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December 2nd, 2022 at 07:19 am
US to open interview waiver appointments for B1/B2 visas from December 2022
In Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai in December, the US Embassy will offer a limited number of drop box (interview waiver) appointments for B1 (business) and B2 (tourist) visas. The wait time for a B1/B2 interview waiver or drop box as of Monday (November 29) is 297 days in Mumbai, 233 days in Delhi, and 171 days in Chennai, according to the US State Department website. There is a waiting time of around 1,000 days in India for B1/B2 applicants who are required to appear for an interview.
US INTERVIEW WAIVER ASSURANCE
“Looking for a B1/B2 interview waiver (dropbox) visa appointment? Good news! We’ve opened a number of B1/B2 interview waiver appointments for the coming month in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. Book now in time for holiday travel,” the US Embassy Tweeted on Monday.
More visa applicants are now eligible for interview waivers, and the US is for the first time ever shipping some of these “drop box” applications from India for adjudication abroad in an effort to reduce waiting times. Indian citizens would now be eligible for drop box if their B1/B2 visas expired within four years — as opposed to one year earlier — of applying for a new one under the same category.
US VISA INTERVIEW WAIVER: TOP PRIORITY
More than a lakh appointments for those with family members applying for employment-based H&L visas were recently made public by the US embassy in India. Given that these individuals have been unable to return to India and see their family for a number of years, the H category (including H1B) drop box continues to be given top priority.
“If you are in America and your H1 has expired, or you were a student and got a H1 change (meaning got a job after completing studies and then this visa), you don’t have to come back to India to get the visa stamped. You are legal. But when you want to come to India, you need to get the visa stamped before returning to the US. This appointment category had got packed up due to which many people could not come home. We are tackling this very furiously and had recently released a lakh appointments for them,” a senior US embassy official had said recently.
The global median wait period for a tourist visa (B1/B2) interview appointment, according to the US State Department, is currently under two months. Uncle Sam has made some progress in India over the previous two months, but given the backlog and volume of applications, it may still be some time before the interview appointment wait time is reduced.
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