Year-long queues: US visitor-visa interview waits in Hyderabad hit 12 months, Mumbai 11.5 months

Business travellers and tourists from India hoping to visit the United States face interview wait times of up to a year, according to a Visual Capitalist analysis of State Department data highlighted by Business Today on 11 October. Hyderabad topped the global list of consulates with the longest delays for the B-1/B-2 (business/tourism) category at roughly 365 days, followed by Mumbai (348 days) and New Delhi (300 days). Global demand for American visitor visas has surged back to pre-pandemic levels, but staffing at consular sections has not kept pace. A US Government Accountability Office report cited in the article shows the number of non-immigrant visa officers falling from 1,342 in 2024 to just 904 in 2025. Combined with backlogs accumulated during COVID-19 and a post-pandemic travel rebound, the manpower crunch has pushed appointment calendars to breaking point. For Indian corporates the bottleneck is more than an inconvenience: delayed B-1 approvals can derail client kick-offs, product demos and investor meetings. Some companies have begun routing short-notice travellers through third-country consulates such as Dubai, Singapore or Bangkok, where slots can sometimes be found in under eight weeks. Others are leaning on the US Department of State’s "expedited appointment" policy, though approvals are discretionary and limited to urgent business needs. Immigration advisers recommend that Indian firms lock in interview dates at the earliest opportunity—even if tentative—and monitor the portal for last-minute cancellations that occasionally open up. Applicants should also be prepared for the possibility of additional administrative processing, which can add weeks after the consular interview. The US Mission in India says it has nearly doubled consular staffing in 2026 and processed a record 1.4 million visas in FY 2025-26, yet acknowledges that visitor-visa wait times remain "unacceptably high". A pilot programme to allow certain Indian H-1B holders to renew visas domestically in the US, launching later this month, is expected to free up limited interview capacity for first-time B-1/B-2 applicants.