If you plan to go to USA, unless exempted, you need US Visa. You may have applied for US Visa and if your visa was approved, your passport would have been taken at the US Consulate. Even though the visa officer said it is approved, you may be curious to know the status of the US Visa stamping in your passport. The question is, how do you check the status of your US Visa online. Also, even if your passport was returned and you were issued a slip saying something like administrative processing, you still would like to check the status of your visa online. We will look at the process to check US visa status online below with full screenshots.
Step by Step Guide to Check US Visa Status Online for Stamping in Passport
Step 1 – Visit CEAC Website : You need to go to US Dept. of State’s Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC) website. CEAC is part of the US Dept of State and is used to create DS-160, DS-260 visa applications. You would have used the same to create your US visa application. Here is the link : https://ceac.state.gov/ceac/ .
Step 2 – Click Check My Visa Application Status : Depending on the kind of US Visa, you applied, either Non-immigrant Visa or Immigrant Visa, you need to click on Check My Visa Application Status. Below are the direct links as well to check the status.
Step 3 – Enter Location, Application ID or Case Number : Once you are on that page, you need to enter below information as highlighted in above screenshot with arrows and click on Submit button.
- Location: In the dropdown select the location where you went for US Visa interview
- Application ID : Application ID is on your US Visa Appointment confirmation letter. It looks like below screenshot on the letter or DS-160 application.
- Case Number : Case Number is something that the consulate would give and it is usually on a slip is given to you, usually for Administrative processing or 221g. It is in the format 2020118 145 1001. You need to enter it correctly with spaces, otherwise, you will get an error saying “Your search did not return any data”. See below on how the Case Number looks. The Visa officer would have written it.
- Captcha Code : You need to enter the code that is show in image to avoid spam.
Step 4 – View US Visa Status : Once you enter everything correctly and there are no errors, you will get the US Visa status displayed. It can be in few statuses like Administrative Processing, Issued or other statuses, . See below screenshots for examples on what you can expect to see. If in Administrative processing, you need to wait. If it says issued, then your visa was issued and you can be sure that your Visa stamping is complete and your US visa was issued.
US Visa Status – Administrative Processing
If you get the Administrative Processing, it means that the visa is not yet issued and there are checks in progress. You see this usually also for first few days after your interview is done. If you were issued a 221g Administrative Processing , then this may take longer time to move to issued.
Update : Since March 3rd, 2020 Users are not seeing the Administrative processing status anymore, they are seeing a new status that shows as refused. It looks like below. Do not panic, it is a system wide change to the text displayed. See below screenshot for updated text for Administrative processing cases. It says clearly that “If you were informed by the consular officer that your case was refused for administrative processing, your case will remain refused while undergoing such processing. You will receive another adjudication once such processing is complete. ” See highlighted text.
US Visa Status – Issued
If you have the Issued status, it means that your visa stamping is almost and it is final stages. You should receive it soon in a week to 10 days. If you do not receive anything, then you can contact the consulate for the same.
US Visa Status – Refused
If your visa was denied or refused, then you will see the ‘Refused’ status on CEAC website. It essentially means that you could not prove to consular officer that you are eligible for issuance of visa. There could be many reasons, sometimes, they are denied under 214b, or other reasons. Your consular officer would give you a slip or indicate a reason for your denial. For some cases, the refused status would be shown online as soon as the interview is done…for some of the cases like H1B, where they usually give Administrative processing and let say eventually refuse or deny the visa, then it will show up much later…Below are screenshots of the Refused status of US visa on CEAC website one in Calgary, other in Chennai.
Update : The text for actual refused cases also changed from previous text. It has slightly different text that says, ” A U.S. consular officer has adjudicated and refused your visa application..” Check below.
Common FAQs – US Visa Status Check
If you are on the CEAC website and trying to check US Visa status and get the error “Your Search did not return any data”, it means that you did not enter the data properly. You would have removed the spaces in the Case Number. You need to enter it with spaces properly. Example : 2020118 145 1001. Notice there are two spaces in the number. Below is the error screenshot for your reference. If you fix the spaces, it will go away. 
If you get an error saying “Invalid Application ID or Case Number” like below, then you have either selected the wrong location and enter the Application ID or case number or you have entered the Application ID number wrong. It also can occur, if you entering Case number and missing some digits or adding more digits. So, if you fix the numbers entered, then the error would go away. 
I see “No Status” after dropbox appointment
Same for me..
If it say invalid what shall i do