Up to $15,000 must be deposited to apply for entry into the U.S., and the visa is not guaranteed.
EFE (via 14ymedio), January 7, 2026 — The U.S. government has added Venezuela and Cuba to a list of 25 new countries whose citizens must post bond of up to $15,000 in order to apply for entry into the U.S. the State Department specified this week.
The change will take effect on January 21; the expanded list includes Algeria, Angola, Gabon, Nepal, Senegal, Zimbabwe, and Uganda.
Any citizen or person traveling with a passport issued by one of those countries who is eligible for a B1 or B2 visa must post a bond of $5,000, $10,000, or $15,000. The amount will be determined at the time of the applicant’s interview.
The B1 visa allows travel for business purposes, and the B2 authorizes entry for tourism, personal, or medical reasons. In total, the list now includes 38 countries, most of them in Africa.
Paying without consular instruction will not be refunded
The State Department specified on Tuesday that the bond does not guarantee the issuance of a visa and warned that if someone pays the fee without being instructed to do so by a consular officer, the money will not be refunded.
As a condition of the bond, those who have posted it must enter and leave the country through Washington Dulles International Airport, New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, or Boston’s Logan Airport.
Failure to meet that requirement, it is warned, could result in denial of entry or cause the departure not to be properly recorded.
The digital outlet Axios notes that the State Department has not specified whether Venezuela’s inclusion is related to the military operation that resulted in the capture of Nicolás Maduro.
The arrest of the ousted Venezuelan leader, who is now being held in a New York prison, took place on January 3 in Caracas, along with the arrest his wife, Cilia Flores.
The formal indictment charges Maduro, among other offenses, with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism
The formal indictment charges Maduro, among other offenses, with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine, charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Following the operation that led to his capture, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that Cuba “has always survived thanks to Venezuela” and emphasized that the island is now “about to fall.”
The U.S. administration has not justified the inclusion of any of the newly added countries.
Last week, Washington added seven countries to the list of nations whose passport holders must post a bond: Bhutan, Botswana, the Central African Republic, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Namibia, and Turkmenistan. Before this announcement, 13 countries had been affected.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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