Visa policy can feel distant from the daily work of a DMO, until it touches real people trying to make real plans and lands squarely on your travel and tourism marketing team’s desk.
A keynote speaker wants to say yes but needs a little more certainty first. A delegate runs up against a deadline while their paperwork moves through the system. A tour operator has to adjust routing to stay compliant. A family pauses, weighs the extra steps, and looks for reassurance that the trip will be worth it.
That’s the 2026 US tourist visa bond expansion in practice. It’s aimed at compliance, but it shows up as friction in your marketing funnel and your meetings pipeline.
It also comes at a moment when the U.S. recovery is losing ground. Tourism Economics’ latest outlook, published through U.S. Travel, projected inbound international visits would finish 2025 about 6% below 2024. Canada has been a major part of that softness, with Statistics Canada reporting Canadian road trips to the U.S. down 32% in March 2025 versus March 2024 and Canadian return trips from the U.S. down nearly 30% in October. Globally, travel demand moved the other direction. UN Tourism estimates international tourist arrivals rose 4% in 2025, which puts the U.S. roughly 10 points behind the global trend.
Against that backdrop, any new barrier to entry matters, even if it affects a relatively small share of travelers. The latest example is the 2026 US tourist visa bond expansion, a policy change that adds cost, constraints, and new points of uncertainty for certain B-1/B-2 visitors. Here’s what’s changing and what DMOs should be ready to do.
A Policy Snapshot for DMOs
Some visa applicants (business (B-1) and tourism (B-2)) traveling on passports issued by designated countries may be required to post a US tourist visa bond. The bond amount is set during the visa interview and can be $5,000, $10,000, or $15,000.
A few details are easy to miss and matter to trip planning, especially as destinations also track adjacent cost signals in traveler conversations like the $250 visa integrity fee introduced last year:
- Applicants are told to submit DHS Form I-352 and pay only after a consular officer directs them to do so.
- Payment is made through Pay.gov using a direct link. The guidance explicitly warns travelers not to use third-party sites.
- Paying the bond does not guarantee visa issuance. Paying without being directed can mean fees are not returned.
- Bonded travelers must enter and exit through designated ports of entry. The list expands over time, but it can shape routings today.
Why Make this Policy Change
The government’s stated logic is straightforward: reduce overstay risk and improve compliance. The bond is the financial lever. The designated entry and exit ports are the tracking lever.
- Overstay rates are the trigger. The State Department uses B1/B2 overstay rates from DHS’s Entry/Exit Overstay Report to help decide which countries fall under the bond requirement.
- The volume is large enough to drive policy change. DHS data is cited as showing more than 500,000 visa overstays in 2023, which policymakers point to as evidence the problem is widespread.
- The expanded list reflects patterns of non-compliance. The program targets 38 countries identified as having higher overstay risk or repeated issues meeting travel terms.
- The bond is meant to create a clear incentive to follow the rules. The idea is a refundable deposit: depart on time, and the deposit is returned automatically. Violate the terms, and you risk losing it.
- The designated ports requirement supports clean exit tracking. By steering bonded travelers through specific entry and exit points, the system is trying to reduce “missing” departures that can happen when records don’t line up.
- Some government officials frame overstays as a major pathway into unlawful presence.
The Scale of the Policy
One of the toughest parts is the mismatch between the scale of the policy and the slice of visitation it touches.
Simply, the bond requirement affects a narrow slice of travelers. The countries on the expanded US tourism visa bond list accounted for just over 900,000 U.S. visitors in 2023, or about 1.37% of total international arrivals that year. Total international visitor arrivals were 66.5 million in 2023.
Meanwhile, when looking at gross overstay totals, the highest-volume countries are largely driven by scale. DHS FY 2023 overstay reporting has been summarized in multiple analyses as showing the biggest totals coming from:
- Mexico, about 52,000 overstays
- Colombia, about 40,884 to 43,000 overstays
- Haiti, about 27,269 overstays
- Venezuela, about 21,513 overstays
- Brazil, about 20,811 overstays
That context matters because it helps explain why this policy can feel misaligned from a tourism lens. Among these top gross-overstay countries, only Venezuela appears on the bond list.
How Will The Tourist Visa Bond Expansion Impact DMOs?
While the bond requirement affects a narrow slice of travelers, the story around it will reach a much wider audience because it taps into a simple question people ask before they book: “Will the U.S. be easy to visit right now?”
Coverage in travel trade and international outlets has already framed the expansion as a meaningful new hurdle for some visitors, and that framing tends to spread.
National Tourism Brand and Perception
Even if most travelers never face a bond, headlines about a “tourist visa bond” can shape perception of the U.S. as complicated, expensive or unpredictable. That matters for DMOs because perception changes behavior upstream. People delay decisions, choose safer itineraries and sometimes pick a different country that feels simpler.
The upside is that destinations can soften the edges. Brand USA’s mandate includes correcting misperceptions about visa and entry policy, and DMOs can support that effort locally with clear, steady, official guidance that reduces confusion without drifting into advice.
Conversion and Confidence
This is not a broad-based demand shock. It is targeted friction that lands late in the decision cycle. Travelers may not know whether they will be asked to post a bond or what amount until the interview. That can slow bookings, stretch lead times and raise drop-off in the affected markets.
For DMOs, the pattern can look uneven. Topline performance holds while specific segments soften, especially groups, first-time visitors and diaspora travel where surprises carry more weight.
Gateways and Itineraries
The designated port requirement changes trip design for the people it touches. It can push travelers toward specific gateways even when another airport is cheaper or closer. Mid-trip changes can feel higher risk because travelers worry about whether a departure will be recorded correctly.
For destinations, that can mean more demand funneled through certain hubs, more rework for tour operators and meeting planners and more nights shifting toward gateway cities instead of spreading across the region.
Meetings and Events
Business travel tends to surface friction fast. A bond requirement can turn a confident yes into a cautious maybe for speakers, delegates and buyers who travel on tight timelines and need certainty.
For convention teams, the risk is less about volume and more about importance. Losing a small number of international speakers or hosted buyers can change the quality of a program and the business outcomes that follow.
Support Load and Trust
Even when the affected share is small, the questions do not stay small. Travelers search, ask partners and message whoever seems official. If your channels are quiet, people rely on unofficial sources and questionable intermediaries. The State Department guidance already warns applicants not to use third-party payment sites.
DMOs can reduce that risk with a short advisory, official links only and a shared partner script so the answer stays consistent.
Lead with Clarity
DMOs can’t control visa policy, but you can control how clearly you understand it and can explain it to internal teams, stakeholders and visitors. Even if the bond affects a small slice of travelers, the headlines will shape broader perceptions of how easy the U.S. is to visit.
Need help? Let’s talk. Strategic thinking that meets this moment, protecting your destination’s reputation while giving visitors and partners the clarity they need to plan with confidence.
