Visa-free travel to US possible by end 2018?
PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek
18.04.2018 08:30
Poles may be able to travel to the US visa-free by the end of the year, US Consul Thomas S. Zia said on Tuesday.
A Boeing 787-8 plane in LOT Polish Airlines livery. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Adrian Pingstone/Public Domain
But the visa application refusal rate for Poles would have to fall below America's 3 percent threshold by the end of September, the close of the financial year in the US, Zia added.
According to Zia, some 200,000 Poles visit the US every year and some 95 percent of Polish visa applicants were granted 10-year visas.
According to the US State Department, American consulates in Warsaw and Kraków last year rejected 5.9% of visa applications submitted by Poles, while in 2016 they rejected a record-low 5.37%.
Zia said that consulates would reject applicants who had been in trouble with the law, worked illegally in the US or overstayed their US visas.
Meanwhile, Polish Airlines LOT on Tuesday presented a campaign encouraging eligible people to apply for American visas in order to get the proportion of rejections to under 3 percent. (vb/pk)
Source: PAP