Catperson_rx

My case changed to "Ready" status yesterday. I submitted the DS 160 and created an account on the embassy portal. The portal asked me to pay a "visa application processing fee" of $265. After paying that using a debit card, the portal let me pick a date for an interview. The earliest available date was May 4 so I booked it. Should I have waited for the welcome letter from NVC or instructions from the embassy before scheduling the interview date? I am feeling nervous as heck that I'm going to mess something up. 🥶

Feb 14 and 15 are the next shipping dates.

If your case is "in transit" you can find and track it using instructions on this thread:

Hi, I'm not at that stage yet (still in transit), but from what I've read it contains a "pre-interview checklist" that tells you what documents you need to prepare and bring to the interview. It also gives instructions on medical exam and how to book the interview date. It is mailed to the beneficiary or emailed to the petitioner. It varies by embassy.

Got an email from NVC this morning that my case was sent to the Abu Dhabi consulate. The CEAC status also shows "in transit". The email also had an attachment that said it can take "several weeks" for NVC to transfer the case to the embassy!!!!!!!! Does it really take that long?

The only way you can get a status of your case from NVC is to use their "public inquiry form". They're not going to send you a receive letter.

This calendar shows the dates that NVC ships cases to embassies. NVC will hold it until the embassy has the capacity to take more.

Great, I submitted an inquiry asking for case number and they responded today!

Congrats!!! Did you get the case number after submitting an inquiry?

Congrats! What do we do with the case number? Can you log in to the CEAC portal and fill out docs or submit payments? At what point do we get a welcome letter? Sorry for so many questions, I'm a bit lost in this process.

USCIS sends the physical paper petitions in batches like in this photo. It's really absurd how they haven't evolved into electronic processing.

This just happened to me too. First 2 inquiries said they "recently" received my case. On my 3rd inquiry they said they have not received my case from USCIS. This is really annoying. This better be just a glitch.

Hi, I can only answer question #2. I sent an inquiry 34 days after NOA2 and got a response a week later that my case was "recently" received from USCIS. Currently at day #48 with no further updates. Planning to send a second inquiry at day #60.

According to historical processing times from VisaJourney, it is taking an average of 52 days for NVC to receive a case from USCIS and then an average of 34 days for them to process it. Of course not everyone is updating their timelines and the accuracy of these numbers are not great, but still some kind of estimate. Source:

I used the inquiry form on their website: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/ask-nvc.html

Our NOA2 was on 10/21. I sent an inquiry to NVC on 11/23 to see if they've received my case from USCIS. A week later on 11/30 I got a response that my case was received:. "Dear Sir/Madam: The National Visa Center (NVC) recently received your immigrant visa petition from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Your petition is now waiting for data entry into our systems. Since your case is not in our systems yet, we cannot make updates. As soon as your case is in our systems, we will send a Welcome Letter and instructions. Then, if you still need help updating your case, you can contact us by using one of the methods listed on https://nvc.state.gov/ask. For current processing times, please visit our website: https://nvc.state.gov/timeframes for English or https://nvc.state.gov/plazos for Spanish. If your petition was approved before the dates NVC is working on, please resubmit your inquiry. You can also begin to familiarize yourself with the documents NVC will request at that site."

One more questions that just crossed my mind: since there is no US embassy in Iran, can the applicants pick the country (Armenia, UAE, Turkey) or does NVC pick that for us?

I we choose to leave after the interview, does the embassy mail the visa to the beneficiary or the petitioner?

I submitted an inquiry to NVC last week (NOA2 10/21). Yesterday they got back to me that they "recently" received my case. I wish they could specify the exact date it was received so I can predict processing based on their timeline.

Thanks so much for your detailed answer! I'm only 2 weeks into my NOA2 but also very impatient lol.

Hi, how long does case creation take by NVC? Do they send the petitioner an email with a case number?

Thanks for your response. 2 months isn’t too bad.

Hi, anybody knows how long it takes from NOA2 to scheduling an interview? I was approved on Monday Oct 24.

I'm at day 441. Is your range 119500?

Is there anything you guys are doing proactively while patiently waiting for an approval? My fiancé is translating her vaccination documents into English. We're also making a scrapbook/photo album of all the visits we had after filing the petition in case they wanted to see it in the interview.