If you are a citizen of foreign country and not US citizen, you need a visa to enter America. Depending on the purpose of your travel, it can be of any type. Non-immigrant visa is for temporary travel to US like visiting US for tourism, temporary work, Study, etc. Many of you either planning to go to US maybe wondering how does a USA visa look like. Some of you maybe going for Tourism as a visitor, some of you maybe going to study as F1 student, Some of you maybe going to US for Working on H1B visa, etc. Irrespective of what the purpose of your travel, US visa stamp remains pretty standard, but the info in it varies by the type of visa. Below is a sample and what each of the fields on the visa means.
Sample USA Non-Immigrant Visa – Visitors, Work Visa, Student Visa, Dependent Visa, etc.
Field in USA Non-Immigrant Visa | Meaning or Info in that Field |
Issuing Post Name | It has the location where the US visa was issued. It is the US Consulate / Embassy office location |
Control Number | US Visa control number is an internal tracking number for DHS to track visas. |
Surname | Family Name or Last name of the applicant that appears in the passport. |
Given Name | First Name or Given name on your passport. |
Passport Number | Visa issued applicant’s passport number |
Sex | Sex of the visa holder. For Male = M, For Female = F |
Birth Date | Date of birth of the visa holder as in passport |
Nationality | Country of Citizenship or Nationality of the Visa holder |
Visa Type / Class | You would see two things: “R” – The letter R stands for “Regular” Passport and the category or type of Non-Immigrant Visa. It can be B2 for Visitor, H1B for Temporary work, F1 for Student, H4/F2 for dependent Visa, B1/B2 for Business & Visitor, etc. |
Entries | Entries correspond to how many times you can use the visa. ‘M’ means you can use your visa to seek entry for multiple times to enter USA. If it is ‘S’, it means single entry and you can use it for only one. Also, if it has a number, you will be allowed to use that visa to enter that many number of times printed on Visa |
Issue Date | The Date when your US visa was issued. It will be Day – Month – Year format. |
Expiration Date | It is the date when your USA visa would expire, it is also in the same format Day – Month – Year. But, the actual amount of time you can stay in US, when you enter US is decided by the CBP officer and that date is written on your passport along with the stamp at Port of Entry. The duration you can stay is also in the I-94 document that you get at port of entry. You can check it online, read US Travel History -I94 |
Red Color Number | The Red color number in the bottom of the visa, indicates the Visa Number. If you have to enter US visa number at any other place, you would use this number |
Photograph ( Black and White ) | Visa holders photograph in Black and white. It will be front facing. If anything changes significantly in your appearance, you need to be prepared for answering the same. |
Annotation | This section is for annotations by the Visa officer. Depending on the situation, it maybe blank or has some information in this section. For Students, you would have school name, for Work visa holders, you would have Employer Name and Case number. Also, if there are any checks, they would be noted here. This notes is used by the CBP officer at port of entry as needed for verification. |
Stars below Photo | The stars below the photo in US visa are of no significance. Sometimes, you see one start, sometimes, there are two or or more. There are crazy assumptions and theory saying it signifies there risk of the individual. It is just a security feature of the visa and has no significance. You can check official transcript at Page 3 |
Two Lines in Bottom with <<< | These are two lines that are computer generated for machine reading. When you at any visa counters or anywhere, they will swipe your passport to read info in it. This is used for swiping and reading by machine. It will have your first name, last name, passport numbers, etc to be read by machine reader. |
Background Images in USA Visa | The background images on the US visa are Lincoln Memorial and US capitol Building in Washington D.C |
