US Visa Interview Wait Time Monitor

Waiting for a US visa interview and wondering whether the queue at your embassy has moved? Or able to interview in more than one country and want to know which consulate is fastest right now? This Actor reads the US State Department's official Global Visa Wait Times table and gives you, per embassy or consulate:

• the next available interview appointment for B1/B2 visitor visas, student/exchange visas (F, M, J), petition-based work visas (H, L, O, P, Q) and crew/transit visas (C, D, C1/D),
• the B1/B2 average wait last month, where the State Department publishes it,
• in monitor mode, only what actually moved since your last check, with the number of days shorter or longer,
• and, when you check several posts at once, a ranking of which post has the shortest wait per category.

The source is the State Department's own page, which it updates monthly. The numbers are theirs, not an estimate: this Actor just makes them scheduleable, comparable and diffable.

Who this is for

• Applicants waiting months for a B1/B2, F-1 or H-1B interview who want to know the moment their post's wait drops, without refreshing the page every day.
• Third-country applicants who can interview at more than one consulate (for example anyone in Canada choosing between Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa, or someone who can travel) and want the fastest option, ranked.
• Immigration attorneys, travel agencies, universities and HR teams tracking wait times across many posts for many clients, every month, on a schedule.
• AI agents and workflows that need current US visa wait times as structured JSON.

What you get

One row per post you asked for, for example:

post	b1b2	b1b2Days	student	petition	crew	changeSummary
London	1.5 Months	45	< 0.5 Month	< 0.5 Month	< 0.5 Month	B1/B2 visitor, next available appointment: shorter by about 45 days (3 Months to 1.5 Months).
Toronto	24 Months	720	1 Month	1 Month	< 0.5 Month	No change since the last check.

Every wait is given both as the State Department's published text ("1.5 Months", "< 0.5 Month", "NA") and as a day count using the page's own stated rule (a month is 30 days, a half month 15, weekends and holidays included). "< 0.5 Month" is flagged isUpperBound: true because the real wait is under that figure, not equal to it. "NA" means the State Department did not publish a figure for that post and category; the Actor never invents a number.

When you check more than one post, a final comparison row (never charged) ranks them shortest-wait first for each category and names the shortest for each, e.g. "shortestWait": { "b1b2": "London (1.5 Months)" }.

Monitor mode

Turn on Monitor mode and schedule the Actor. The first run records a baseline for each post. Every later run compares against it and reports only real movement:

• B1/B2 visitor, next available appointment: shorter by about 135 days (6 Months to 1.5 Months).
• Petition-based (H, L, O, P, Q), next available appointment: longer by about 15 days (< 0.5 Month to 1 Month).
• Student/exchange (F, M, J), next available appointment: now published at 2 Months (was NA).
• The State Department republished the table (2026-07-15 to 2026-08-17) with no change for this post.

The State Department updates the table monthly. A weekly schedule catches each update within days while keeping the cost near zero; a daily schedule works but mostly confirms no change. Use a different Watchlist ID per client list so baselines don't overwrite each other.

Input

Field	What to enter
Embassies / consulates	City names as on the table, one per line: London, Toronto, Mexico City, New Delhi, Lagos. Unambiguous partial names work (Juarez finds Ciudad Juarez). An ambiguous name is reported with the candidates rather than guessed.
Visa category	all (default), b1b2, student, petition or crew. Controls which columns are reported and, in monitor mode, which are watched.
Monitor mode	Off = one-time lookup. On = report only what moved since the last run.
Watchlist ID	Keeps separate monitor histories apart.
Reference mode	Turn on listAvailablePosts to get all 240+ post names and the category keys. Never charged.

Pricing

Pay per event, no subscription:

• $0.02 per post looked up (one-time lookup mode)
• $0.05 per change detected (monitor mode, only when something actually moved)
• $0.005 per unchanged post confirmed (monitor mode)
• a small run-start fee that covers opening a real browser session to the State Department site ($0.04 per run at the default memory)

Posts that don't match anything, ambiguous names, the comparison row and reference mode are never charged.

What it actually costs in practice: watching 10 posts on a weekly schedule is 4 runs a month: about $0.16 in run fees, $0.20 for 40 unchanged checks, and $0.05 for each real change (a typical month sees a handful). Call it under $1 a month to watch 10 consulates. A one-off comparison of 5 posts is $0.14.

FAQ

Is this the same as the appointment booking system? No. This reads the State Department's public, published wait-times table. It does not log in to, scrape or interact with the appointment scheduling system (usvisa-info / ais), and it cannot book, move or find individual appointment slots. For that, use the official scheduling site for your country.

Why does the B1/B2 average column say NA for most posts? The State Department only publishes last month's average wait for B1/B2 when the next available appointment is more than three months away. NA there means "not published", not "no wait".

How accurate is the day count? It is a direct conversion of the State Department's own published figure using the rule stated on their page (30 days per month, 15 per half month). It is not a prediction. The State Department itself notes new appointments are released regularly, so real applicants can often move earlier than the published figure.

Why does it need a browser and a proxy? travel.state.gov sits behind a bot challenge. The Actor uses a real browser through a US residential proxy, which is why there is a small run-start fee. One session reads the whole table, so checking 30 posts costs almost the same as checking one.

Is this legal? The data is a US Government work, in the public domain (17 U.S.C. §105). The State Department's own copyright notice states Consular Affairs information "may be copied and distributed without permission." No State Department seal or trademark is used.

Found a post name that doesn't match, or a value that looks wrong? Open an issue on the Actor page. Unrecognised values are reported verbatim with no day count rather than guessed, so you will always see exactly what the State Department published.

If this saved you from refreshing the State Department page by hand, a review on the Actor page genuinely helps other applicants find it.