The US State Department reports a significant reduction in wait times for visitor visas at its consulates around the world. The agency has doubled the number of U.S. Foreign Service personnel to deal with a backlog of visa applications and speed up in-person interviews.
«Today we are seeing a huge reduction in wait times. The global average wait time for visitor visa interviews is seven weeks, but for students and temporary workers it is just seven days. That's significantly less than just a few months ago,” said Julie Stafft, an official at the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs.
The State Department press release additionally notes that the State Department is optionally eliminating in-person interviews, processing more visas with fewer employees, processing visas remotely, and providing greater transparency in the visa application process.
The wait time for a student visa interview at the Mexico City consulate is now actually better than the global average, being only 1 day. But guest visas are still a disaster; the waiting list for obtaining them lasts for months or years. The global average wait time for a government visa may be seven weeks, but it wasn't that long ago that the wait for an appointment in Mexico was as long as 746 days, depending on the consulate. For example, in Mexico City it was 647 days. Even with a visa extension without an interview, the waiting time was 267 days. After the State Department's announcement about reducing global deadlines, queues in Mexico did not decrease at all. On the other hand, Mexico is one of the three largest travel markets in the United States, and the number of visas that are issued here and the pent-up demand that has accumulated since the pandemic do not ensure a quick change in the situation.
The waiting time for an interview, which the State Department shows on its page for each consulate, does not always correspond to reality. Let it exceed 2 years for Mexico. In fact, this is for those who have nowhere to rush. But you are allowed to go to the registration page every day and monitor the appearance of free windows. This allows you to catch the recording after a few months. In addition, it is possible to monitor queues at several consulates at the same time. Tracking may take weeks or months, but in the end you are allowed to get to the consulate much earlier than after 2 years.
In Mexico, visas are issued by the consular section of the US Embassy in Mexico City, as well as 9 consulates general in different cities of the country. The issuance of government visitor visas is limited to Mexican citizens and residents.
According to the US Visitors Association, visa delays have resulted in the United States losing 6.6 million international travelers, costing $11.6 billion in economic costs by 2023.