The US Congress has allotted $50 million to the US State Division in a bid to lower the customer visa interview occasions.

The announcement was made by the US Journey Affiliation Government Vice President of Public Affairs and Coverage, Tori Emerson Barnes, on Wednesday, VisaGuide.World studies.

Relating to this determination, Barnes praised Congress for offering funding to scale back lengthy wait occasions for customer visa interviews, which at present common 400 days in key supply markets.

US Journey applauds Congress for steering funding to handle extreme customer visa interview wait occasions, which at present common 400 days in prime supply markets. The State Division should now deploy these assets as rapidly as attainable to decrease wait occasions and facilitate development in inbound visitation.

Amongst different issues, US journey pushed Congress to contemplate the Visa Processing Act in an effort to improve the entire visa course of.

Additional, US Journey urges Congress to contemplate different vital measures just like the Visa Processing Enchancment Act (S.2632) to modernize the complete visa course of, significantly because the U.S. prepares for a decade of main worldwide occasions.

US Urged to Cut back Visa Processing Time for 2026 FIFA World Cup

Previous to this determination, the US Journey Affiliation urged authorities to work on lowering visa wait time since that impacts the FIFA World Cup, an necessary sports activities occasion scheduled for 2026.

Journey business consultants famous that this problem might have an effect on tens of millions of soccer fanatics meaning to attend the FIFA World Cup, which is co-hosted by the USA, Mexico, and Canada.

The World Cup is perhaps 800 days away. With Colombia, that’s an actual concern as a result of proper now, the typical wait time for that exact market is round 725 days.

Earlier this yr, the US Bureau of Consular Affairs said that they’re targeted on lowering wait occasions for customer visa candidates needing in-person interviews, particularly in nations the place demand is excessive.

Our aim is for greater than 90 p.c of our abroad posts to have customer visa interview wait occasions underneath 90 days in 2024.

Final yr, 230 US Embassies and consulates around the globe issued a report of over 10.4 million visas. Of these, 5,939,797 million had been customer visas.

Extra particularly, 5.9 million accounted for B1/B2 visas, 29,286 had been B1 visas and eight,085 had been B2 visas.