United States citizens will need a visa to visit Europe starting in 2021<br /><br />US citizens traveling to Europe without a visa will be a thing of the past come 2021.<br />The European Union announced on Friday that American travelers will need a new type of visa -- a European Travel Information and Authorization System or ETIAS -- to visit the European Schengen Area.<br />The Schengen Area is a zone of 26 European countries that do not have internal borders and allow people to move between them freely, including countries like Spain, France, Greece, Germany, Italy and Poland.<br />Currently, US citizens can travel to Europe for up to 90 days without a visa.<br />To apply for the ETIAS, US citizens will need a valid passport, an email account and a credit or debit card, the EU said. Minors, the website said, will still only need their normal passports to travel after the visas go into effect.<br />The Union said that the ETIAS visa is valid for three years and allows Americans to enter the Schengen Area as many times as necessary.<br />On the ETIAS website, the European Union said it "has recently decided to improve their security level to avoid any further problems with illegal migration and terrorism."
