Is esta.cbp.dhs.gov legit or a scam?
Official 24-year-old U.S. government ESTA site with clean blocklist status and direct links from cbp.gov.
Analysis Summary
No threats detected
All checks passed. This site appears legitimate — but always stay alert for phishing even on trusted domains.
Website Preview
Automated page render — captured in a safe sandbox. What an ordinary visitor would see when loading the site.
MT Intelligence
The domain esta.cbp.dhs.gov belongs to the Department of Homeland Security and has existed for 8740 days. Our page analyzer confirms the exact official title and no malicious scripts or forms. The hosting IP shows zero abuse reports. Government sources and embassy sites list this exact address as the sole legitimate application point. No scam reports target this domain itself.
Web Research Findings
Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for esta.cbp.dhs.gov, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.
- Domain esta.cbp.dhs.gov is the official U.S. government ESTA application site per CBP.gov, DHS, U.S. embassies, and FTC consumer alerts
- Domain age 8740 days (~24 years) aligns with long-standing official government service
- Page title matches exactly: 'Official ESTA Application Website, U.S. Customs and Border Protection'
- No scam reports found targeting this exact domain; all references warn about copycat/fake ESTA sites instead
- Trustpilot page exists with mixed user feedback on payment processing (official site noted)
- Linked directly from cbp.gov, state.gov, and multiple embassy sites as the sole official application URL
- Google Play ESTA app references https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov as the corresponding official website
- Trustpilotopen
"I've applied, paid 21 USD, and had my application approved 2 hours later."
U.S. government (.gov) domain operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) / Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Our research found the domain listed as the sole official ESTA site by CBP.gov, multiple U.S. embassies, and FTC consumer alerts. No scam reports target esta.cbp.dhs.gov itself; all references warn about copycat domains instead. One independent review aggregator review notes successful application approval.
Security Scans
Checked against the major public blocklists used by browsers and security tools — no hits.
Contact Verification
We fetched the page and looked for real-world contact details. Legitimate businesses almost always publish an email on their own domain, a phone number, and a postal address. Scam shops usually don't.
- No contact email found anywhere on the page.
- No phone number listed on the page.
- No postal address visible on the page.
Domain & Encryption
Redirect Chain
- 1301http://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/
- 2200https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/
Server Reputation
Still, stay alert
No major threat indicators — but a clean scan does not guarantee every page is safe, and phishing emails routinely spoof real domains.
- Double-check the exact URL in your address bar
Confirm you are actually on esta.cbp.dhs.gov and not a lookalike like e-sta.cbp.dhs.gov.com or an IDN homoglyph.
- Use a password manager
Password managers only auto-fill on the exact domain they were saved for — they refuse to fill lookalike domains, which is the single best phishing defence.
- OpenDiscuss this site on the forum
If you have first-hand experience with this site — good or bad — share it with the MalwareTips community.
Reputation Sources
How this domain rates across independent threat-intelligence and blocklist providers.
Referenced Domains
Outbound domains this page links to or loads resources from. Each links to its own security scan.
Safety FAQ
Common questions about this site, answered directly from the scan data above — so the answers always reflect the latest verdict on this page.
- Our automated security review found no threat indicators on esta.cbp.dhs.gov. The site appears legitimate based on the signals we checked, but always stay alert for phishing emails that spoof real domains.
- esta.cbp.dhs.gov passed our automated security checks with a trust score of 92/100. No antivirus engines or major blacklists flagged the site at the time of the last scan.
- Yes. esta.cbp.dhs.gov presents a valid TLSv1.3 certificate issued by DigiCert Inc · DigiCert Global G3 TLS ECC SHA384 2020 CA1, expiring in 150 days. Note that SSL only encrypts the connection — it does not guarantee that the site itself is trustworthy.
- esta.cbp.dhs.gov is 23.9 years old, registered on 7/1/2002 through get.gov. Scam domains are often freshly registered — a site under 6 months old warrants extra caution.
- No. esta.cbp.dhs.gov is not currently listed on the major browser blocklist feeds that modern browsers use.
- esta.cbp.dhs.gov resolves to an IP operated by Akamai Technologies, Inc. in US (usage type: Data Center/Web Hosting/Transit). Hosting location alone doesn't make a site good or bad, but unusual geography for a brand's claimed country is one of many signals we weigh.
- This is a permanent record of the scan run on June 5, 2026. The verdict and evidence above reflect that scan and do not change on their own. If circumstances around esta.cbp.dhs.gov have changed, MalwareTips staff can run a fresh scan, which re-runs every check from scratch and publishes an updated report.
User reviews & comments(0)
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