Your American dreams will have to wait as you may not get a visa appointment till 2024!

The wait is overwhelmingly long to get an appointment for US visa. If you have been waiting to explore all your favorite sites and attractions in America, it seems like you’ll have to wait a bit more longer as there’s little scope that you’ll get a visitor visa appointment anytime sooner than 2024! Yes, you read that right. As per US visa office, Indians will have to wait until 2024 to book an appointment.

As per the US Department of State's official travel website, the waiting time for a visitor visa appointment at the US consulate in New Delhi is 597 calendar days, and for a student visa, it is 465 days. The wait time for non-immigrant visas shows 196 calendar days.


Those applying from Mumbai, the wait time for a visitor visa is 584 calendar days, 100 calendar days for a student/exchange student visa, and 100 calendar days for all other non-immigrant visas.

For Chennai, it shows 526 calendar days for a visitor visa, 470 calendar days for a student/exchange student visa, and 98 calendar days for all other non-immigrant visas.


Similarly for Kolkata, these figures are 592, 465 and 206 calendar days, respectively.

The note on the official visa page reads: “Note: Embassies and Consulates may have a separate process for visa cases where the in-person interview requirement is waived. In general wait times for those cases are shorter, but they are not reflected in the table below. Please check the individual Embassy or Consulate website to determine if your case is eligible for a waiver of the in-person interview.”

So why such a long wait? To understand the problem here, it’s important to know that the world is slowly recovering from a long-term pandemic which has jolted the world of travel, among others. The prime reason behind this long wait is an unprecedented surge in visa application volumes in India and less staff in the department.

The US government has said that they are doing their best to lessen this wait time by hiring more staff. The pandemic is the biggest reason for all these delays and shortcomings. Hiring and training new employees takes time. So the department has doubled the hiring and promotion of trained employees overseas, including India to help reduce the visa stress.

*Note: These numbers are variable and are subjected to change in the future.