Citizens of 15 African countries will have to post bonds of up to $15,000 ( £11,000) to visit the US, according to a new temporary travel rule which comes into effect on 24 December.

The six-month pilot program – which targets visitor and business visas – will act as a deterrence to those who overstay their visas, the US state department said.

Outgoing President Donald Trump, who lost a re-election bid earlier this month, made restricting immigration a central part of his four-year term in office.

President-elect Joe Biden, a Democrat, has pledged to reverse many of the Republican president’s immigration policies, but untangling hundreds of changes could take months or years.

The visa bond rule targets countries whose nationals had an “overstay rate” of 10% or higher in 2019 and will now be required to pay a refundable bond of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000.

The pilot programme, which is to run for six months, from December 24 to June 24, targets countries whose nationals – tourist and business travelers – are said to have high rates of overstaying their visa to the U.S., according to the American media.

While those nations had higher rates of overstays, they sent relatively few travellers to the US, Reuters news agency reports.

The African countries affected are Angola, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Libya, Mauritania, Sudan, Sao Tome and Principe, Cape Verde, Burundi.

The programme is meant to discourage foreign nationals from overstaying the visas.

“Nigeria is not included in this six months pilot program,” the U.S Embassy in Nigeria said in a statement on Tuesday.