E-Paper
364 days for US visa interviews: Why Indians waited for almost a year; report explains
Indian applicants endured an average wait of 346 days for a US nonimmigrant visa interview in FY2025.
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Indian applicants faced an average wait of 346 days for a US nonimmigrant visa interview in fiscal year 2025, nearly a year. This came as a sharp mismatch between visa demand and consular staffing contributed to longer queues, according to a new US Government Accountability Office report.
The GAO found that India recorded 1,455,255 nonimmigrant visa applications in FY2025, with just 68 consular officers working on nonimmigrant visas. That amounted to 21,401 applications per consular officer, compared with 10,135 in China and 13,118 in Brazil. India’s weighted average interview wait was 346 days, compared with 34 days in China and 32 days in Brazil.
The findings are particularly significant for Indians seeking US visitor visas for tourism, family visits or business travel, as well as other temporary visas that require consular processing.
Why are US visa waits so long for Indians?
The GAO said State Department officials in India, Brazil, China and Mexico identified low staffing levels relative to demand as a main factor contributing to interview wait times. India and Mexico had longer waits than China and Brazil, with fewer staff available relative to the number of applications they received.
The broader US visa backlog has also grown as demand recovered after the pandemic. The State Department adjudicated 11.7 million visitor visas in FY2025, up from 9.2 million in FY2019 and far above the pandemic-era low of 1.5 million in FY2021.
Yet staffing did not keep pace. The number of consular officers working on nonimmigrant visas rose from 1,104 in FY2021 to 1,342 in FY2024, but fell to 904 in FY2025, which the GAO attributed to hiring freezes and attrition. The average wait for a visitor visa interview globally rose from 26 days in FY2019 to 201 days in FY2025.
What the GAO wants the US State Department to change
The report said the State Department has a process called the Global Repositioning Exercise (GREX) to assess workloads and adjust consular staffing. But the department has not used it consistently.
State conducted and implemented one GREX since FY2019. Officials said the exercise was not conducted in FY2021 and FY2022 because of Covid-related issues, and again in FY2024 and FY2025 because of changing policy priorities.
The GAO has recommended that the State Department establish a mechanism requiring the exercise to be conducted consistently so staffing can better match visa demand at individual posts.
The recommendation remains open, with the GAO saying the department has neither agreed nor disagreed with it.
