US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/adjudicating-nonimmigrant-visa-applicants-in-their-country-of-residence-sep-6-2025.html

by cdipaolo • 11 months ago

115 91 11 months ago

travel.state.gov

wheelerwj2• 11 months ago

Anything to make it more difficult.

andsoitis• 11 months ago

Similar to Europe: for Schengen visas, you must apply to the consulate responsible for your country of legal residence.

https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/schengen/visa-pol...

bapak• 11 months ago

Thailand has similar restrictions for certain visas.

nathan11• 11 months ago

I believe your link says you must apply at the country you're visiting, or the country you're visiting first. And you must apply at the consulate for the country you are a resident of. So if I was applying to visit France, I could do so from the US embassy in France.

This seems to differ from the new US rule where you must also apply in the country you're a resident of.

throw-the-towel7• 11 months ago

Why would you apply at the US consulate for a visa to France? That makes no sense no matter how I try to interpret.

The way it works is, if you're applying for a French visa in Mongolia and you're not a Mongolian national, you need to provide your Mongolian residence permit or else your application will be refused outright.

em-bee8• 11 months ago

you got that mixed up: you would apply at the french embassy in the US. and, that's the key point for schengen: you would not apply at the eg german embassy in the US, even though both would get you the same visa. the US embassy can't give you a schengen visa, and you could not even get to the one in france since you are not there yet. and if you visit multiple countries, it's either the one where you spend most of the time, or the one where you enter the schengen area (this may be different from the country you visit first because you could have a flight transfer inside schengen). at least as far as i know.

eterpstra• 11 months ago

Can anyone explain a rational political motivation behind this? I realize "less immigrants" is the hand-wavy explanation, but how does this benefit those in charge?

linotype• 11 months ago

Can anyone explain a rational political motivation behind this? I realize "less immigrants" is the hand-wavy explanation, but how does this benefit those in charge?

I recommend you read the link, which in the first few words outlines “non-immigrants” and my summary.

Adjudicating Nonimmigrant Visa Applicants in Their Country of Residence

jeffbee2• 11 months ago

It aligns with their effort to ruin the economic situation of American universities.

efitz2• 11 months ago

Please refer me to the part of the Constitution that enumerates the responsibility of the US government to preserve the business model of the modern university system?

tupac_speedrap• 11 months ago

Yes, what America needs now is more students working in the grey economy after their student visa expires.

mnky9800n• 11 months ago

Immigrants don’t apply for non immigrant visas

throw-the-towel7• 11 months ago

Not defending the US here, but are you saying that overstaying your visa does not exist?

wheelerwj2• 11 months ago

This might also be tied to the incident with the South Korean nationals in Georgia.

throw-the-towel7• 11 months ago

(Note: Georgia as in Atlanta, not Tbilisi.)

chillingeffect2• 11 months ago

It validates xenophobia. In a xenophobic population. This keeps them in charge. That is all. This administration is all about cutting off their nose to spite thir face.

burnermore• 11 months ago

This feel like bad for countries like India initially. But will help make better homegrown solutions. This is good for the world.

digitaltrees3• 11 months ago

So a Canadian that wants to visit on a tourist visa has to apply at an embassy?????!!!! Instead of on the airplane right before landing?

Insane. This is going to destroy the tourism industry and collapse business travel.

anonexpat• 11 months ago

This doesn't affect nationals eligible for visa-on-arrival.

digitaltrees3• 11 months ago

Got it. Thanks. That’s a lot better than first impression.

NoImmatureAdHom2• 11 months ago

Canadians don't need tourist visas

LadyCailin• 11 months ago

Canadians do not need a visa to enter the US. And many countries are covered under the Visa Waiver Program, such as many European countries. So no, this does not affect Canadians.

jmclnx• 11 months ago

Do Canadians need to get Visas to visit the US ?

Last time I went to Canada all I needed was a Passport. I do not even remember showing it to the Custom Official. I drove up said hi and they let me through.

As far as I know it was/is the same for Canadians visiting the US. Except the US border people tended to be d**ks, even to US Citizens.

Did that change?

IncRnd• 11 months ago

Canadians don't need a visa to visit the United States for tourism or temporary business travel purposes.

digitaltrees3• 11 months ago

Got it. Thanks for clarifying

mk12• 11 months ago

Canadians don’t need a visa to visit the US, they are visa-exempt.

ashray4• 11 months ago

This was already the case for almost every other country. Most embassies required you to be resident or a national of the country you are applying in.

So oddly, the US was far more permissive than other locales in this one aspect. All this change does is bring it in line with security practices that other nations already had in place.

Honestly am quite surprised that the US didn’t already have this restriction considering overall it’s one of the toughest countries to get a visa for or even enter with a valid visa.

The US visa vetting procedure is known to be so strict even for tourists that many nations give visa free access to nationals who would otherwise require a visa - just because they hold a valid (or sometimes even expired!) US visa. It’s a highly regarded sticker if you can get one in your passport and seriously ups the power of your passport if it’s a weaker one to start with.

abxyz4• 11 months ago

Really? Do you have any examples? I’ve had visas around the world (and encountered numerous weird requirements) but never have I been required to apply for a visa from my country of nationality. Even China, which is very restrictive, allows for non-national applications.

(And in fact, in my experience, it is getting easier with online applications becoming more common.)

ashray4• 11 months ago

I have several examples and lots of personal experience. I’ve been asked to go back from Mexico, Brazil, and Chile while traveling there and applying for a visa to Peru. Finally the Peruvian embassy in Chile gave me a visa to visit Peru because I accidentally bumped into the assistant consul.

https://bkpk.me/peru-visa-for-indians/

The San Francisco consulate of India refused to process my spouse’s Indian visa because she was not resident in the US.

https://bkpk.me/how-we-finally-got-zaras-visa-to-india/

Several more examples but in this day and age you can just ask chat gpt to summarize for you. But if you check visa application requirements for many embassies, they will often say: proof of residence if not a national of the country of application. So that’s the requirement often.

I will add though that I’ve always maintained that this is a soft policy and they will make exceptions in some cases. It is mostly consulates wanting to do as little work as humanly possible. So there can be ways to get around it if you can talk to someone in charge. But usually that’s very difficult with consulates.

I’m pretty sure though in the US’ case now it’s a hard no. So there will be no working around it.

throw-the-towel7• 11 months ago

Schengen works exactly like this. Also Japan I think.

viceconsole7• 11 months ago

It's common for countries to require you to apply from your country of nationality or residence, and to prove lawful residence if you're not a national of the country you're applying in. I'm in the middle of a French visa application for my daughter right now, and she must apply in the U.S. where she's a citizen.

Simulacra• 11 months ago

Many countries do things radically different than America does in terms of immigration, but it is quite clear over the past 20 years that one major political party in America favors more open immigration than the other. Where it seems most Americans prefer something right in the middle. Legal, but flexible.

FridayoLeary• 11 months ago

Europes permissive immigration policies (basically anarchy from my perspective in the UK) are creating an entirely avoidable crisis. I expect a far more closed border policy in the future. International travel will become more complicated as western countries will increasingly try to control who is allowed in. Trumps administration is just 2 to 5 years ahead of everyone else.

foogazi• 11 months ago

This was already the case for almost every other country.

The US started of as a “zero to one” - a “sui-generis” state - unlike any other

Over time the people that gave in to the temptation to copy others, to be imperialistic, to be a colonizer, to be a slaver, to be expansionist all managed to damage the soul of the country- and still they keep trying

Why the insistence of being like almost every other country ?

Most embassies required you to be resident or a national of the country you are applying in.

Were not like other countries

So oddly, the US was far more permissive than other locales in this one aspect. All this change does is bring it in line with security practices that other nations already had in place.

We won two world wars and put a man on the moon - and you want to bring the US in line ?

The greatest experiment in state-building and you want to make it average?

hulitu2• 11 months ago

We won two world wars and put a man on the moon - and you want to bring the US in line ?

Citation needed /s

kaycey2022• 11 months ago

China won the last one though. They aren’t number 1 for no reason .

fblp2• 11 months ago

Also. "Effective immediately". Too bad for the tens of thousands of people who would be in legitimate process for a visa outside their country home country right now. This administrations arrogance and urgency is more important.

NoImmatureAdHom2• 11 months ago

It explicitly doesn't affect people who already have appointments / who are in process. Read the link.

Nervhq• 11 months ago

But then they wouldn't be able to bash Trump!!

fblp2• 10 months ago

In practice, this is not what occurred. Many people had appointments canceled admist the confusion.

jrochkind1• 11 months ago

The idea that someone from Haiti could get to Nassau for a visa interview is not serious.

viceconsole7• 11 months ago

There's no staff in Haiti to process visas at all, the embassy is on ordered depature. There are staff in Nassau, including people trained in Haitian Creole, and there are many Haitian applicants who apply for visas in Nassau. Where do you think the US should interview Haitian applicants? Also, if someone from Haiti has the resources to travel to the US, they have the resources to travel to Nassau for a visa interview.

throw-the-towel7• 11 months ago

The Darién Gap was believed to be impassable, now people cross it by the thousands just to get to the US. You're seriously underestimating how motivated and desperate some of these people are.

anvuong• 11 months ago

This is good. Canada consulate has been swamped with TCN visa appointments for a very long time. And this is the norm for many countries, including the EU.

viceconsole7• 11 months ago

I was a US diplomat in India for 2 years and processed tens of thousands of visas. While this change will cause some inconvenience for, e.g., current H-1B visa holders from India who can no longer travel to Canada or Mexio to apply for new visas, in general it makes a lot of sense. I worked at the number one H-1B processing post worldwide. Our post had the expertise to quickly evaluate applications and approve the clearly legitimate ones while scrutinizing the potentially fraudulent ones. We tracked fraud patterns and kept tabs on known-bad petitioners. We could visit petitioner locations on the ground in India. This expertise doesn't exist in Canada or Mexico. Staff at those embassies and consulates would have to consult with us in India, or simply make uninformed decisions. Note also that bona fide residents of a country can still apply in their country of residence.

For a few weeks in India, we had a string of third-country nationals (I won't say which, but it's not hard to find) apply for foreign medical graduate visas. We weren't familiar with the context in country they were coming from. They seemed to be generally good quality applicants and many were approved. It turned out that there was a cheating scandal in that third country, an entire batch of test results had been invalidated, and the embassy located there was refusing their visas, so a few applied in India and were approved, then word got out and more came. We eventually wised up. However, there was really no good reason for these applicants to be travelling from their home country to India for a visa appointment even under normal circumstances (India isn't exactly known for having short visa wait times).

blindfolded_go• 11 months ago

Thanks for sharing your experience. Good to get some real-world data in this thread as opposed to the emotional condemnations of this rule change.

steviedotboston• 11 months ago

People make two big assumptions about immigration in my experience

1) They think the system should be extremely simple 2) They assume everyone involved is being honest

When the reality is

1) Many people involved are lying to claim immigration benefits they have no right to 2) The system needs to have a level of complexity and difficulty to prevent these people from accessing these benefits

maxerickson2• 11 months ago

Why not disconnect the reviewer from the submission location then?

viceconsole7• 11 months ago

Because there is a statutory requirement that applicants who require an interview appear personally before a consular officer. So far, the State Department has interpreted this to mean "standing physically in front of".

Having done tens of thousands of visa interviews, I do think the requirement of a physical appearance before an officer is important. I could quickly review a person's travel history by looking through their passports, questioning them about prior trips. A person's travel patterns and visas to other countries can tell you a lot. I could quickly use a UV light or magnifier on educational documents to see if they were genuine. Several times, I overhead conversations from other applicants and officers that were relevant to my applicant (same employer/group) and I would consult with them. There are many other details you notice when doing this in person thousands of times.

There are also practical matters - if you're trying to do this via video link, how to you authenticate the person on the other end? At the consulate, we fingerprint them and compare them to previously collected biometrics. If you offload this authentication to a contractor site in the US, but I'm in India, is this site open in the middle of the night?

In cases where the applicant qualifies for a waiver of the interview, the State Department actually does (or at least did when I was there) have a substantial program whereby visa applications are largely processed remotely. An applicant would have no hint as to whether or not that happened, though.

Anonyneko• 11 months ago

Fun for people hailing from the countries where the US embassy is unable to issue visas for various interesting political reasons.

mgh22• 11 months ago

TNs: https://ogletree.com/insights-resources/blog-posts/uscis-iss...

neeeeees• 11 months ago

I think so but it doesn’t really matter. It’s far faster to apply at the border anyway.

HeavenFox• 11 months ago

This is a significant problem for Chinese H1B holders, because the visa sticker for Chinese passport is only valid for one year. You can stay for longer, but cannot come back if you leave the U.S. Historically folks have been getting their visa renewed in Canada or Mexico, and this is already a huge annoyance - not only do you have to make a pointless trip, but also appointments in these countries are very hard to get as a Third Country National (TCN).

Sure, most other countries don't allow TCNs to apply for visa, but they also don't require their long term residents to leave the country to renew their visa.

So, the correct solution to this is Domestic Visa Renewal. A pilot program was run last year, but it was limited to Indian H1B holders. Without this program in place, disallowing TCNs is simply cruel.

em-bee8• 11 months ago

not having Domestic Visa Renewal sounds like the most ridiculous oversight. i get making your first application from home, but renewal should always be in your target country. it's absurd to demand that people travel home once a year to renew their visa.

pandaman6• 11 months ago

Visa stamp is not needed to stay in the US, it's only to cross the border into the US. Also, coincidentally, a visa stamp can only be issued by a consulate and I don't know of any country that has consulates on its own land.

mgh22• 11 months ago

Why is this flagged?

ozozozd• 11 months ago

If the VISA issuing officer will actually verify anything, it’s a reasonable expectation (dare I say, obvious) that the applicant must be a resident of the country where the embassy is.

You can’t expect a person living in country X to validate the documents from Y country. It’s quite unreasonable to expect that they will even understand the language the document is in.

If the claim is the VISA issuing officer already doesn’t verify anything and therefore familiarity with the language and system of country Y isn’t necessary, that’s a different discussion.

The thing to fix here is requiring that someone already in US has to go to a consulate to renew/change their VISA. For someone who went to college in US for 4 years, and then did OPT for ~2 years, it’s meaningless for them to go to their home country to apply for an H1B, because all the documents they will bring will be from the US and the home country consulate personnel may not even be fit to check the validity of those documents.

US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

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