in effect
Proclamation 10998, signed December 16, 2025, is a presidential action issued under the Immigration and Nationality Act (sections 212(f) and 215(a)) that suspends or limits the entry of foreign nationals from a specified list of countries into the United States. It updates and expands an earlier proclamation (Proclamation 10949, June 4, 2025) based on a review of each country’s identity-document reliability, information-sharing practices, visa overstay rates, and cooperation with U.S. screening requirements.
The proclamation keeps a full entry ban in place for the same 12 countries named in the June 2025 order (Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen) and adds 7 more countries to that full ban: Burkina Faso, Laos, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Syria; it also fully bans entry by anyone traveling on travel documents issued or endorsed by the Palestinian Authority. A partial ban—covering immigrant visas and the most common nonimmigrant visa categories (B-1/B-2 tourist/business, F/M/J student and exchange)—is continued for Burundi, Cuba, Togo, and Venezuela and newly imposed on 15 additional countries: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Dominica, Gabon, The Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia, and Zimbabwe; for those partially restricted countries, consular officers must also shorten the validity period of any other nonimmigrant visas they do issue. The proclamation also removes the broad family-based immigrant visa exemption that existed in the June order, citing the same vetting concerns as a reason it should no longer apply categorically.
Nationals of the 19 fully restricted countries and anyone carrying Palestinian Authority travel documents are barred from entering the United States as either immigrants or nonimmigrants, with only narrow national-interest waivers available on a case-by-case basis. Nationals of the 19 partially restricted countries cannot obtain immigrant visas or the listed nonimmigrant visa types, and those who qualify for other visa categories will receive shorter-validity documents. Family members of people already in the United States who are from any covered country are no longer automatically shielded by a categorical exception and must instead seek individual waivers.