Starting 2021, citizens of the United States of America will need Visa to visit the United Kingdom.

According to the European Union(EU), this is to creating an European Travel Information and Authorization System or ETIAS, that will require pre-travel screening for security and migration risks of travellers benefiting from visa-free access to the Schengen area, as announced in 2018.

This new law will restrict US citizens, who can travel to Europe for up to 90 days without any sort of travel authorization.

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 such as Spain, France, Greece, Germany, Italy and Poland.

Currently, US citizens can travel to Europe for up to 90 days without any sort of travel authorization.

Now they have to complete an application and pay a service fee of 7 euros (about $8) online to get an authorization which is only valid for three years.

“Completing the online application should not take more than 10 minutes with automatic approval being given in over 95% of cases,” the European Commission said in a statement.

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Interestingly, this change will not only affect US citizens but others from 60 countries will be required to apply for the ETIAS before entering the Schengen Area.

Major countries affected are – Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Israel, Mauritius amongst others.

The reason for this is just to enhance security and reduce data gap, says European commissioner for migration, home affairs and citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos.

“The new ETIAS will ensure that we no longer have an information gap on visa-free travelers,” he said in a statement. “Anyone who poses a migratory or security risk will be identified before they even travel to EU borders.”