Indian students and business travellers received welcome relief on 2 December 2025 as the latest State Department dashboard showed dramatic reductions in interview-appointment backlogs at US consulates in New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. According to figures reported by The Times of India, student-category (F, M, J) slots in New Delhi have fallen from roughly two months to just half a month, while B-1/B-2 visitor interviews in Chennai—once a five-month queue—now list ‘N/A’, meaning same-cycle release of new dates.
Consular officials credit the improvement to a year-long surge-staffing programme that rotated experienced adjudicators from low-demand posts into India, coupled with expanded weekday hours and Saturday ‘Super Saturday’ drives. The mission also rolled out AI-driven triage tools that pre-screen DS-160 applications for completeness, allowing officers to spend interview time on substantive eligibility questions rather than data entry.
![US Slashes Interview Wait Times for Indian F-1 and B-1/B-2 Visa Applicants]()
For Indian corporates, shorter B-1/B-2 waits will revive stalled executive visits, client kick-offs and onsite audits. HR teams should, however, warn travellers that reduced appointment times do not change document requirements: ties to India, itinerary letters and SEVIS receipts for students remain mandatory. Travel managers are advised to refresh visa-lead-time assumptions in policy portals, especially for January-February trade-show season.
Immigration lawyers note that appointment volatility will persist; applicants are encouraged to monitor slots daily and use the ‘reschedule’ function to capture earlier dates. Drop-box (interview-waiver) renewals remain an under-used channel—roughly 40 percent of eligible Indians still queue for live interviews. Companies can cut travel disruption by steering renewals to drop-box centres in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kochi.
The US Embassy reiterated that fraud detection remains a priority; applicant misrepresentation can trigger multi-year bars even after an initial approval. Despite those caveats, industry groups such as NASSCOM say the backlog cut is the clearest sign yet that post-pandemic visa normalisation is finally taking hold.
Consular officials credit the improvement to a year-long surge-staffing programme that rotated experienced adjudicators from low-demand posts into India, coupled with expanded weekday hours and Saturday ‘Super Saturday’ drives. The mission also rolled out AI-driven triage tools that pre-screen DS-160 applications for completeness, allowing officers to spend interview time on substantive eligibility questions rather than data entry.
For Indian corporates, shorter B-1/B-2 waits will revive stalled executive visits, client kick-offs and onsite audits. HR teams should, however, warn travellers that reduced appointment times do not change document requirements: ties to India, itinerary letters and SEVIS receipts for students remain mandatory. Travel managers are advised to refresh visa-lead-time assumptions in policy portals, especially for January-February trade-show season.
Immigration lawyers note that appointment volatility will persist; applicants are encouraged to monitor slots daily and use the ‘reschedule’ function to capture earlier dates. Drop-box (interview-waiver) renewals remain an under-used channel—roughly 40 percent of eligible Indians still queue for live interviews. Companies can cut travel disruption by steering renewals to drop-box centres in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kochi.
The US Embassy reiterated that fraud detection remains a priority; applicant misrepresentation can trigger multi-year bars even after an initial approval. Despite those caveats, industry groups such as NASSCOM say the backlog cut is the clearest sign yet that post-pandemic visa normalisation is finally taking hold.
