If you have been refreshing the State Department appointment portal for months and watching your interview slot push further and further into the future, immigration lawyers say you are not imagining things. According to experts at Reddy Neumann Brown PC, a Houston-based immigration law firm, US visa wait times in 2026 are the longest many applicants and practitioners have seen in years, and the cause is not any single policy change, but several separate changes implemented within a short window, each delaying the last.
“The delays are not the result of one isolated policy,” the firm said in its analysis. “They reflect the cumulative effect of multiple procedural changes implemented within the same timeframe.”
The result has been longer queues, fewer interview slots, and growing uncertainty for thousands of people trying to renew or obtain US visas.
The first major change came in February 2025
For years, many visa holders renewing their US visas could avoid an in-person interview through the “dropbox” system, officially known as the interview waiver program. But in February 2025, the US State Department quietly reduced that eligibility window from 48 months to just 12 months.
That meant many long-term H-1B workers whose visas had expired over a year earlier suddenly had to return to the in-person interview line.
September 2025 changed everything
After announcing changes in July, the State Department made in-person interviews mandatory for almost all nonimmigrant visa categories starting September 2, 2025. This affected H-1B, L-1, F-1, O-1, TN and J-1 visa applicants, among others.
Even exemptions that had existed for years for children under 14 and adults over 79 were removed.
Only a very limited group, including diplomats, some B-1/B-2 tourist visa renewals, and H-2A agricultural workers, could still use the dropbox option.
Another popular workaround also disappeared
On September 6, 2025, another major rule change arrived. The State Department announced that applicants could only schedule interviews in the country where they are citizens or residents.
This effectively ended “third-country national” processing, often called TCN processing. For years, many Indian H-1B workers had travelled to countries like Canada or Mexico to get faster visa appointments because wait times in India were already extremely long.
That option was suddenly gone for new bookings. A similar restriction for immigrant visa applicants took effect on November 1, 2025.
Social media vetting slowed interviews further
At the same time, consulates also began conducting expanded social media checks. The vetting process was first introduced in June 2025 for F, M and J visa categories. Then, in December 2025, it expanded to include H-1B and H-4 applicants as well.
According to the report, US consulates in Mumbai and Hyderabad saw a big drop in the number of interviews they could handle each day because of the additional screening work.
By late January 2026, all five US consulates in India reportedly had no available H-category visa stamping appointments through the end of 2026.
The earliest available slots were showing up in May 2027. Then on March 30, 2026, the vetting rules expanded again to cover more categories.
A new USCIS memo raised even bigger concerns
Immigration lawyers say the most important development may have arrived on May 21, 2026.
On that day, USCIS issued Policy Memorandum PM-602-0199, changing how adjustment of status applications are viewed.
Adjustment of status, filed through Form I-485, has long been the standard process for people already living legally in the US to apply for green cards without leaving the country.
But the new memo described adjustment of status as something that should only be granted in “extraordinary circumstances.” Instead, consular processing abroad would become the default route.
The memo does not clearly explain what counts as “extraordinary circumstances.” It also does not clarify how pending applications filed before May 21 will be treated.
According to Reddy Neumann Brown PC, this uncertainty could push thousands more applicants into overseas consular processing, the same system already struggling with multi-year delays.
“Any applicants redirected into consular processing under this framework may enter a system already experiencing substantial delays,” the firm warned. The law firm says the situation became much worse because several applicant groups that were previously separated are now all competing for the same appointments.
Immigration lawyers say there is no guaranteed workaround anymore. Applicants can still request expedited appointments, but approvals are discretionary and becoming harder to secure as demand rises.