The National Visa Center (NVC) will process your immigration visa petition after receiving it from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
Before you can actually get an immigrant visa to live in the United States, NVC will first review your visa application along with the required documents, schedule a medical exam, and lastly, conduct an interview.
If you’ve received a “documentarily complete” (DC) response from NVC, it means that they’re setting up the time for an interview. Then, when will NVC schedule it for you?
How Does NVC Work?
The National Visa Center (NVC) is a government agency that processes immigration visa applications conducted outside the United States.
As part of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, NVC works with the U.S. Embassy or Consulate in an applicant’s home county to handle their immigration cases.
The most important task of the NVC is to ensure that the applicant has completed the required documents and filled out the necessary forms before an interview is conducted. Why is it important?
Whether or not you’re eligible to apply for an immigrant visa will be determined by the documents you’ve completed, and these will be checked by consular officers. That way, they can easily consider your visa application by seeing your application file.
If there’s an incomplete document found during the interview, they may ask you to complete it first, and the interview will be postponed and/or rescheduled.
The following are several NVC’s tasks:
- To check forms and any documents in support of the visa application.
- To gather the immigrant visa fees.
- To schedule an immigrant visa interview.
- To give interview instructions to applicants.
- To send the completed case file to the interviewing consular officer so the applicant can be ready for the interview.
Why is an Interview Important for Immigrant Visa Application?
Anyone who wants to become a U.S. lawful permanent resident will undergo the interview, which is the final step in processing the visa immigrant application. After having it, you can enter the United States and get a green card, which allows you to be a U.S. citizen.
An immigrant visa interview will be held after the NVC schedules it and checks the required documents. The applicants will be interviewed by consular officers at a U.S. embassy or consulate in their country.
Since the consular officers play a crucial role in the interview, they should responsibly review and evaluate every visa application to further decide whether they will approve or reject it.
During the interview, they will ask several questions to applicants regarding the reasons why they’re applying for an immigrant visa, such as:
- Why do they leave their country of birth to change citizenship?
- Why do they want to stay and become U.S. residents?
- How they support themselves and their families financially while in the United States.
- Etc.
In addition to conducting the interview, the officers also provide information and assistance to every applicant regarding the immigrant visa. They also guide on how to increase their chance to qualify for obtaining a visa.
In short, the visa immigrant interview is very important because it is very important to get a decision on the eligibility of an applicant to get a visa. Otherwise, if discrepancies or red flags are found in an application, then they may request additional documents or information from the applicant to verify their eligibility.
How Long Does NVC Schedule an Interview?
If you’re “documentarily qualified,” NVC will start to schedule your interview. You need to know that NVC regularly creates the schedule per month.
But how fast or late a person’s interview schedule is can vary based on several factors, including administrative processing time, current caseload, and requests for additional documents.
When it comes to the time of your immigrant visa interview, the NVC actually cannot determine it themselves since they should adjust available appointment dates and times at the U.S. embassy or consulate in your country.
Of course, NVC will arrange them in the order provided. In addition, the U.S. government sets the maximum number of visas approved each year for several visa categories. Moreover, if you are in this category, this will cause a delay between completing your application and qualifying for an interview.
Basically, NVC cannot predict when your interview will be scheduled. Usually, they need at least 90 days to create the schedule, but today, it may take between 6 and 8 weeks for NVC to review documents that applicants submitted through the Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC).
In general, the range of time required from the start of NVC receiving the applicant’s petition and required documents from USCIS, processing the application, and determining the interview schedule at the embassy is around 8–10 weeks.
When you receive an interview schedule, it actually means an applicant’s priority date has been reached. But still, it is based on the availability of open slots at the embassy and the time allocated for you to complete your medical check.
How to Find Out the Accurate Schedule of Your Visa Interview
If you haven’t yet received your interview schedule for more than 3 months, you can look for information about the immigrant visa interview schedule. As we’ve mentioned earlier, there are several visa categories that have a maximum limit to be issued by the U.S. government.
The following are some possible ways that may help you find it:
1. Check your visa application status
To apply for it, you should upload your application and required documents to the Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC) website. And of course, the first thing you can do is check it out.
On CEAC, you can use your NVC case number to check your case status. If you correctly input it, the website will bring up the latest update about your application, including when yours will be documentarily qualified.
2. Contact the NVC
Second, you can try to contact the NVC’s Customer Assistance Center at 1-603-334-0700, and they’re available from Monday through Friday, starting from 7 a.m. to midnight (Eastern Time).
Make sure to provide them with your information clearly. Don’t forget to ask them for an estimated schedule for your visa interview. They may give you your NVC case status number and any relevant information.
If you want to contact NVC online, you can send them a form that you can find at nvc.state.gov/ask. Their response will be sent to your email. So, you can check it regularly to know what they say.
3. Check the U.S. Embassy or Consulate
The U.S. embassy or consulate will usually have information about the processing time of your visa application, the interview schedule of every applicant, and any specific information about your visa category, whether or not it needs a longer time to process, as well as guidance for applying for visas in different categories.
4. Get in touch with the U.S. Embassy.
If you cannot find the information online, you can directly visit the U.S. embassy or consulate office in your country. You can try going to the consular department or embassy visa unit first; they can usually provide information regarding interview scheduling times.
Well, all of them cannot provide the details about your visa interview; what you should do is just wait until you receive the email containing the date and time of your interview schedule. Make sure to always rely on the most current information available from official sources.
Who Should Attend the Immigrant Visa Interview?
Anyone who will migrate to the United States must undergo an immigrant visa interview, including yourself, your spouse, and your unmarried children. For applicants under 14 years of age, they’re not required to attend the interview.
If your spouse and your children qualify for an immigrant visa, but they decide to immigrate to the United States at a later date, separately from you, they are not required to attend your interview. Of course, they’ll be scheduled for separate interview appointments.
If necessary, you can contact the U.S. embassy or consulate to arrange a separate interview.
To note: petitioners or someone who gave a sponsor to you are not required to come for your visa interview.
What to Bring to Your Visa Interview
Before your visa interview is conducted, you may need to complete your medical exam with a doctor appointed by the embassy. It can take around 96 hours. If it is done by other physicians, your exam will not be accepted.
Once your medical exams have been completed, the physician will send them to you in a sealed envelope. It’s best for you to not open it; you can instead bring and give it to the consular during the interview.
Aside from your medical report, you also need to bring some important documents to the interview, including:
- Your appointment letter: You should bring an appointment letter containing the date and time of the interview that you receive from NVC. Since it’s sent via email, you can print the letter.
- Your passport: Your valid passport should be carried out, as long as it is unexpired. Yours will still be valid six months after the date of entry into the United States.
- Your photographs: The two identical color photos of you and these should meet general photo requirements.
- The DS-260 Confirmation Page: You’ll receive it after you submit a DS-260 form.
- Any supporting documents: Any original or certified copies of all documents you uploaded to CEAC, either original or certified copies.
You’ll receive your original documents after your interview has been completely done. So, you can store any photocopies that the interviewer gave.
What If You Cannot Attend Your Visa Interview?
If there’s something that makes you unable to attend the interview, you should immediately contact the U.S. embassy or consulate. Make sure to explain the strong reason why you cannot attend the interview.
Your visa case may be terminated, and your visa application may even be cancelled, if you do not contact the US Embassy or Consulate within one year of receiving your interview appointment letter. Regarding the fees you have paid at NVC, they cannot be refunded.
If you need to change the date and time of the visa interview, you can also reschedule it at the U.S. embassy or consulate in your country.
AUTHOR BIO
On my daily job, I am a software engineer, programmer & computer technician. My passion is assembling PC hardware, studying Operating System and all things related to computers technology. I also love to make short films for YouTube as a producer. More at about me…
