The US Department of State has announced a directive that is effective immediately, mandating that non-immigrant visa (NIV) applicants, including those from India, must arrange their interview appointments solely in their country of citizenship or legal residence. This measure is intended to eliminate the previously utilized workaround of applying from neighboring countries that had shorter wait times. The new visa regulations will be enforced on a global scale, as stated in a release from the US State Department on Saturday. “Effective immediately, the Department of State has revised the instructions for non-immigrant visa applicants… (they) should schedule visa interview appointments at the US embassy or consulate in their country of nationality or residence,” the statement indicated. This action will directly affect Indian applicants who have sought interview slots in Singapore, Thailand, and Germany in recent years to circumvent domestic backlogs. Consequently, Indians requiring prompt travel to the US will no longer have the option to schedule a B1 (business) or B2 (tourism) appointment abroad. This alternative is no longer permitted under the new policy, except in a few exceptional cases where the United States does not typically conduct NIV operations.
Nationals from countries where the US government does not perform routine non-immigrant visa operations may apply at the designated embassy or consulate, provided their residence is not elsewhere, as stated. This category encompasses nationals or residents from countries such as Afghanistan, Cuba, Chad, Russia, and Iran, among others. This restriction may exacerbate the already increasing backlog. Earlier this year, visa wait times ranged from 3.5 months in Hyderabad and Mumbai to 5 months in Kolkata, and in Chennai, they reached an astonishing nine months. The Previous Regulation. In earlier times, tourists would schedule interviews abroad, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a backlog of applications resulting in wait times extending to three years domestically. When travel resumed post-pandemic in 2021, travel agents reminisced about how Indians would travel to other nations, like Germany, for B1/B2 visa interviews. At that time, the wait period for B1/B2 visas in India was between 15 to 20 months, prompting the US embassy in Frankfurt to allocate NIV interview slots “specifically for Indian applicants” two years prior. On September 2, a new regulation came into force, mandating that all non-immigrant visa applicants undergo in-person interviews, following the US Department of State’s reduction of the Interview Waiver Program. Consequently, the majority of applicants will now be required to appear at a US Embassy or Consulate, which were previously exempt from the in-person interview requirement. The visas impacted by this change include categories H, L, F, M, J, E, and O, affecting even those over the age of 79 and children under 14.
