (1,300 square kilometers) of Los Angeles.”. I assume your other claims to be just as easily disproved, but cannot be bothered, people can use search engines themselves.
You can’t live your whole life literally standing shoulder to shoulder with people can you! How are you going to eat or sleep or work? You going to spend your life living like a penguin? Except it’s also billion penguins deep.
I don’t think you’ve started disproving anything yet. You’re a complete idiot.
The people complaining didn’t force this on us. They probably never knew about it. So I can understand their dismay over this.
Exactly - the title and the article is incorrect. Americans will still be afforded a visa-on-arrival for tourism and other approved short term stays. Additionally, the authorization is valid for three years and can be used for multiple stays within the EEA. I believe the UK is also implementing an ETA (edit, maybe I got the acronym right this time), but I think it is only valid for two years at a time.
In a way it’s silly, but it also reduces that chance of a disruption/entry denial at the entry point to the Area.
I think a key benefit here is that the pre-registration allows for faster processing at the border itself, cutting down on queues at the airport. Singapore runs a system where after preregistration you can just walk through an automated (though somewhat finicky) scanner. No queues after arrival, I basically stepped off the international flight and went straight to the city with barely a wait.
Because “including Spain, France and Greece” is a rather lacking description for 30 European countries:
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
Maybe they’re selected because they’re the most popular destinations? (Nor sure if that true, but it would make sense)
I feel bad for brevity in the presence of such criticism.
Im sorry, English is not my first language and don’t understand what you mean, could you explain me?
It’s okay, I’m a native English speaker and don’t understand what they’re saying.
The criticism is that most EU countries were omitted in the description. Having to list them, while complete, is the opposite of a short summary which most reporting aims for. Hence, the death of brevity. Criticizing the description as an omission is not only pedantic but ultimately makes the content worse.
Thos article is about the EU, not sure what Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein am Norway do in that list…
The Schengen area (which has common visa rules) is not the same as the EU. Those four countries are part of the Schengen agreement even though they are not in the EU. Conversely, Ireland is not included because although it is an EU member, it is not in the Schengen zone.
Sorry, I re-read the article and the original announcement by the EU travel authority. Neither makes mention of Schengen, which is what got me confused. The ETIAS site does explicitly list the Schengen countries along with the EU one. And not Ireland. They probably vetoed something and got excluded or something :D
EU countries do not have a single travel authority. 23 of the 27 EU members, four other large countries (Norway, Iceland, CH and Liechtenstein), and three other small countries (Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City) form the Schengen zone, whose travel rules are set by the EU. Three EU members - Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania - have not joined the Schengen system yet. One EU member - Ireland - has its own system and does not even plan to join. Instead, it has open borders with Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK and therefore outside the EU. Hope this helps.
Edit: Ireland cannot join Schengen unless the UK also joins (because they are legally required to have open borders with NI), and the UK has no interest in joining.
No. They’ll need to fill out a form online before they go. Europe is only requiring this because the US has forced similar bullshit on Europeans for years cos “terrorism”.
Even domestically, Americans hate this crap. No one likes the TSA. No one thinks they do a goddamned thing. It’s a massive invasion of privacy and a huge waste of money. And then we have this “Real ID” thing looming over us just to get on an airplane (again, for a domestic flight only).
You’d think we could unite against such a simple common enemy but apparently no one has the time. I guess politicians are worried about a sudden glut of unemployed TSA workers who’s only job skills are identifying the water bottle I forgot in my bag.
I never got this. What legal implications does stating that you’re not a terrorist have to enable persecution that they couldn’t enforce otherwise if you were actually a terrorist?
Like, if I were a terrorist, I doubt I’d have a huge problem with lying, so the whole thing always feels silly.
All the security theater around borders and flights needs to end. Open all boarders and make boarding a plane as simple as boarding a train. Also remove Karma from all of lemmy!
Also, Carthage must be destroyed!
Also, Carthage must be destroyed!
Same goes for rome!
Well we’ve been paying the ESTA electronic visa for years now every time we’ve wanted to visit the US. It’s fair game to require the same
Saw people freaking out on FB about this and how “I guess Europe doesn’t want tourism!” I don’t think $8 is going to be a barrier for entry on a $1000 flight…
Also people saying “Europe is charging Americans a fee to enter” when really they’re charging all non-Europeans. Typical American conservative self-victimization.
$8, don’t break the bank on this one folks.
The visa, which will cost about $8, is similar to the one that European tourists are required to get when traveling to the U.S., which costs $21.
That’s quite the difference.
It’s the same, but in the US you have to add the sales tax ($2) and then tip at least 110%. That brings the total to $21.
We love to overcharge on everything.
Hospitals have entered the chat
And I’m leaving the chat. I don’t have health insurance and the name “hospital” scares me.
Dayum, right??!! I have health insurance and work in ahl hospital and being hospitalized would destroy me financially.
This is the saddest fucking thing in the world. Why? Why does our government hate us this much? And we are we just a bunch of fucking pussies that we accept their beating all the time?
It’s a ridiculously sad reality that life saving and life preserving healthcare here is a “luxury” that can crush people’s future security.
I think a lot things are actually cheaper here than in many European countries. Including paychecks.
Is that $21 or $21 plus some random tax when you get to the till because fuck you?
Not the price of the visa, but the visa itself is similar to the ones that Europeans have had to get for a long time.
Yep. Better cancel all my plans. $21 is just way too much.
Presumably the devil is in the hassle entailed in acquiring it, rather than the monetary price. ie a cost of time and effort rather than money
Edit: also the entailed risk of not being approved, lack of transparency for any denials, etc
The risk of not being approved isn’t changing. The difference is that you can now find out before you buy a plane ticket and arrive in the EU.
Really? Looks like it’s just another approval hoop on top of the preexisting:
Arrival at border
Holding a valid ETIAS authorization does not mean you are guaranteed entry to a country. You will still have to meet the entry conditions of the border police. If you do not meet those requirements, you will be refused entry.
I mean, it’s possible you could be put on a terror list after getting your EITAS or you could murder someone on the way to the airport, so there’s never a guarantee that you’ll be allowed entry.
The visa, which will cost about $8, is similar to the one that European tourists are required to get when traveling to the U.S., which costs $21.
A very typical tit-for-tat.
So Europe is better value than US? $8 vs $21?
It’s 8 dollars to go to Europe. Americans get a better deal
- It’s not a visa but an ESTA. The visa is still granted on the fly on entry.
- The U.S. require the same the other way around, only the one granted by the EU is $10 cheaper and valid for 3 years instead of 2, so still U.S. citizens get an advantage
- EU citizens (like all other non-immigrants) have to, as far as I understand, disclose all their social media accounts when applying for a US visa
Sources for (3):
For VISA applications, https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Enhanced Vetting/CA - FAQs on Social Media Collection - 6-4-2019 (v.2).pdf should apply.
What if applicants participate in multiple online platforms? Are they being asked to list all of their handles, or only one?
Applicants must provide all identifiers used for all listed platforms.
I reached that document via https://www.ustraveldocs.com/de/de-gen-faq.asp#qlistgen21 (“Apply for a U.S. Visa in Germany”) and didn’t find any hint for exemptions for German citizens or E U citizens, so I assume it applies. (But I might still be wrong.)
Simply wow, this one is new to me. Guess I would never go to the US again.
Genuine question, how the heck do people who have a ton of social media accounts (some for a business, some for different topics, some they haven’t used in ages and maybe forgot about or lost the login for) actually list them all? If it were me, depending on the platforms required, I don’t even know where I’d begin. I very well might genuinely forget one I made 3 years ago, used for a month, and abandoned.
Does my pornhub account qualify as social media?
Depends on what you’re watching, I guess. Imo, gangbang should count as social media while masturbation probably doesn’t.
Pornhub comments are the most superior public square.
What if I don’t disclose my social media accounts? How are they going to know? It feels like to me like more surveillance they’re attempting to do.
⁸I don’t know what data they have at hand to work with, the following is mainly guesswork / how I would do it:
As far as I know, US authorities have quite liberal access to data stored by US companies (due to the cloud act even if the data isn’t originally stored in the US), especially in case the data is about non-citizens where some of their protection laws don’t hold. Most social media accounts are tied to phone numbers and/or email addresses.
If I was in their place, I’d have a relatively small database with all (or at least all non-US) phone numbers used for social media accounts, with the email addresses tied to those accounts. If a visa-applicant applies and I get their phone number (email address),
- I’d query a list of all accounts for that number (email) to get the associated emails (numbers).
- With those new emails (numbers) I’d repeat step 1
If you call the office or enter your number in your application, they might get some accounts. If you associated an email address to that account, they might get additional different accounts by that email. If those different accounts have a different phone number associated to them, they use that new phone number to get more accounts. rinse, repeat.
[Edit: This process would be completely automated, of course. Not manual.]
The consequence of being caught lying might be to get your visa revoked / denied once you are already in the US at the airport, which would be highly inconvenient. Or, if they get suspicious, find something else, and get annoyed, maybe it could even be punished? I don’t know.
You could maintain a separate phone with a separate phone number and separate email addresses for accounts you want to keep secret. Or maybe get a fresh phone number / email address just for the trip. But that’s quite a bit of effort to maintain consistently.
I already use separate identifiers for personal and government documentation. Other people probably also have multiple numbers and emails too, it’s not like they’re going to check. It feels like a massive waste of resources.
I never had to say my social media,but I havent been in US in 2 years
Wait, this wasnt the case yet?!
That’s what I was thinking. I never knew that we didn’t need a visa. Lol
We do need one, but Americans, as well as many other friendly countries, have what is called “Visa on Arrival” which means that you are automatically afforded a Tourist visa just for the asking and you can get it when you arrive at the country. It’s easy for Americans, who hold one of the strongest passports in the world, to forget that that visa process for many people can be a long and expensive one, even for something as seemingly mundane as tourism.
This basically adds a “pre-authorization” step once every 3 years to make sure you’re not an axe murderer or fall into any other ne’er-do-well category so they don’t have to watch you pitch a fit at immigration when you get denied entry.
Edit: I’ll add that I pay $100 every five years (Global Entry) so that I can get back into the US on my return flight with as little friction as possible.
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I looked it up and I think we dropped to 9th this year, 8th last, but then Japan dropped by 4 putting Singapore in the top slot all by itself. I was chatting with a Senegalese poster on reddit a while back and the hoops he would have to jump through to enter the EU as a tourist are crazy, and it takes months to accomplish. I get the reasons for visas, but three’s a part of me that is baffled at how humans drew imaginary lines on dirt and then spend a non-trivial fraction of our waking time making sure people don’t go on the wrong side of them.
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Yeah, it’s kind of a pissing contest in the top ten. I saw another list with us one below Canada and I assumed it was probably our (now useless, decades long) tiff with Cuba that put them ahead. Several of the places on my bucket list are on the difficult list for USA, but I also don’t really feel safe enough to travel there, nor do I expect them to become (politically) friendly in my traveling lifetime. It’s okay, though - I probably don’t have enough money to see everywhere I’d like to go anyway.
Nice, my country is on the 5th place/rank/whatever. I expected top 20 or maybe top 10, but top 5 is definitely great.
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Global entry means not waiting in that line at all. It’s fucking magical. I’ll definitely renew mine. Basically you just breeze through all this shit like it’s the 90s again.
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We ended up having to cancel a Christmas trip to Portugal because apparently it takes more than 3.5m to get a Schengen visa with a Chinese passport that time of year. Not even with the $500 VFS Global line jumping fee.
Same. I keep seeing this posted like it’s some.huge thing but I’m just like “OH NO! Things are now like I thought they already were, only cheaper than I would have assumed.”
*Everyone from a visa free country will need an electronic authorization, not just US-Americans
Yeah, that scratches the inflated image of the US citizens. But why…idk
I’m guessing because of migration. More USA citizens want to leave the US and overstay in the EU. This way its a bit more tedious and easier to track.
It’s just part of a larger expansion of a program that simply happens to include Americans. I really don’t think they care about us that much; we’re not that special.
Seems like it’s more so covering the costs of doing automated background checks or something like that. Like making sure you aren’t on any bad lists so they can prevent you from arriving instead of having to deal with you when you’re already there.
It’s not technically a visa, Americans are still granted that upon arrival it seems.
No, it’s a diplomatic tit-for-tat. Even though the EU and US have visa-free travel, the US imposed the ESTA on travelers from the EU (and elsewhere I’m assuming) some years ago. It’s a not a traditional visa, it’s a “Travel Authorization.” And it costs money to apply for one. It’s not expensive, nor hard to get, and it lasts a few years, I think, but from the EU perspective, why should their citizens have to pay for an ESTA to the US, while US citizens can travel to the EU for free? So the EU is finally retaliating by leveling the playing field and imposing an ESTA on American travelers.
While I know some people who have emigrated from the US, most people just whine without any backbone
Can confirm, am noodle-boi
TIL: Americans didn’t need a visa before
Still don’t. This isn’t a VISA.
I’m confused, didn’t Americans need a VISA to visit European countries? They just jump into a plain and fly here with their passport and no questions asked?
If it’s like this I had no idea…
Yep. It’s still the case, the title really isn’t right.
Americans still get an automatic visa on arrival, they just have to fill out a form online for $8 first
Europeans do much the same coming to the US with ESTA
I bet they will still give you the visa if you don’t fill out the form. They might make you fill it out in the airport on your phone or something though.
The airline might require this travel authorization at check-in, though.
Ah so it’s the same already as here. I know I’d have to pay to fill a form online and pay a sum to go to the US. The title is a bit misleading.
“A bit” is an understatement, that title is complete clickbait garbage
Americans can go almost anywhere at moment notice with just their golden passport. Meanwhile people from many country has to submit countless documentations and bank accounts data for US visa only to get denied three months later.
I’m scratching my head at this comment because I thought EU passports were more powerful at this point. I thought the US has pissed off enough countries that there are many you can’t enter as a US citizen (admittedly mostly in the middle east, to countries I doubt most European citizens want to go either), but an EU passport will get you basically anywhere you want to go. Was I wrong about that?
The most powerful passports in the world in 2023
- Japan (193 destinations)
- Singapore, South Korea (192 destinations)
- Germany, Spain (190 destinations)
- Finland, Italy, Luxembourg (189 destinations)
- Austria, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden (188 destinations)
- France, Ireland, Portugal, United Kingdom (187 destinations)
- Belgium, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, United States, Czech Republic (186 destinations)
- Australia, Canada, Greece, Malta (185 destinations)
- Hungary, Poland (184 destinations)
- Lithuania, Slovakia (183 destinations)
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/world-s-most-powerful-passports/
Outdated, Japan has 189 and Czechia 187. Possibly other changes as well.
but an EU passport will get you basically anywhere you want to go. Was I wrong about that?
Depends on the country within the EU. Germans can go hassle free pretty much anywhere . Bulgarians on the other hand are going to struggle a fair bit more than an American.
German here. I had to go through a 3-month process with multiple, personal visits to the Chinese embassy in Frankfurt to be allowed one-time entry to China for a couple of days. Visa fee was 120€, IIRC.
Well, it’s China, a country known for its heavy surveillance. They’re not gonna let anyone in just like that.
Yeah. I heard I even got preferential treatment because I got invited by my cousin’s wife’s family to attend the wedding.
Also the roaming fees were insane. I still have the pricing information message:
Translation: Welcome to China! Here, you can receive calls for 1.59€ per minute + possibly at least 0.50€ per minute (depending on carrier), send text messages for 0.59€ and receive text for free. Data roaming for 12.29€ PER MEGABYTE (automatically capped at 59.50€ per month) may be possible. Good travels wishes o2.
This means they estimated that 60€ was the cutoff before people that rack up MBs without thinking about roaming fees start seriously complaining when seeing the bill.
Huh, according to another reply, German passports are supposed to be more powerful than a US passport. Maybe that’s not taking into account visa requirements though. No idea if a US passport would have the same issue with China either. Thanks for sharing your experience!
China probably isn’t on the list for visa-on-arrival for any country. Whether the process and the attached fees differ according to where your passport is from, I don’t know. I assume that is the case tho.
Why does it surprise you? It’s the same for many countries
Yep. In the last two years, I’ve been to Italy and the UK, and each time, it was quite literally just show up to the airport with my passport, get it scanned upon arrival, and that was that.
Sweden was the same way, I didn’t need a Visa. I hadn’t traveled in a while (2006), and I was surprised I got stamped to enter the EU in my layover in Iceland (2022) last year. Now I gotta worry about this, because I plan on visiting my folks in Sweden every few years. It doesn’t seem that bad, and I have zero reason to think I’d be rejected, but it’s yet another hassle even if it’s only $8 (but that’s fair if we’re charging Europeans $21, I’d even pay $21 without complaintif it changes to match).
OMG, though… those poor Brexit bastards traveling through Iceland. Me from the US was just “stand in line, they ask why you’re traveling, stamp the passport and you’re on your way.” Brexit folks had to go down some spiral stairs into some cave next to the elevator shaft and it looked like the passport equivalent of “the cheap stadium seats.”
That’s quite bullshit honestly. As far as I know if I wanted to go to US I’d need a VISA.
America is only tied for
eighthninth in passport strength, thanks to Singapore taking the top spot from Japan. There are 40 countries which have the same privilege coming into the US (called the Visa Waiver Program here). Of course, the US has had an ETA for quite a while, so this is a tit for tat.Not if you’re Canadian
This is literally how it is. There is no paperwork to fill out, you just show the man in Amsterdam your passport, he asks if you are here for work or pleasure, and then you wink at him and say “plaisir monsieur” and then he rolls his eyes and gives you a stamp which is good for 3 months.
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Damn! Anyway…
