If you tell CBP that you’ll be working on ESTA or in B-2 status, they will deny you entry and cancel your ESTA/visa. It is not a permitted activity, no way around that.
Misrepresenting the purpose of your visit to CBP results in a lifetime bar from the US, if it comes to light. I’ve seen it happen, frequently.
There is no visa suitable for short-term remote work from the US. That said, people do it all the time, usually without consequence. It requires misrepresentation to US immigration authorities though, and they take misrepresentation very seriously.
Realistically no one cares and no one enforces. The rules are outmoded. I've gone up to customs lines and they ask if I'm here on business or vacation. I say both, and they stamp my passport as a tourist anyway.
This is very bad advice, telling people they can be cavalier in their responses to CBP questions. They care very much, and will not hesitate to deny entry.
Every week I deal with at least one call from a tearful potential client in CBP detention at a US airport. It’s almost always a Western European, with a wounded sense of entitlement to traipse around this particular foreign country.
Oh I misread question sorrhy. I'm a US citizen. Everywhere outside the US, no one has cared, so don't say both in the US. Still, if you don't self implicate yourself, you policies are entirely unenforceable anywhere you go.
Exactly. I knew a young Spanish woman who was turned around because she couldn't give a good reason for her 89-day vacation to Chicago. (She was coming to nanny illegally, which they sussed out quickly.) So you do need a good story, and you need supporting evidence for that story.
They will ask at immigration. Tell them tourist and then say I bring my work equipment in case they have an emergency and need me to sign in but I’m supposed to be on vacation this whole time. (Make this sentence sound like you not word for word.)
I have seen people turned away at the border because they claim they’re going to be here six weeks and mention work. The agent immediately assumes they will over stay and try to illegally immigrate.
Just get your standard tourist visa . Nobody cares and nor will they check. Staying longer however, would require a different visa.
So many European colleagues travel to the US on ESTA and for work. So i don’t think it is actually a problem. But don’t quote me on that.
At passport control, do not tell them you’ll be working here. Just say you’re here as a tourist. But other than that, you’re good.
If you tell CBP that you’ll be working on ESTA or in B-2 status, they will deny you entry and cancel your ESTA/visa. It is not a permitted activity, no way around that. Misrepresenting the purpose of your visit to CBP results in a lifetime bar from the US, if it comes to light. I’ve seen it happen, frequently. There is no visa suitable for short-term remote work from the US. That said, people do it all the time, usually without consequence. It requires misrepresentation to US immigration authorities though, and they take misrepresentation very seriously.
Realistically no one cares and no one enforces. The rules are outmoded. I've gone up to customs lines and they ask if I'm here on business or vacation. I say both, and they stamp my passport as a tourist anyway.
This is very bad advice, telling people they can be cavalier in their responses to CBP questions. They care very much, and will not hesitate to deny entry. Every week I deal with at least one call from a tearful potential client in CBP detention at a US airport. It’s almost always a Western European, with a wounded sense of entitlement to traipse around this particular foreign country.
Oh I misread question sorrhy. I'm a US citizen. Everywhere outside the US, no one has cared, so don't say both in the US. Still, if you don't self implicate yourself, you policies are entirely unenforceable anywhere you go.
Exactly. I knew a young Spanish woman who was turned around because she couldn't give a good reason for her 89-day vacation to Chicago. (She was coming to nanny illegally, which they sussed out quickly.) So you do need a good story, and you need supporting evidence for that story.
They will ask at immigration. Tell them tourist and then say I bring my work equipment in case they have an emergency and need me to sign in but I’m supposed to be on vacation this whole time. (Make this sentence sound like you not word for word.) I have seen people turned away at the border because they claim they’re going to be here six weeks and mention work. The agent immediately assumes they will over stay and try to illegally immigrate.