Effective September 2, every applicant for a U.S. non-immigrant visa—including children under 14 and adults over 79—must now attend an in-person consular interview, according to a State Department rule highlighted in an Oct 26 news report.
The shift ends more than a decade of age-based waivers that allowed parents or caregivers to submit documents by mail for minors and that spared elderly travelers from embassy visits. Consular officials say the change closes a security gap that fraud rings exploited by attaching counterfeit passports to so-called “drop-box” applications.
Families planning vacations, au-pair programs or student-exchange trips will need to factor in additional lead time. In high-volume posts such as Mumbai, Manila and Mexico City, first-time visitor-visa wait times already exceed 150 days; adding thousands of extra appointments could stretch queues even further.
Travel-industry groups fear the rule will deter multigenerational leisure trips and raise costs for corporations that rotate senior board members to U.S. meetings. On the operational side, embassies are racing to hire more contract staff and expand interview hours, but systemic capacity constraints remain.
Attorneys note that humanitarian parole and diplomatic visas retain limited waiver flexibility, but the vast majority of B-1/B-2 visitor and student visas are now interview-mandatory.
The shift ends more than a decade of age-based waivers that allowed parents or caregivers to submit documents by mail for minors and that spared elderly travelers from embassy visits. Consular officials say the change closes a security gap that fraud rings exploited by attaching counterfeit passports to so-called “drop-box” applications.
Families planning vacations, au-pair programs or student-exchange trips will need to factor in additional lead time. In high-volume posts such as Mumbai, Manila and Mexico City, first-time visitor-visa wait times already exceed 150 days; adding thousands of extra appointments could stretch queues even further.
Travel-industry groups fear the rule will deter multigenerational leisure trips and raise costs for corporations that rotate senior board members to U.S. meetings. On the operational side, embassies are racing to hire more contract staff and expand interview hours, but systemic capacity constraints remain.
Attorneys note that humanitarian parole and diplomatic visas retain limited waiver flexibility, but the vast majority of B-1/B-2 visitor and student visas are now interview-mandatory.
