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U.S. Visa Bond: Who Pays $10,000–$20,000 and Why
Since 3 August 2026, a consular officer can make a B-1/B-2 visa conditional on the applicant first posting a cash bond of $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000. This page is written from the final rule itself — 91 FR 48757, Visas: Visa Bond Program — rather than from secondary summaries, because the secondary summaries mostly still describe the pilot.
What changed on 3 August 2026
A 12-month pilot ran from 20 August 2025 under a temporary final rule (90 FR, doc. 2025-14826). The August 2026 final rule ended the pilot and made the programme permanent, with no sunset date.
In the rule's own words:
Consular officers may require covered nonimmigrant visa applicants to post a bond of up to $20,000 as a condition of visa issuance, as determined by the consular officers.
The statutory authority is INA §221(g)(3), which has permitted bonds on visitor visas for decades but was rarely used before 2025.
Who can be required to post a bond
Three conditions, all from the rule:
| Condition | Detail |
|---|---|
| Visa class | B-1 business visitor, B-2 tourist, or the combined B-1/B-2 only |
| Nationality | Nationals of countries the Department of State has designated as "covered countries" |
| Officer's decision | The bond is discretionary — the officer decides whether to require it and at which of the three amounts |
Everyone else — students, workers, exchange visitors, and B-1/B-2 applicants from non-covered countries — is outside the programme.
Which countries are covered
The rule deliberately does not list countries in its text. It states that covered countries are announced on travel.state.gov — the Department maintains the list at Countries Subject to Visa Bonds — and that the list:
may be modified on a rolling basis, with removal effective immediately upon the removal date.
The selection criteria are stated: countries with high visa overstay rates, and countries whose screening and vetting practices the Department considers deficient. A country can be added or dropped at any time, so the only reliable source for whether your nationality is currently covered is the Department's published list, not any third-party page — including this one.
Which countries have a named notice
The rule keeps its country list off-page, but individual embassies publish the notice themselves. Reading embassy visa pages on 14 and 15 September 2026 found the notice on thirty-five — carrying six different start dates.
One post states a total, and it is more than double what anyone has listed. The U.S. Embassy in Oman's visa page reads: "Starting January 21, 2026, nationals of 75 countries who are found otherwise eligible for a B1/B2 visa must post a bond of up to $15,000."
That wording is unique among the posts we read — every other one names its own country, because it is telling its own applicants they are affected. Oman's names a number instead, and Oman is not itself on any list we found.
We could not corroborate 75 anywhere else. The UAE, Qatar, Jordan and Lebanon carry no bond notice at all, and travel.state.gov, which holds the official list, serves a bot challenge we will not bypass. It is also not clear from the sentence whether 75 is the total subject as of 21 January 2026 or the number added on that date.
Two different country counts appear on embassy visa pages, often in adjacent paragraphs, and they are different measures. 39 is Proclamation 10998, the entry suspension — that number is on almost every post's page, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Morocco, none of which carries a bond notice. 75 is the bond. Reading the first as the second is easy and wrong; the two lists overlap only partly, and the proclamation has its own page.
Take it as the best available estimate of the programme's size, and this table as a sample of it. Thirty-five named countries against a stated seventy-five means roughly half the programme is not on any page you can read, including ours.
| Bond notice begins | Countries |
|---|---|
| 20 August 2025 | Malawi, Zambia |
| 23 October 2025 | Mauritania |
| 1 January 2026 | Botswana, Namibia, Guinea, Turkmenistan |
| 21 January 2026 | Venezuela, Cuba, Nigeria, Togo, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Gabon, Benin, Uganda, Bangladesh, Nepal, Djibouti, Cabo Verde, Kyrgyzstan, Fiji, Tuvalu, Tajikistan |
| 2 April 2026 | Lesotho, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mongolia, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Mauritius, Seychelles, Mozambique |
| 3 August 2026 | Georgia |
Fifteen countries were added to this table on 15 September 2026: Bangladesh, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Djibouti, Fiji, Grenada, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritius, Mongolia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Seychelles, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Tuvalu.
This is not an Africa programme, and the old table made it look like one. Every earlier version listed African countries plus Venezuela and Cuba. That shape was an artefact of which embassy pages had been read — nobody had opened South Asia, Central Asia, the Caribbean or the Pacific, because the list did not suggest there was any point. Opening them found fifteen more in a single afternoon.
The bond now reaches six continents: Africa, South America, the Caribbean, South Asia, Central Asia, East Asia and the Pacific. Do not reason from geography. A Nepali, Fijian, Grenadian or Kyrgyz applicant reading the old table would have seen nothing from their region and concluded they were safe.
This is a rolling programme, and the dates show it. 20 August 2025 is the day the pilot began; the rest were added in waves over the following year. Georgia, added from 3 August 2026, is the most recent we have found and the only one in its group — which is the clearest sign available that the programme was still taking on new countries a month ago, and is not a closed list. Malawians and Zambians have been bondable for more than a year longer than the January 2026 group. Any page that gives one start date for "the bonded countries" is wrong — earlier versions of this page gave one, and it was wrong for twenty-six of the thirty-five.
Read and carrying no bond notice. On 14 September: Angola, Côte d'Ivoire, Mozambique, Liberia, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, Eswatini, Cameroon, Rwanda, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Niger, Equatorial Guinea, Haiti, Ghana, Kenya and Mexico — but see Mozambique, which carried none on 14 September and carries one now. On 15 September: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, South Sudan, Uzbekistan, Samoa, Palau, Mali, Burkina Faso, the Maldives, Timor-Leste, Eritrea, Guyana, Suriname, Belize, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova and Kazakhstan.
The large markets were checked deliberately and none is bonded: India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, Mexico and Brazil. If you are applying in one of those, this programme does not reach you on nationality — though it still follows anyone who holds a bonded nationality and applies there, because the notice says it applies regardless of place of application.
These negatives are the reason to trust the table. Malawi and Zambia were re-read as controls on 15 September to confirm we could still detect a notice before any absence was believed, and both still carry their 20 August 2025 date.
One embassy shows how selective this is. The mission in Bridgetown serves Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines — seven countries on one site, and only Grenada carries a bond notice. If the programme does not follow a region, it does not follow a consular district either.
The Gambia's mission site returned an error on both days, and São Tomé, Guinea-Bissau, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands have no reachable mission site, so those five are unknown rather than negative.
Thirty-five is what we found, and Oman's page says seventy-five exist. Each pass over more embassy pages has produced more countries — five, then twelve, sixteen, eighteen, twenty-two, thirty-five — so the number tracks how many pages we opened, and it has never once stopped growing when someone opened more. We are sampling a list we cannot see, and the honest reading of that progression is that the real number is higher than thirty-five — and one post puts it at seventy-five. The Department's own list is the authority, and the rule says it changes on a rolling basis.
The bond and Proclamation 10998 are independent. Haiti is on the proclamation under full suspension and carries no bond notice. Botswana, Namibia, Guinea, Lesotho, Zambia and Mauritania carry bond notices and are not on the proclamation list at all. Neither measure implies the other, in either direction — a stronger statement than this page could make when it had five countries to reason from.
How much the bond is
Exactly one of three figures, chosen by the officer:
- $10,000
- $15,000
- $20,000
The pilot had capped bonds at $15,000; the permanent rule raised the ceiling to $20,000. Our earlier guides said "up to $15,000" — that was true under the pilot and is no longer accurate.
How the bond is posted and returned
- The bond is posted on Form I-352 through the process the officer specifies, after the interview and before the visa is issued.
- The visa is issued once the Department is notified that the funds have been successfully posted.
- The bond is returned when you comply with its terms — chiefly, leaving the United States before your authorised stay ends.
- The bond is breached and forfeited if you overstay, violate status, or otherwise fail to comply. The rule provides for the Department to be notified when a bonded visa holder breaches the terms.
What this means for your DS-160
Nothing on the DS-160 itself changes. But two things follow:
- Do not pay anything called a "visa bond" to anyone before a consular officer has personally told you to post one. Scam sites have already appeared offering to "arrange" or "pre-pay" bonds. There is no pre-payment. The bond is required, if at all, at the officer's decision after your interview.
- Budget for it if your nationality is covered. A $10,000–$20,000 bond is refundable, but it is real money tied up for the length of your trip and the processing time afterwards.
The bond is separate from, and in addition to, the visa application fee and any other charges — see how much a U.S. visa costs for the full picture.
Frequently asked questions
Is the visa bond refundable?
Yes, if you comply with its terms — principally departing the United States on time. It is forfeited if you overstay or violate status.
Does everyone from a covered country have to post a bond?
No. Being from a covered country makes you eligible to be bonded; whether you actually are is the consular officer's discretionary decision in your individual case.
Can I pay the visa bond in advance to speed things up?
No. There is no advance payment. A bond is required only if the officer decides to require one, and only after your interview. Any site offering to take a bond payment before that is not the government.
Does the visa bond apply to student or work visas?
No. The programme covers B-1, B-2 and B-1/B-2 visas only.
Which countries require a visa bond?
Reading embassy visa pages on 14 and 15 September 2026, thirty-five carried a bond notice, across six continents: Malawi and Zambia (from 20 August 2025), Mauritania (23 October 2025), Botswana, Namibia, Guinea and Turkmenistan (1 January 2026), Venezuela, Cuba, Nigeria, Togo, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Gabon, Benin, Uganda, Bangladesh, Nepal, Djibouti, Cabo Verde, Kyrgyzstan, Fiji, Tuvalu and Tajikistan (21 January 2026), Lesotho, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mongolia, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Mauritius, Seychelles and Mozambique (2 April 2026), and Georgia (3 August 2026). That is what we found, not necessarily all that exist — the official list changes on a rolling basis.
Where is the official list of covered countries?
At Countries Subject to Visa Bonds on travel.state.gov, maintained by the Department of State. The rule text does not contain the list, and it can change on a rolling basis — check that page rather than a third-party copy, including this one.
Do all bonded countries have the same start date?
No, and this is where most pages get it wrong. There are six different start dates among the thirty-five. Malawi and Zambia begin on 20 August 2025, the day the pilot opened, which is more than a year before the 21 January 2026 group.
Did the bond amount go up?
Yes. The pilot's ceiling was $15,000; the permanent rule's is $20,000, with $10,000 and $15,000 as the other two possible amounts.
Sources
- 91 FR 48757 — Visas: Visa Bond Program (final rule, effective 3 August 2026)
- Visas: Visa Bond Pilot Program (temporary final rule, effective 20 August 2025)
- INA §221(g)(3), 8 U.S.C. §1201(g)(3)