My husband and I are trying to figure out what fees we still need to pay, so we can be sure we've saved enough money. We don't have an interview scheduled yet, but we will be interviewing for a K3. We've already paid the visa bill and affidavit of support bill for the I130, and of course both the application fees for the I130 and I129F. What else should we expect, both before the appointment and at it? If anyone could just provide a list, it would be so helpful.

If you are going to pursue K3 visa, why did you had pay the visa bill and the affidavit of support bill for the I130. If I am correct, that is only required if one is pursuing the CR-1 visa. Secondly, it seems from your timeline that the I130 has been approved for over 3 months. Why would you want to go for the K3 visa if the I130 has been approved for that long and you have paid the fees associated with CR-1 visa. With K3 visa, you have to adjust status once the spouse is in U.S. and it will cost you about $1000. With CR-1, you will not have to adjust the status and it will save you time and money.

Yes, you might as well forget about the whole K3 process. K3 visas are only avialable when an immigrant visa is not "immediately available". Once your I-130 arrives at the Consulate, the CR1 immigrant visa is considered "immediately available" so no K3 is allowed or desired.

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We're also pursuing the K3 to get the interview sooner, then from what I understand, we should be able to switch to the CR-1 instead when we get to the interview. We are living in Mexico right now, and for many reasons, we need to go back as soon as possible. A few months make a very significant difference to us. How much difference are we talking about between the time to the K3 and the CR1 interview? Maybe it's not as long as I thought.......

Actually I just checked the I130 timelines for Mexico, and it's an average of 512 days between the NOA2 and the interview, so we still have over a year to wait if we don't go for the K3 interview.

Unless Mexico is some kind of exception to the rule, the timeline that matters is NOA2 to arrival at Consulate. Once your I-130 is at the Consulate, an immigrant visa is "immediately available" so K3 is not. Consulates in Mexico not following this directive?

What do you mean by "immediately available"? They would still have to wait for an interview and then perhaps go through administrative processing.

As for the additional costs...I guess I'm confused to as to why you have pursued the I-130...I think that means you can't go forward with the K3 but hopefully someone else will chime in. If you can, then the only other costs would be for the medical exam, the police report, the birth certificate and the military records (if those are even required for your country). Other than that the cost of sending the documents into the consulate and the cost of the actual visa which I think probably varies but ours was $100 USD.

Good luck!

CR1 interviews in Mexico generally take 12-14 months from the date the approved petition arrives at the consulate.

K3 interviews in Mexico generally take 4-6 months from the date the approved petition arrives at the consulate.

It's not that the visa isn't "immediately available" - it's that the consulate is incredibly backlogged.

If the approved I-130 is there by the time you go for your K3 interview, you can change to a CR1 interview.

All fees are detailed on the CDJ website. No police certificates for Mexico.

Thanks kitkat! I found the fees on the CDJ site, and it looks we've already paid the worst of them.

By the way, with the I601 pilot program, is it still easy to switch to the CRI at the interview?

The other additional costs for the K3 would be the medical and the $100 USD for the K3 visa processing at the consulate.

After arriving to the U.S. on a K3, the AOS and EAD costs will be just over $1,000.

This case has an upside down timeline for a K3. The I-129F isn't approved yet but the I-130 has been at NVC three months already. The immigrant visa fee is paid. The I-130 will arrive on station before the I-129F. Therefore the K3 interview will never be scheduled because the I-130 on station makes the immigrant visa "immediately available" by definition.

Unless our Consulates in Mexico are making there own rules, there will be no K3 interview.

It should depend on what fees they pay for the I-130. If they don't keep it going, the I-129F will get there first. Since this is the most beneficial situation in Mexico, most people do it this way. At the time of the K3 interview, if the I-130 has arrived, they change the interview to a CR1.