For international travelers hoping to secure a last-minute United States visitor visa, a new expedited option is about to become available—but it won’t come cheap.
On July 1, the US State Department is launching a pilot program that allows eligible B-1 and B-2 visitor visa applicants to pay an extra $750 fee for an interview appointment within 10 business days.
The initiative is designed to test whether travelers are willing to pay to get around one of the biggest bottlenecks in the US visa process: scheduling an interview appointment. While US visa interview wait times vary based on the time of year and the applicant’s home city, current estimates show average wait times ranging from under one month to over one year.
Although nearly half of all international visitors to the United States can enter through the Visa Waiver Program, travelers from countries including India, Brazil, China, South Africa, and much of the Middle East still need to obtain a visitor visa before they can board a flight to the US. And for many of those travelers, getting an interview appointment (not obtaining the visa itself) can be the most time-consuming part of the process.
In recent years, lengthy wait times for interviews have become a significant barrier to travel. During the pandemic, backlogs ballooned as embassies and consulates temporarily suspended routine visa services. While wait times have improved since the pandemic-era backlog, they can still stretch for months in some countries. Earlier this year, US Travel Association data showed visa interview waits exceeding 12 months in markets including India, Mexico, and Colombia.
According to a temporary final rule published in the Federal Register on June 9, the State Department cited major international events, including the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, as reasons to explore new ways to speed up visa processing. While the program will launch too late to help many World Cup visitors, it could prove useful for travelers attending later events, business meetings, family gatherings, conferences, and other trips that come together with far less lead time than a typical international vacation.
“This helps people with money and a deadline: business travelers, urgent medical trips, a wedding or a funeral you can’t reschedule,” says Loren Locke, a business immigration attorney at Locke Immigration Law and a former US Department of State consular officer who adjudicated roughly 12,000 visa interviews during her time at the agency. “For everyone else—the tourist from a country with a year-long wait who’s simply trying to plan a vacation—it turns a public service into a tiered one, where the faster lane is the paid lane.”
How it works
The new fee, described by the State Department as an “optional premium addition,” comes on top of the standard $185 visa application fee, bringing the total cost to $935 per person for travelers who choose the expedited service. The pilot is scheduled to run through the end of 2026 as officials evaluate whether demand is strong enough to justify making it permanent.
Currently, the Department of State allows applicants to request an expedited interview date without paying an extra fee “if there is an urgent, unforeseen situation such as a funeral, medical emergency, or school start date” and requires proof of the need for an earlier appointment. The specific requirements vary by location, which can be found on the website of the Embassy or Consulate Visa Section where you would complete your interview.
The new $750 service, meanwhile, will not require applicants to submit “written justification or seek personal intervention through the Priority Appointment Request or Referrals processes,” according to the Department of State.
