The US Department of Homeland Security has announced that Romania is no longer eligible for the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), as the previous administration had decided.
According to a statement by Tricia McLaughlin, the Assistant Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Romania’s withdrawal from the US Visa Program will be implemented immediately, VisaGuide.World reports.
Maintaining the Visa Waiver Program’s high standards is essential to our national security. In light of this Administration’s focus on border and immigration security, the Secretary of Homeland Security has decided, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to rescind Romania’s VWP designation effective immediately.
This decision, as DHS announces, is taken in efforts to maintain the integrity of the program and the US government to protect its borders while enforcing tighter migration measures.
The same noted that Romania might be eligible for admission to the US visa waiver program in the future, considering it meets the eligibility requirements, as set by Trump’s administration.
Romania’s Journey to US Visa Waiver Was Not Easy
In order for Romania as a candidate to be eligible for the US visa waiver program, thus gaining visa-free access to the US, there was a set of conditions that had to be met.
Together with Romania, Cyprus, and Bulgaria were also in this process of joining the visa-free program, and one of the most challenging aspects for these countries to be eligible was the visa rejection rates.
Candidate countries were required to have less than three percent visa rejection rates, showing a consistency in visas being rejected by the US authorities. In 2023, rejection rates for Romanians were 8.79 percent, which reportedly dropped to less than three percent in 2024.
We are waiting for a confirmation from the American partners in the next period, but our assessment, based on the number of visa applications this year, as well as the strong downward trend in recent years, is that Romania has dropped below the three percent rejection rate.
But, not even the work to reach the threshold for eligibility gained Romanians the visa-free entry to the US, as it was revoked by Trump’s administration in March.
Biden’s Administration Promises Visa-Free Entry to the US for Romanians
It was decided that Romanians would be travelling without a visa to the US starting in January of 2025, and there were only a few formalities left until this was implemented.
Today is a big day, a day we have been waiting for a long, long time: as of today, Romania formally meets all the technical conditions to be part of the Visa Waiver program.
Before being revoked entirely, the US authorities decided to pause the admission process of Romania to the visa-free program back in March.