7 Questions for the U.S. State Department Official Out to Fix the Visa Delays Mess
Photo Credit: The U.S. State Department is working on variety of initiatives to reduce visa wait times. Adobe / moodboard
Skift Take
Travel executives have taken the U.S. government to task for not remedying more quickly the delay in processing travel visas that they say is costing the U.S. travel industry in big ways. We went to the top government official working on this. She says efforts are now producing real results, and asks for patience.
American embassies are working around the clock to bring down the amount of time international travelers have to wait to get a visitor visa interview in order to travel to the U.S., according to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Visa Services Julie Stufft. The global median wait time for a B-1 or B-2 visa, also known as a visitor visa, has been reduced from 17 weeks in June to five weeks now.
Aspiring travelers from some U.S. inbound markets, however, still have to wait hundreds of days to get an interview for their first visitor visa. Indian travelers now have to wait 700 days for an interview at the Mumbai embassy, according to the U.S. State Department's website, down from 999 days in January but still very high. It reinforces a 2023 Skift megatrend that large numbers of travelers from non-Western countries will be locked out of U.S. conferences and destinations because of border bottlenecks.Lobbying group U.S. Travel Association estimates visa delays will
