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I'm from the UK and will be visiting Florida for the second time this year to spend the summer under an ESTA. I have enough money to cover accommodation for two months and expenses without having to work. I will genuinely not be looking for work, I'm just over visiting and maybe going to see some other states.

I visited Florida in March for 11 days for the music week and it two months will have passed from then and when I return again. I will be staying for 61 days total this time. I am a student in the middle of a degree so there is no way I would be staying in the US even if it was possible to.

Is the two month gap too short?

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  • Henning Makholm already posted a great answer about your main query, so here's some general advice: Make sure you have an e-passport (will be the case if your passport was issued after October 2006, if I recall correctly), otherwise you won't be allowed in under the Visa Waiver Program. Make sure you have sufficient proof that you can, indeed, afford to live and travel for 61 days without working, otherwise you may be refused entry. Also take any proof that you will have ties to and will be returning to the UK, such as proof of your degree enrolment, a lease for accommodation, etc.
    – Anthony Grist
    Commented May 12, 2016 at 13:58

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You don't spend time in USA "under an ESTA" -- ESTA is an authorization to travel to the USA, and only for that. Once you've gotten there, you will be staying as a nonimmigrant alien admitted under the Visa Waiver Program. See this Question and Answer for more information.

An ESTA is generally valid for 2 years or until your passport expires, whichever comes first. It entitles you to fly to USA and ask to be let in as many times as you want in that period. Note that asking nicely to be let in is all the ESTA authorizes (it is like a US visa in that respect); whether you will actually be allowed in is up to the CBP agent, each time.

Making a second trip two months after an 11-day stay ended sounds completely unproblematic, unless there's something other than what you have told us here that makes the CBP agent suspicious.

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    The perfect canonical answer.
    – Fattie
    Commented May 12, 2016 at 11:34
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    "Note that asking nicely to be let in is all the ESTA authorizes" -- or to put it another way: the ESTA gets you on the plane, after that you're on your own.
    – Steve Jessop
    Commented May 12, 2016 at 15:42

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