Obtaining a U.S. visa

Not so long ago, in July, Intel sent me an invitation to an AppUp Elements event . At the time I received the invitation, I did not have a passport or, of course, a US visa. But I managed to get both of them and arrived at the event on time. About how I succeeded, I want to tell in this article.

This article may be useful for those who want in the future or are ready to get a visa to travel to the United States.

Now to the point. First, on the dates - applying for a US visa should be submitted at least 30 days from the date of the proposed trip. On thispage, you can find out about the validity of visas valid at the moment. For my part, I want to recommend submitting documents as early as possible (in 40-60 days), because anything can happen. For example, due to summer fires, the embassy was closed for several days, the deadlines for consideration, respectively, were postponed.

Before you start filling out an application, you should get a photo that meets these requirements.

Next, fill out the questionnaire DS-160 . The questions are not complicated, in some places they may seem silly. In the questionnaire you will indicate:

• Full name
• date and place of birth
• passport information
• residential address, postal address, telephone
• information about your overseas. passport
• purpose of the visit
• information about who invited you, where you are going to live
• information about people traveling with you
• Have you ever been to the USA, have you been issued a visa before

etc. Explanations are given for each question, including in Russian. To get a hint you just need to hover over the corresponding explanation.

Nothing complicated when filling out the questionnaire, only a couple of points made me difficult:

National Identification Number - the number of your local passport.
Passport Book Number - I have an old-style passport and this item does not fill out, I don’t know how things are with the new ones, can someone share information.

After filling out the questionnaire, you will be given a confirmation page for the completed application. It must be printed. To print, in accordance with the recommendations of the embassy, ​​only on a laser printer.

Next, go to the Pony Express website, find the nearest branch and go there. For obtaining a visa, you will need to pay a consular fee, the cost of the fee depends on the type of visa (from $ 100 and above), see the rates here .

You can either come to the Pony Express office, take a receipt there, go to the bank, pay, then return. Or pay in advance using the ready-made form . To save time, I recommend the second option. The internal rate of the embassy, ​​at the moment - $ 1 = 30 rubles.

You need to bring a printed confirmation page to the Pony Express office, if you have attached the photo in electronic form to your application - do not forget to bring the photos in paper form, as well. passport and, if available (and preferably), an invitation from the host. At the Pony Express office, you fill out the form and submit the documents.

A few days later they will call you and offer to pick up your pass for an interview at the embassy. The pass will indicate the date of the interview.

In my case, the date was unacceptable, AppUp Elements started on the 15th and ended on the 16th. I was assigned a date - September 17th. I again went to the Pony Express office and wrote a request to reschedule the interview date. In it, I described, in my own words, the reason why I ask you to postpone the date. The application was faxed to the Moscow office. The girl who accepted the application said that there were few chances, they rarely postpone the deadlines. After 2 hours, they called me from the Moscow office and said that the date was postponed to September 10th.

On the appointed day, you must come to the embassy, ​​preferably 30-60 minutes before the appointed time. It is advisable to eat something before this (which I did not and regretted), because You can spend a lot of time there (I left only after 4 hours). Electronic gadgets, in order to pass the time, you can not take with you, they will need to be handed over at the entrance.

The interview itself is not complicated, you will be asked about the purpose of the visit, relatives, work. In general, they need to be sure that you have something here, you have somewhere to return to and you are not going to immigrate illegally.

If a positive decision is made, then you leave and wait for your passport with a visa glued into it to be delivered to you. If not, your passport will be returned to you. With a positive decision, you can immediately, at the embassy, ​​pay an additional fee of $ 100 and get a visa for a period of 2 years.

On the site and in the Pony Express office itself, it is indicated that the delivery time for a passport with a visa is 2-3 days. I was interviewed on Friday and already on Monday morning a passport with a visa was waiting for me at the Pony Express office.

Information about the visa service of the company Pony Express
Information about visas on the website of the embassy

It seems to have told everything and forgot nothing. If you have questions - ask, I will try to answer them.