ESTA visa after 90 days

Question

I am currently on an ESTA visa and have 3 weeks left. I am planning to go on vacation to Aruba (South America) for 5 days and return to the USA. Will my ESTA renew the 90 days? If not, how do I get the 90 days to renew?

Answer 1

Short trips to Caribbean islands including Aruba generally do not reset the visa-waiver program clock, so you can expect to be re-admitted to the US only until the date specified on your original admission.

To apply for a new admission and new 90-day period, you must travel further than Canada, Mexico, or the "Adjacent Islands" (unless you are a resident of one of those places). Note that re-admission is not guaranteed. While there is no fixed rule for how soon you may re-enter the US after leaving it, the general advice is that you should spend at least more time outside of the US than inside of it for the best chance of success.

Answer 2

If you plan to spend more than a couple of weeks in the US after a roughly 10-week stay and a 5-day trip to Aruba then you would be better off with a B-2 visa, but the US consulate for Aruba is in Willemstad, Curaçao, and the current appointment wait time there for new B visa applicants is 40 days (get the latest information from the US Department of State at Visa Appointment Wait Times), so that isn't an option now.

If you're planning to return for just a couple of weeks, but your desired departure date is after the end of your initial 90-day period, you can ask the immigration officer to give you a new period of admission. If you're planning to stay longer than a week or two, I would give it very low odds of success.

If you want to spend more than half of your time in the US as a visitor, you will at some point have to deal with the fact that you will be a tax resident of the US under its internal revenue code (even though you are a nonimmigrant visitor under immigration law). The usual threshold is, I believe, 183 days a year provided you have a "closer connection" to a foreign country. If you do not then the substantial presence test applies, which looks at the previous three years, and can result in tax residency even if you have spent rather less than half of your time in the US.