How does the US Embassy - Manila interview scheduling work?

[BeefedRamen 3]

Hi!

Trying to plan ahead. How does the interview scheduling work? What can we expect?

Does the Manila Embassy allow us to choose dates for the interview? Or if we won't be able to make it to the interview date that the Embassy arranged, may we request it to have the interview at a later date? How much later can we schedule it?

Say, we got an IL mid October/November, can we schedule an interview in January ourselves?

Thanks!

[appleblossom 5,044]

47 minutes ago, BeefedRamen said:

Hi!

Trying to plan ahead. How does the interview scheduling work? What can we expect?

Does the Manila Embassy allow us to choose dates for the interview? Or if we won't be able to make it to the interview date that the Embassy arranged, may we request it to have the interview at a later date? How much later can we schedule it?

Say, we got an IL mid October/November, can we schedule an interview in January ourselves?

Thanks!

It’s scheduled for you. You can reschedule if you need to, but I would only do so if you really have no alternative. 
 

If you receive an IL in Oct/Nov it may be for an interview in January anyway, there’s usually a couple of months between IL and interview date. 

[BeefedRamen 3]

Thank you!

[Edward and Jaycel 2,195]

I would like to reiterate what @appleblossom said above about rescheduling... Please do not reschedule your appointment unless there is absolutely no other option. Move heaven and earth to get to that appointment.

[spicynujac 97]

In our case

On 9/11/2025 at 9:40 PM, appleblossom said:

It’s scheduled for you. You can reschedule if you need to, but I would only do so if you really have no alternative. 
 

If you receive an IL in Oct/Nov it may be for an interview in January anyway, there’s usually a couple of months between IL and interview date. 

In Manila?

We scheduled our own appointment as one was never "given" to us.

 

Maybe things have cleared up by now, but a few months ago, there were *two* websites as they were switching over to a new scheduling system, and the instructions had a bunch of misinformation telling you to go to the old site, which was still there and semi-functioning, but wouldnt issue you an appointment, and had no info about the correct site, and I ONLY got a successful date by trying for several days after lots of reading the posts here.

 

I *believe* the old/bad site is ustraveldocs and the correct one is https://www.usvisascheduling.com/en-US/  but you should confirm that.

 

Also waiting times vary by embassy (and even our experience in Manila in May might not be very applicable today).  The Manila embassy is notorious for switching around priority and processing of different visas.  At that time they were focusing on fiance visas, which were not a priority in the past.

 

See these threads for more info.  Also note that you will be scheduling TWO dates on the calendar.

 

 

Edited September 30 by spicynujac

[appleblossom 5,044]

13 minutes ago, spicynujac said:

We scheduled our own appointment as one was never "given" to us

 

Presumably your case was in one of the mass expedites then? Different system back then, now the backlog has reduced they're back to 'normal' processing i.e. NVC schedules the interview. 

[spicynujac 97]

Ah, that makes sense

2 minutes ago, appleblossom said:

 

 they're back to 'normal' processing i.e. NVC schedules the interview. 

Ah that makes sense, since our instructions said wait and your interview would be scheduled for you (!?#!) but it wasn't and no instructions were given on self scheduling!

 

Bottom line, check the forum here for the best info.  If it wasn't for this forum, we would have wasted MONTHS waiting by following the official instructions.  

Pretty frustrating to get misinformation direct from the US gov instructions!