APEC Business Travel Card (ABTC): What is it, benefits, eligibility, how to apply and track ABTC Pre-clearance?Status

What is an ABTC?

APEC Business Travel Card (ABTC), a card issued to business travelers and senior government officials to meet certain requirements. APEC manages the ABTC program, which it refers to as the ABTC scheme. The ABTC scheme seeks to facilitate travel in the APEC region.

What are the benefits of ABTC?

It gives frequent business travellers:

• Fast-track entry and exit through special APEC lanes at participating airports
• Multiple, short-term entries to precleared APEC economies without having to make a separate visa application to fully participating members.

Who’re eligible for APEC Business Travel Card (ABTC)?

1. Must hold a valid passport from an APEC economy (or)
2. Be a permanent resident of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong, China)
3. Must engage in regular business travel throughout the APEC region
4. Should not have any criminal conviction.

How to apply for an ABTC?

Each economy should follow the guidelines and processes for applying for an ABTC, which includes application forms, fees and applicant screening.

• You can make a single application to the economy for which they hold a passport (home economy)
• You must be a permanent residence in the case of Hong Kong, China.
• If the economy assesses the application as meeting, the applicant’s details are provided to the other participating economies who conduct their own assessment of whether to grant pre-clearance.
• When all economies have made a pre-clearance decision, the applicant receives an ABTC that lists the economies to which they have permission to travel.
• Each economy is responsible for managing the processing of their own pre-clearance applications
• No economy has any influence over the processing timeframes of another.

What’s the validity period for ABTC Card?

• Maximum validity of five years (Check the expiration date on your card)

How to track ABTC Pre-clearance Status?

If the home economy has approved the application, you can monitor which economies have provided pre-clearance using the ABTC Pre-clearance Status Tracker. If you’re applying through Canada or the United States, you may check your application status through your TTP account.

1. Visit https://www.abtc-aps.org/abtc-core/status/check.html
2. Enter the economy applied
3. Enter the application number.

Where you can find about ABTC lanes arrangements at airports, length of stay granted to APEC Cardholders and average foreign pre-clearance processing time?

For more information such as how to apply ABTC – APEC Business travel card, ABTC travel requirements, visit http://travel.apec.org/abtc-summary.html

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