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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?

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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.

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  • 'you must travel further than Canada, Mexico, or the "Adjacent Islands"': another possibility is to be in one of those places when the 90-day period elapses and then apply for admission. This is not likely to be successful for a visa run to obtain more than 90 days in the US, because the immigration officer is likely to be skeptical of that, but it is useful to know for people who are legitimately traveling around North America including multiple periods inside the US, for example to catch a return flight or something like that.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 25 at 6:54
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    Also, the officer is not required to readmit the traveler for the balance of the existing 90-day period; it is a matter of discretion. It is therefore in fact possible to apply for a new 90-day admission without traveling outside North America. All you have to do is ask. The officer might grant the request or not. In this case, I would suspect it unlikely unless the traveler has a credible plan to leave very shortly after the end of the first 90-day period.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 25 at 6:57
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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.

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  • I am struggling to find a work visa and find a visa to stay in the USA. Do you have any other options? I am out of options and I cannot keep going back and forth every 3 months especially since. Have a finance in the USA and I am Australian.
    – Mikaela Clemson
    Commented Jul 26 at 18:37
  • @MikaelaClemson another option would be to enroll in a university course and get a student visa. Trying to use the VWP or even a B visa to remain in the US with your fiancé is asking for trouble. At some point you are going to be refused admission and sent home at the border.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 27 at 6:22
  • @MikaelaClemson if you have a B-2 visa or a combination B-1/B-2 visa, you can stay for longer on each visit (the default period of initial admission is six months, not 90 days), and you can apply to extend your stay without leaving the US. But the underlying problem remains: you appear to be trying to use the legal status of a visitor as a means to live in the US, which is not permitted. Of course, the route provided by the INA for someone in your situation is to marry your fiancé and apply to join your spouse as such. (Details will depend on your spouse's nationality or immigration status.)
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 27 at 12:16

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