Sample US Visa – Fields Meaning, Visa Number, Other info

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 US Visa – Meaning of fields

US Visa – Filed Name	Meaning of the Field, Information
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
US Visa Number (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

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