Hello, this is Matsui of IMS Legal Professional Corporation. As the Paralympics are being held, there are still no signs of the spread of the COVID-19 infection coming to an end. However, there was one happy news for us this week.
From August 30th, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, the U.S. Consulate in Osaka, and the U.S. Consulate in Fukuoka, have resumed all non-immigrant visa services. The service for B visas (Business / Tourist Visa) -- that had officially stopped since the middle of March 2020 -- has resumed as well, for the first time in almost 2 years. Within this year and a half, B visas were issued to those who were lucky enough for their interviews not being canceled or who met the conditions for applying over the mail. However, for most other applicants, difficult situations continued for B visas. B visa interviews have not yet resumed at the U.S. Consulate in Sapporo, so please be careful.
As a matter of fact, right around after the Olympic games came to a close, many interview spots for B visas began opening at the U.S. Consulate in Osaka. Thinking it was a matter of time, we recommended those in a hurry to reserve the interview spots in Osaka, even if they lived in Tokyo. It was a surprise for us that the interview spots in Tokyo would open as well during the Paralympics, and under the state of emergency. I immediately checked the open interview spots for Tokyo, and there were a few in the first half of September, none in October, and many in November. The Embassy consular officers seem to be continuously adjusting the spots, looking at the numbers of infected people, etc.
Things to Note
Before scheduling your interview for a U.S. nonimmigrant visa, you must first pay the application fee. The U.S. Embassy/Consulate changed their payment system for nonimmigrant visa application fee this spring, and parts of it are still unstable. We experienced, many times, the embassy/consulate not being able to confirm our payment, even after we finished the payment process. The interview reservation account could not link to the payment information, and therefore, we could not schedule an appointment. In such cases, you must contact the embassy/consulate a few times, by phone or email, and deal with the issue after checking the situation, which is very time and labor consuming. Also, in addition, you must pay also pay the return fee for your passport to be sent back.
Booking an interview, the process itself, is more complicated than before. If you find it difficult to schedule an appointment by yourself, please feel free to consult us, at IMS.
For more information, please contact us below ↓
https://imsvisa.support/en/contact/
