United States | Global visa issuance continues steady climb

The State Department recently published the Report of the Visa Office 2024 showing a steady climb in both immigrant visa and nonimmigrant visa issuance in fiscal year (FY) 2024.

According to the report, the State Department issued a total of 612,258 immigrant visas, an increase of 8.75% from last year’s total of 562,976. Nonimmigrant visa issuance advanced at a slower pace, rising from 10,438,327 in FY 2023 to 10,969,936 in FY 2024 — a year-over-year increase of just over 5%. Most posts in India and Mexico issued record high nonimmigrant visas in FY 2024.

Overall visa issuance continues its upward trend after plummeting during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Additional Information: The Visa Services Office publishes immigrant visa and nonimmigrant visa data in the annual Report of the Visa Office. Beginning with FY 2019, the annual report replaced an earlier transaction-based methodology with an application-centric methodology in the counting and reporting of all immigrant and nonimmigrant visa data.

This alert has been provided by the BAL U.S. Practice Group.

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