Bureau of Consular Affairs
| U.S. Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs |
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INDIAN NATIONALS: On October 11, 2003, the visa issuance reciprocity fee will change to $50 for H, L, O, and P visa applications. The Visa Revalidation Division of the Visa Office accepts applications for revalidation of employment category (E, H, I, L, O, and P) visas from applicants who hold a visa of the same category and meet certain other criteria. Revalidation is also called renewal or reissuance. Applicants may also apply for a new visa at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad that processes nonimmigrant visa applications. The Visa Office considers existing visas for revalidation when they are within sixty days of expiration. Visas received for revalidation before that sixty-day period are returned without revalidation. If your visa has expired, the Visa Office accepts applications for visa revalidation only if the visa is within one year of its expiration date. Your nationality must be the same as when your previous visa was issued for the Visa Office to accept your visa revalidation application. If you changed employers and received a new I-797, Notice of Action, you may reenter the U.S. with a valid visa in the appropriate category and the valid I-797 from your new employer, even though the visa is annotated to reflect your former employer. The Visa Office will not revalidate a visa to reflect a change of employer unless the visa will expire in sixty days or less. Visa Revalidation Is Not Guaranteed If your application does not meet all of the Visa Office’s established revalidation criteria, or if there is any other reason why your application is not clearly approvable for revalidation by the Visa Office, you must make a new visa application at a U.S. consulate or embassy abroad. Visa revalidation processing currently takes approximately 10-12 weeks from the date your application is data-entered in the Visa Office in Washington. The Visa Office adheres to a strict first-received, first processed policy for all visa revalidation applications. The Visa Office is unable to expedite visa re-issuance. If you anticipate urgent travel, please apply for your visa at a U.S. consulate or embassy abroad. If you submitted an application for visa revalidation and learn that you must travel urgently, please see “How do I withdraw a pending revalidation application?” below. The Visa Office is unable to provide status reports on revalidation applications. Each year the Visa Office receives approximately 65,000 applications for visa revalidations. Our goal is to process these applications as quickly as possible. Because of our volume, we do not provide status reports on visa revalidation applications or expedite applications. To make the revalidation process more transparent, we provide the following general information on how revalidation applications are processed. Visa applicants, attorneys, and employers send visa revalidation applications to the Visa Office’s lockbox/processing center in St. Louis via the U.S. Postal Service or commercial courier services. The lockbox/processing center collects visa-related fees and data-enters the application information. After fee and data collection, the lockbox forwards the applications to the Visa Office in Washington. E, H, L, O, and P applications are processed together; one type of application does not receive priority over the other types of applications. The Visa Office receives the applications and loads the application data into its computer system. The date the Visa Office in Washington loads the application data into the Visa Office computer system in Washington is the date the Visa Office considers the application was received. You should assume that it takes approximately 10 working days for the Visa Office in Washington to receive an application from the lockbox/processing center and for the Visa Office in Washington to load the application data into its computer system. The lockbox operation returns applications that do not conform to the Visa Office’s requirements:
ALL communication on visa revalidation applications is through the Visa Office in Washington. The lockbox/processing center does not communicate with the public at any time. The lockbox/processing center forwards any communications it receives on visa revalidation issues to the Visa Office in Washington for reply. The Visa Office will refuse an application that does not conform to our requirements. Visas That Can Not Be Renewed In The U.S. The Visa Office does not revalidate visas for nationals of Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, or Syria, the seven countries currently designated as state sponsors of terrorism. These applicants must apply for new visas at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad. For more information, please see the Notice: Special Visa Processing Procedures Pursuant to Section 306 of the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act of 2002. These visa categories are NOT revalidated in the Visa Office:
All required documentation must be submitted with the visa application. The Visa Office is unable to accept supplementary mailings from applicants who forgot to include some or all of the required documentation or other information. Each applicant for visa revalidation in the Visa Office must pay the nonrefundable $100 nonimmigrant visa application processing fee and submit:
Payment of visa revalidation
fees may be made by bank draft, corporate check, or money order, payable
to the U.S. Department of State. The Visa Office does not accept payment
by cash, credit card, or personal check. Payment for the visa application
processing fee and the visa issuance reciprocity fee, if applicable, may
be combined in one bank draft, corporate check, or money order. A family
may submit one bank draft, corporate check, or money order for all visa
application processing fees and visa issuance reciprocity fees. Payment
must be drawn on a U.S. bank and must be in U.S. currency. Where to Send Visa Revalidation Applications Visa revalidation applications MUST be sent to one of the addresses below. The first address is for the U.S. Postal Service and the second is for all courier services.
I visa applicants only, please see this link for information on where to send your visa application: Issued visas and other documents (I-94s, employment letters, I-797s, etc.) are returned to you via your self-addressed, stamped envelope or prepaid courier airbill and courier envelope. On the courier airbill, please ensure that you have written your courier company account number or a valid credit card number. Ensure that you make a note of your airbill or other tracking number. You will need this information if you want to contact the courier for status information. The Visa Office is unable to provide this information to you if you misplace it. The U.S. Postal Service and the major courier service companies pick up envelopes and packages from the Visa Office’s office building daily. The Visa Office cannot guarantee that the U.S. Postal Service or any courier service company will pick up envelopes on any given day, or when the envelopes will be dispatched by the courier service company or the U.S. Postal Service. The Visa Office does not track outgoing envelopes or packages. The Visa Office will refuse your revalidation application under section 221(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 and return your documentation to you if your application lacks any, some, or all of the following:
The Visa Office may refuse any visa revalidation application if, in the Visa Office’s judgment, the application is not clearly approvable by the Visa Office. Because the Visa Office revalidates visas issued by a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad, the Visa Office does not interview visa applicants. If the Visa Office determines that an application is not clearly approvable in the Visa Office, per U.S. visa regulations, the applicant will require an interview with a consular officer at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad. If the Visa Office cannot revalidate your visa due to a lack of documentation (incomplete DS-156, no DS-157, no I-94 or I-797, employment letter that is not comprehensive, etc.), your passport and other documentation will be returned to you using your airbill/courier envelope or self-addressed stamped envelope. The Visa Office does not retain passports, I-94s, or other documentation in a visa revalidation application pending receipt of properly completed application forms, correct fees, etc. You will receive a form stating what documents are required to continue your application. Please follow the instructions carefully when resubmitting your application. Return the Visa Office form with your resubmission to the address on the form. Do not enclose your passport and other documents in an inner envelope within your mailing envelope. Ensure that your visa photograph is properly glued or stapled to the DS-156. The DS-156 and photo and the DS-157 (if applicable) are not returned with your documentation if your application is refused. Therefore, you must include a new completed and signed DS-156 with photograph and DS-157 (if applicable) when you resubmit the complete application packet. If the Visa Office informs you that your application for visa revalidation cannot be processed in the Visa Office, you must make a new visa application at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad. You will be required to pay a new nonimmigrant application processing fee. If you paid a visa issuance reciprocity fee but the Visa Office cannot revalidate your visa, the reciprocity fee will be refunded by the U.S. Treasury Department. The $100 nonimmigrant visa application fee is not refundable.
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