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How to Book a U.S. Visa Interview Appointment
You cannot book a U.S. visa interview until three things are true: your DS-160 is submitted, your visa fee is paid, and that payment has activated in your country's appointment system. Most people who cannot find a booking screen are missing the third one.
Booking does not happen on the DS-160 site. CEAC holds the form; a separate applicant service platform handles the fee and the appointment, and which platform you use depends on your country.
Where you may book. U.S. missions instruct applicants to schedule the interview at the embassy or consulate in their country of residence or nationality. Booking in a third country to find an earlier slot is the commonest way people lose a second, non-refundable fee — see what you can and cannot speed up.
What you need before you can book
| What | Where it comes from | Common problem |
|---|---|---|
| DS-160 confirmation number | The confirmation page, 10 digits starting AA | The form was saved but never submitted, so no number exists |
| Applicant service profile | Created on your country's platform | Created on the wrong country's site |
| Paid visa fee | Paid through that platform | Paid, but not yet activated |
| Passport | Must be valid | Expiry too close to the travel date |
The DS-160 confirmation number is on the confirmation page with the barcode, not on the application pages themselves.
The order, which is where most people get stuck
- Submit the DS-160 on CEAC and save the confirmation page.
- Create a profile on your country's applicant service platform. This is a real account with an email and password — unlike the DS-160, which has no login at all.
- Pay the visa application fee. Amounts and accepted methods are country-specific; see the fee payment guides.
- Wait for the receipt to activate. This is the step people skip. Card payments can activate within hours; bank transfers and cash payments commonly take one to two business days. Until it activates, the booking screen will show nothing.
- Book the interview, and choose how your passport is returned.
Many posts require two appointments, not one
At a large number of posts you book two separate appointments: a short biometrics appointment at a visa application centre, and the interview itself at the embassy or consulate. They are on different days and usually at different addresses, and the biometrics one normally comes first.
Whether this applies to you is set by your post, not by the platform. Check the instructions for the embassy or consulate where you will apply before assuming a single appointment is all you need.
There is a minimum gap between the two, and the systems set it differently. AIS requires the biometrics appointment to be at least one day before the consular interview. The India posts on USTravelDocs require at least two business days, which over a weekend is a materially longer gap — a Friday biometrics visit does not support a Monday interview there.
Book them in that order with room to spare. "Normally a few days apart" is how this gets described, and it is the kind of description that leads someone to book them a day apart at a post that will not accept it.
Why you cannot see any appointment slots
In rough order of how often each is the real cause:
- The fee has not activated yet. Check the activation time for the method you used on your country's fee guide before contacting anyone.
- There genuinely are none. Availability is set by the post and can be months out. Current figures are on visa wait times.
- You are on the wrong country's platform. Profiles and fee receipts do not transfer between countries.
- Your DS-160 number is not recognised, usually because the form was never actually submitted.
- You already qualify to skip the interview, in which case there is nothing to book — see below.
Slots are released by each post on its own schedule rather than at a fixed global time. Checking repeatedly is the only reliable method, which is why cancellations are worth watching for.
Rescheduling, and the limit that costs people money
You can normally reschedule an existing appointment yourself through the same profile, but there is a cap. Posts commonly warn that rescheduling more than about three times, or failing to appear, can void the fee and require paying it again. The exact limit is set per post.
Two related rules worth knowing:
- The fee is generally usable to book an interview for one year from the date of payment. After that it expires unused.
- The fee is tied to your passport and receipt, not to a particular DS-160. If you correct your form and get a new confirmation number, you use the new number when booking — the fee is not reissued or refunded.
Getting an earlier appointment
There are two routes, and they are different things:
- The emergency or expedited appointment request, which remains free. You submit a reason and supporting evidence through your profile, and the post decides. Genuine medical emergencies, funerals, and urgent business are the usual grounds.
- The $750 expedited interview fee, a paid route with narrower eligibility than most people assume. See the $750 expedited interview fee explained before paying it.
Neither creates a slot that does not exist. Both ask a post to prioritise you within what it has.
What your passport has to be
The appointment services state the requirement as a passport "valid for travel to the United States with validity dates at least six months beyond your intended period of stay" — and then qualify it: "unless country-specific agreements provide exemptions."
Both halves matter. Six months beyond the stay, not six months from today, and not six months from the interview. And the exemption is real: a number of countries have agreements that hold their nationals to a shorter margin, so a passport that looks short may be fine and a reader should check their own post rather than renewing in a panic.
The two appointment systems do not word this the same way, and the difference is not cosmetic. USTravelDocs says six months beyond your intended period of stay. AIS — Mexico, Brazil, the UK and much of the Americas — says the passport "must be valid for six months beyond your intended date of entry".
Those are different tests, and they diverge as the trip gets longer. For a two-week holiday they land in much the same place. For a year-long stay, the period-of-stay wording asks for roughly eighteen months of validity and the date-of-entry wording asks for six. Read the wording your own post uses, and where a long stay is involved, assume the stricter reading unless your post says otherwise. The Foreign Affairs Manual settles which wording is authoritative — see the passport section and the six-month rule.
One more line from the same instruction is easy to skip: if more than one person is included in your passport, each person who wants a visa must submit their own application. A family sharing a passport is not a single applicant.
You do not need to bring old passports to the biometrics visit. AIS states it plainly for the Applicant Service Center: bring the current passport, and "you do not need to submit previous passports". People turn up with a stack of them.
What you can take in, which is stricter than people expect
Every applicant is screened before entering the compound, and the rules are not the ones people assume from airports.
Nobody comes in with you. The posts that publish this say plainly that friends, relatives, attorneys and business contacts are not permitted to attend a nonimmigrant visa interview. Plan for your companion to wait outside, not in a lobby.
There is usually nowhere to leave your things. This is the part that strands people. Where a post states it, there is no facility to store prohibited items — so a phone you cannot take in is a phone you must have already dealt with before you arrive. Working out what to do with it at the gate is not an option.
Electronics are the usual problem, and the lists reach further than a phone: smart watches, key fobs, flash drives and Bluetooth devices appear on them too.
Posts publish their own list, so read yours. The India posts' list is the fullest one we have read and gives a good sense of what these rules look like in practice.
You may not need an appointment at all
Some applicants still qualify for an interview waiver, often called dropbox, and submit documents instead of attending. The rules narrowed considerably and most older advice online is wrong about who qualifies. Check who still qualifies for an interview waiver before booking anything.
Frequently asked questions
Can I book the interview before paying the fee?
No. The booking screen only opens after the fee is paid and the receipt has activated in your profile.
How long after paying can I schedule?
It depends on how you paid. Card payments often activate within a few hours; bank transfers and cash payments commonly take one to two business days. Your country's fee guide gives the activation time for each method it lists.
Is there a U.S. visa appointment login?
There is a login for your applicant service profile — the account you create on your country's platform. There is no login for the DS-160 itself. If a sign-in page is asking for credentials you never created, you are probably on the wrong system; this page explains which is which.
Can I use my fee in a different country?
No. Profiles and fee receipts are per country. Applying somewhere else means a new profile in that country's system and paying again.
How many times can I reschedule?
Posts commonly allow around three reschedules before the fee is at risk, but the limit is set per post. Check the terms shown in your own profile rather than a general figure.
What happens if I miss my appointment?
Missing it without rescheduling in advance can void the fee, meaning a new payment for a new appointment. If you know you cannot attend, reschedule before the date rather than skipping it.
Do children need their own appointment?
Every applicant needs their own DS-160 and their own fee. Whether children must attend in person varies by post and age, and some are exempt from the interview — check your post's instructions.
Country guides
Booking differs by country — different platform, different number of posts, and a biometrics visit under a different name. Detailed guides:
- India — USTravelDocs, five posts, VAC biometrics
- Mexico — AIS, ten posts, CAS biometrics
- Brazil — AIS, five posts, CASV biometrics
- Pakistan — USTravelDocs, one post at Islamabad
- Philippines — USTravelDocs, one post at Manila
- Vietnam — USTravelDocs, two posts with differing waits
- Colombia — AIS, one post at Bogotá, named ASC
- Ecuador — AIS, two posts, ASC location unpublished
- Canada — AIS, seven posts with separate calendars
- Hong Kong — USTravelDocs, one post covering Hong Kong and Macau
- Japan — USTravelDocs, five posts, nothing stored at the gate
- South Korea — USTravelDocs, Seoul only, "One Cellphone Only"
- United Arab Emirates — USTravelDocs, Abu Dhabi, no bags and no phones
- Thailand — USTravelDocs, Bangkok and Chiang Mai, clear bags only
- Singapore — USTravelDocs, one post, digital watches refused
- Egypt — USTravelDocs, Cairo, liquids banned as well as food
- China — USTravelDocs, five posts, arrival-time and 30-minute rules
- Taiwan — USTravelDocs, AIT, the largest published bag allowance
- United Kingdom — AIS, London and Belfast
- Germany — USTravelDocs, three posts, one small purse only
- Israel — USTravelDocs, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, a rare permitted list
- Saudi Arabia — USTravelDocs, Riyadh, Dhahran and Jeddah
- Nigeria — AVITS, not USTravelDocs; a two-business-day barcode deadline
- Australia — USTravelDocs, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney
- Türkiye — USTravelDocs, Ankara and İstanbul; only phones are stored
- Malaysia — USTravelDocs, Kuala Lumpur; the embassy names the car park
- Indonesia — USTravelDocs, Jakarta and Surabaya; six companion conditions
- Bangladesh — USTravelDocs, Dhaka; a refusal in the last year needs the "Previously Refused" slot
- Nepal — USTravelDocs, Kathmandu; arriving with a bag cancels the appointment
- Sri Lanka — USTravelDocs, Colombo; cosmetics and long umbrellas refused
- Qatar — USTravelDocs, Doha; the one post that tells you to bring your phone
- Peru — AIS, Lima; a paid kiosk outside will hold your phone
- Lebanon — USTravelDocs, Beirut; the clearest rules on who may accompany you
- Poland — USTravelDocs, Warsaw and Kraków; bags sized against an A-4 page
- Morocco — USTravelDocs, Casablanca not Rabat; screening happens in the street
- Ukraine — USTravelDocs, Kyiv; car keys, medication and opaque folders refused
- Georgia — USTravelDocs, Tbilisi; power banks and fitness trackers can cost you the slot
- Argentina — AIS, Buenos Aires; a published 413-day non-resident wait
- Dominican Republic — AIS, Santo Domingo; new B1/B2 slots every Wednesday at 8 a.m.
- Central America — AIS; six countries, one post each, and no published ASC address
- Haiti — services suspended; Nassau is designated for residents of Haiti
- Caribbean — AIS; nine countries, one post each, and two big exceptions
Related guides
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Where you are allowed to apply — the FAM rule behind "country of residence or nationality"
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Which appointment site is yours: USTravelDocs, AIS or usvisascheduling