U.S. Visitor Visa Appointments Now Run Up to 21 Months Out, as a GAO Audit Finds the Visa Officer Corps Shrank by a Third

Foreign visitors who need a U.S. B1/B2 visa now face the longest interview queues at consulates in countries whose own citizens mostly do not need one, with the State Department’s latest figures showing a 21-month wait for the next appointment in Sydney and 20 months in Toronto. The backlog lands hardest on business travelers, tourists and the parents and relatives of people already living in the United States, and a Government Accountability Office audit released Sept. 28 traces much of it to a one-third drop in the number of consular officers who handle these visas.

The issue resurfaced this weekend when Business Today published a ranking of the cities with the longest visitor visa waits, built on the State Department’s Sept. 17 update. The underlying numbers deserve a closer look than a ranking allows. They show a system that has largely protected students and petition-based workers while the ordinary visitor line stretches past a year at about a dozen posts, and they arrive at a moment when the two policies that used to relieve pressure on that line, interview waivers and applying at a less crowded consulate abroad, have both been narrowed.

Canada and Australia top the list, and that is less strange than it looks

Canadian citizens are visa-exempt for most U.S. visits, and Australians can travel under the Visa Waiver Program with an approved ESTA. So who is waiting 20 months in Toronto? By our reading, the queue in both countries is made up largely of people who live there but hold another nationality: permanent residents, temporary workers and students from countries that are not in the Visa Waiver Program. Under State Department guidance, nonimmigrant visa applicants are expected to apply in their country of nationality or residence, and those who go elsewhere are warned to expect much longer waits and told their fees are non-refundable. That ties a large, mobile population of residents to a small number of Canadian and Australian posts.

Six Canadian posts show next-available visitor appointments of 14 months or more. Indian posts are not far behind, with Hyderabad at 12 months and Mumbai at 11.5. By contrast, London and Sao Paulo can offer an appointment in about a month.

Consulate or embassy	B1/B2 next available appointment	B1/B2 average wait (prior month)
Sydney	21 months	4 months
Toronto	20 months	20 months
Vancouver	18 months	17.5 months
Ottawa	15 months	14.5 months
Calgary	14 months	13.5 months
Abu Dhabi	12.5 months	NA
Hyderabad	12 months	11.5 months
Mumbai	11.5 months	11 months
New Delhi	10 months	7.5 months
Lima	9 months	8.5 months
Mexico City	5 months	6.5 months
London	1 month	NA
Sao Paulo	1 month	NA

Source: U.S. Department of State, Global Visa Wait Times, last updated Sept. 17, 2026. “NA” is shown as listed by State, which publishes average waits only where the next available appointment is more than three months out. Selected posts.

The two columns measure different things, and the gap between them is informative. State calculates the average wait from fee payment to interview date for people interviewed in the previous month, while “next available” is a forecast for someone booking today. Sydney’s four-month average next to a 21-month forecast suggests a queue that has recently filled up. Halifax shows the same pattern, a 1.5-month average against a 15-month forecast. Toronto’s matching figures point to a backlog that has been long for some time.

State treats other visa types differently though. Toronto, the next appointment for students and exchange visitors (F, M and J visas) is under half a month, and for petition-based workers such as H-1B and L-1 holders it is 1.5 months. In Mumbai, it is 2.5 months for students. The long line is, in practice, the visitor line. But when it comes to H-1b visa appointments in India, it is almost non-existent. Basically at this point of time no one can obtain H1b visa appointments in any US Consulates in India.

Fewer officers, more applications per officer

GAO’s report, which covers fiscal years 2019 through 2025, puts hard numbers on what applicants have been experiencing. The number of officers who spend most of their time on nonimmigrant visas fell from 1,342 in fiscal 2024 to 904 in fiscal 2025, a drop of about 33 percent (our calculation from GAO’s figures). GAO attributed the decline to the federal hiring freeze, a reduction in force and attrition. Over the same period, demand did not shrink: State adjudicated 11.7 million visitor visas in fiscal 2025, compared with 9.2 million in fiscal 2019.

The global average wait for a visitor visa interview rose from 26 days in fiscal 2019 to 201 days in fiscal 2025, close to eight times longer. The number of countries averaging more than 90 days went from two to 39. GAO’s country breakdown makes the strain concrete. In fiscal 2025, India had 68 consular officers working on nonimmigrant visas for 1,455,255 applications, or 21,401 per officer, and an average visitor wait of 346 days. Mexico’s ratio was nearly identical at 21,441 applications per officer, with a 283-day average. Brazil, with 13,118 applications per officer, averaged 32 days. Officials at the four posts GAO visited named staffing relative to demand as the main driver of wait times, alongside outdated IT systems, building limits and “fixers” who grab appointment slots.

The September snapshot also shows how quickly conditions can change at a single post. GAO’s fiscal 2025 averages put Honduras at 447 days and Colombia at 597. State’s September data now show the next visitor appointment in Tegucigalpa at under half a month and in Bogota at seven months. GAO did not explain the movement at individual posts, and State’s wait-time page does not say why particular queues have shortened, so the reasons for those improvements cannot be confirmed from public data.

The relief valves have been tightened

During the post-pandemic backlog, consulates leaned on interview waivers to move renewals out of the interview queue. In March 2021, State let applicants renew without an interview if their previous visa had expired within 48 months. That window is now 12 months for B-1/B-2 visitor visas. Work visas like H-1bs don’t get such benefit. Under guidance effective Oct. 1, 2025, nearly every nonimmigrant applicant, including children under 14 and adults over 79, generally needs an in-person interview. B1/B2 and Mexican border crossing card renewals can still skip the interview if the applicant is at least 18, the prior visa was issued for its full validity and expired no more than 12 months earlier, the applicant has never been refused a visa (unless the refusal was overcome or waived) and the applicant applies in their country of nationality or residence. Consular officers can still require an interview in any case.

GAO found that about 26 percent of nonimmigrant visas issued worldwide in fiscal 2025 were handled without an in-person interview, and that at Mexico City the share of visitor visas processed as waiver cases fell from about 92 percent in fiscal 2021 to 43 percent in fiscal 2025. Fewer waivers means more people competing for the same interview slots, with fewer officers to conduct them. Whether the added screening of more in-person interviews is worth longer waits is a policy judgment the GAO report does not address.

Practical answers for travelers and their U.S. hosts

Can I book at a consulate in another country with a shorter wait? In most cases it is a poor bet. State’s guidance says applicants should schedule in their country of nationality or residence, that applying elsewhere may make it harder to qualify for a visa and lead to much longer waits, and that fees are non-refundable and non-transferable. Applicants who apply based on residence must be able to prove they live there. Existing appointments generally will not be canceled, though State says it will notify applicants in specific cases at specific posts if they are.

Can I skip the interview? Only if you meet the narrow renewal rule above. A first-time visitor visa applicant, or someone whose last B1/B2 visa expired more than 12 months ago, should plan on an interview.

Is there a faster route for an emergency? Embassies and consulates generally accept requests for an expedited appointment for urgent travel, such as a medical emergency or a family death, and generally decide them case by case after the applicant has booked the first available regular slot. We explained how that process works in India in an earlier guide. Planned trips such as conferences, graduations or the birth of a grandchild rarely qualify.

Does an appointment date mean I will have a visa by then? No. An interview can be followed by administrative processing (commonly referred to as 221g) that adds weeks or months. State also notes that new slots open regularly, so applicants who already hold an appointment can check for an earlier one and move it.

What should a U.S. employer or university hosting foreign visitors do? Treat a year as a realistic planning horizon for invitees from Canada-resident or India-based applicant pools, check the State page for the specific post an invitee will use, and ask whether a guest qualifies for the 12-month renewal waiver before assuming an interview is needed.

Whether the queue shortens depends on a staffing decision State has not committed to

GAO’s single recommendation is narrow. It wants the secretary of state to require the Bureau of Consular Affairs to carry out its Global Repositioning Exercise, a review that moves consular positions toward the posts with the most demand, on a consistent basis. GAO found the bureau had run that exercise only once since 2019, in fiscal 2023. State neither agreed nor disagreed, saying it conducts the exercise annually and will keep doing so, and that current policy priorities are important considerations. GAO responded that State had completed it only once in six years and had not addressed how it would make the review routine.

Our reading of the record is that the wait-time problem is now as much about where officers sit as about how many there are. Moving staff toward Canada, India and the Gulf would shorten the worst queues, but only by taking officers from posts that are currently moving quickly, and nothing in the GAO report suggests that a large new hiring push is coming. Until State either adds adjudicators or reopens wider interview-waiver eligibility, the most likely outcome is that the visitor line stays long at the posts at the top of the table, with sharp month-to-month swings as slots are released. State updates its wait-time figures monthly, so the October update will be the first test of whether the September numbers were a peak or a plateau.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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