k2col

Hi,

My H1B has been approved, so I've made an appointment with the US Embassy. What I'm not clear about is whether this is a simple appointment to stamp my passport or whether there will be additional processing and delays?

Could anyone with experience of this put my mind at ease, because there's only 9 days between my appointment at the US Embassy and the date of my flight to the US.

Cheers,
Colin.

meauxna

Have you read any of the relevant pages on the Embassy's site? It is not a 'simple' appointment (altho it may turn out to feel that way).

There is also a minimum delay of up to 10 days to get your passport back afterward. You may have timed it too close for your flight. You can look up Administrative Processing on the Embassy site.

All that has been approved at this point is your company and the position they are offering you. YOU still need to apply, be evaluated and be eligible.

Sally Redux

I agree he's cutting it a bit fine but it's not a minimum of 10 days, that's more like the maximum.

After your interview, they keep the passport to put the visa in and then release it to a courier company.

meauxna

Yeah, I'm just making stuff up for fun.

Processing Times

The average visa processing time for successful applicants is five business days, (the period is five to ten business days for petition based applicants - O, P, H, L, Q-1 and R) during which time the applicant's passport must remain with the Embassy. Once processed your visa and passport will be handed to the courier company, DX Secure for delivery. Applicants who are advised at the visa interview that their application requires additional processing should allow approximately 90 days for their application to be processed. However, in some cases, processing can extend to six months or longer.

Sally Redux

So that's 5 - 10 max days plus next-day delivery if you pay for that.

It took about 3 days in total each time we did it (twice).

Maybe I dreamed it.

Paul S

wow, as long as that
My last H1B renewal was turned around in 2 days. Seems to be entirely random to me. Will be interested to see later this year how long it takes for renewal number 2........

k2col

Thanks for the replies everyone. For the benefit of anyone else that might read this thread one day, here's what happened:

I decided not to change my ticket straight away and went for the visa interview.

A little tip here - take a newspaper/magazine/book in with you! I naively thought that having a scheduled 11am appointment would mean I'd be out of there quite quickly but the whole thing took almost 5 hours!

With no electronic devices to play with it was pretty dull...

Anyway, I spoke to both the interviewer and the lady when I paid for the courier, and both said that I should get my passport back in time. In the end, my interview was on Tuesday and the passport arrived on Friday.