United States: Starting July 1, Certain Consular Posts May Offer Expedited B Visa Appointments for an Additional Fee
June 8, 2026
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At a glance
- Under a new State Department pilot program in effect from July 1 to December 31, 2026, certain U.S. consular posts will be permitted to offer B-1/B-2 visa applicants a consular visa appointment within 10 business days if the applicant pays an additional fee of $750.
- The expedite fee does not speed up the adjudication of the B visa application.
- The list of consular posts participating in the pilot program will be posted on the State Department website. Even within participating posts, the new expedited appointments will be limited.
The issue
The State Department will soon implement a new pilot program that permits certain U.S. consulates to offer a $750 expedite fee to B-1/B-2 visa applicants in order for the applicants to secure a visa appointment within 10 business days, according to an advance copy of a temporary final rule (TFR) to be published in tomorrow’s Federal Register. The new pilot program will be in effect from July 1 to December 31, 2026, and the expedited appointments will be offered only in limited quantities at participating posts. According to the TFR, the select participating U.S. consular posts will be identified on the State Department travel.state.gov website.
The B visa appointment expedite fee provides an earlier appointment date only – it will not accelerate visa adjudication or processing. Any security- or eligibility-related administrative processing timeframes will be subject to standard timeframes, and as always, may delay significantly visa processing. In addition, applicants who obtain an earlier appointment are subject to the same eligibility requirements for the B visa – an expedited appointment will not increase an applicant’s chances of visa approval.
A closer look
At certain U.S. consular posts, B visa appointment wait times currently exceed one year. In implementing this new pilot program, the State Department says it is testing demand for a fee-based expedited appointment process because, according to the agency, a fee-based process would require fewer consular resources than the current appointment expedite request process, which is granted only for humanitarian and urgent travel after an eligibility review by consular staff and managers. The current humanitarian/urgent travel expedite request process will still be offered at all U.S. consular posts; under the pilot, the agency will also offer the option of the new fee-based appointment expedite for B visa applications at participating posts.
According to the State Department, if the B visa appointment expedite fee is offered at a particular post, the visa applicant will first submit their DS-160 nonimmigrant visa application, pay the standard machine-readable visa (MRV) fee through the State Department online CEAC system, and select a standard (non-expedited) appointment date. The applicant will then be provided the option to select an expedited date within the following 10 business days and pay the additional $750 fee.
Once the pilot program has concluded at the end of the calendar year, the State Department will analyze the program data to determine whether to continue offering the appointment expedite service in some form and if so, whether to adjust the fee.
What the new expedite fee pilot means for visa applicants
It is not yet known how many and which U.S. consular posts will participate in the new expedite fee pilot program and for those participating, how many new expedited appointments will be made available at each location. Foreign nationals and employers facing lengthy B visa appointment wait times who may be willing to pay the $750 fee to expedite the appointment should stay apprised of the U.S. consular posts that will soon be identified on the State Department website as participating in the pilot. Limitations on third-country national processing may be a hurdle to accessing the new expedite option for some foreign nationals, however.
According to the State Department, because expedited appointments will be capped at a percentage of the posts’ overall interviewing capacity, the new expedited B visa appointment option is not expected to meaningfully impact wait times for nonimmigrant visa appointment wait times for other nonimmigrant classifications, such as H-1B, L-1, and F-1.
Fragomen closely monitors visa policy and processing and will provide updates as new information becomes available.
This alert is for informational purposes only. If you have any questions, please contact the immigration professional with whom you work at Fragomen.
