US visa interview wait times dataset — 12 Latin American countries, 22 consular posts

Name: US visa interview wait times in Latin America (22 posts, 12 countries)
Creator: MigrantUSA
License: https://migrantusa.com/terms/

Downloadable dataset of US consulate visa-interview wait times in 12 Latin American countries, refreshed from the State Department's irregular report.

US visa interview wait times dataset

Download: visa_wait_times.json · Coverage: US consular posts in 12 Latin American countries · Refresh: re-pulled when the State Department publishes a new edition (it says it updates monthly)

Appointment wait times for US visa interviews at the consulates Hispanic families actually use — Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Peru, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Argentina, Cuba routing, and Venezuela routing — parsed from the State Department’s global report.

What’s in each row

Per post: the post city and five published figures, kept exactly as the State Department prints them — in months, such as “6.5 Months” or “< 0.5 Month” — each with a numeric copy in months for sorting. Where the State Department publishes no figure the row shows “NA”; Havana and Caracas show NA in every column. How Cuban and Venezuelan applicants are routed to other posts is explained on our Cuba and Venezuela pages, not in this file.

Method

We retrieve the State Department report, extract the covered posts, validate the shape, and replace this file only when validation passes. The State Department serves the report behind a bot challenge that blocks unattended fetching, so retrieval is an attended step rather than a scheduled job; the scraped_on date in _meta records when it last ran. Routing notes on our per-country pages for closed or limited posts are verified manually against embassy announcements and re-checked when the tracker flags a change.

Source and as-of

Exact source: the State Department’s Global Visa Wait Times page — one HTML table for every post worldwide. We keep 22 posts in 12 countries.
The publisher’s own stamp: the file records the State Department’s “Last updated” date as 2026-10-21, last retrieved and checked by us on 2026-10-23.
Checked October 23, 2026: the page read “Last updated: 21-OCT-2026”, a new edition after the September 17 one. We re-read the State Department page for the 22 posts this file covers, and it now carries the October 21 figures. The State Department says “We update visa wait time information monthly.”
Next release: the State Department publishes no release date. When a new edition appears, the stamp above changes.

What each column means

The State Department’s definitions, from the same page:

Next available appointment “predicts when you can expect to receive an appointment at that location.” New slots are released regularly, so an applicant may get one sooner.
Average wait time (B1/B2 only) shows “how long people typically waited for interviews (measured from fee payment to visa interview date) in the previous month.” The State Department describes it as published only where the next available B1/B2 appointment is more than three months away, which is why many posts show NA in that column; the October 21, 2026 table also shows an average at some posts with nearer appointments (Guatemala City: 1.5 months average, next appointment 1 month).
Units: “We calculate months in 30-day increments and half months in 15-day increments. This includes weekends and holidays when embassies close.”
Not included: interview-waiver appointments — the page says their wait times “are not reflected in the table.”

Refresh cadence and known limitations

Cadence: the State Department updates monthly. Our daily job tries to fetch the page, but the page blocks automated requests, so that attempt fails harmlessly and the refresh is done by hand in a real browser. That is why scraped_on can move while source_updated stays put.
NA is not zero. “NA” means the State Department published no figure for that post and visa type. Havana and Caracas publish no figure in any column.
Sort values are approximate. The *_months numbers exist only for sorting: “< 0.5 Month” is stored as 0.4 and NA as null. Quote the text value, not the sort value.
Estimates, not promises. The State Department says its average wait times “do not guarantee a visa applicant will get an appointment within a specific time.”

Field dictionary — visa_wait_times.json

Field	Meaning
`_meta.source_url`	The State Department page the figures come from
`_meta.source_updated`	The State Department’s own “Last updated” date (YYYY-MM-DD)
`_meta.scraped_on`	The date we last retrieved and checked the page
`_meta.last_source_check`	Note from the most recent check
`countries.<slug>.name_en`, `name_es`	Country name in English and Spanish
`countries.<slug>.posts[].post`	US embassy or consulate city
`b1b2_wait`	Visitor (B1/B2): average wait in the previous month
`b1b2_next`	Visitor (B1/B2): next available appointment
`students_next`	Student and exchange (F, M, J): next available appointment
`petition_next`	Petition-based temporary workers (H, L, O, P, Q): next available appointment
`crew_next`	Crew and transit (C, D, C1/D): next available appointment
`*_months`	The same figure as a number of months, for sorting only (< 0.5 = 0.4, NA = null)

Where this data is used

The visa-appointment gap — all 22 posts listed by next available B1/B2 appointment
US visa wait times cluster — live per-country pages
Consulate country hubs

A comparison table of current US visa-interview wait times across 12 Latin American countries — the soonest visitor (B1/B2) and student appointment per country, from the State Department’s own report (which updates roughly monthly). Copy this where you want it to appear:

<iframe src="https://migrantusa.com/embed/visa-wait/" width="100%" height="560"
        style="border:1px solid #e2e8e4;border-radius:8px;max-width:640px"
        title="US visa interview wait times - Latin America" loading="lazy"></iframe>
<p style="font-size:.85rem">US visa interview wait times — data by
  <a href="https://migrantusa.com/datasets/visa-interview-wait-times/">MigrantUSA</a></p>

Please keep the credit line — a link back to this page is the only thing we ask in return.

Suggested citation: MigrantUSA, “US visa interview wait times dataset,” migrantusa.com/datasets/visa-interview-wait-times/, retrieved [date]. When you quote a wait time, name the State Department’s “Last updated” date (2026-10-21 in the current file) — that, not the day you read it, is how old the figure is.

Frequently asked questions

What do the wait times measure?

Two things the State Department publishes for each post. For visitor visas (B1/B2) it gives the average time applicants waited in the previous month, measured from fee payment to interview date — shown only where the next available appointment is more than three months away. For visitor, student and exchange (F, M, J), petition-based worker (H, L, O, P, Q) and crew and transit (C, D, C1/D) visas it gives the estimated time until the next available interview appointment. Interview-waiver appointments are not in the State Department’s table. All figures are in months and change often — always check the current figure before planning.

How current is this dataset?

The State Department says it updates the report monthly. We re-read it and update this file when a new edition appears. Every file carries two dates in its _meta block: source_updated (the date the State Department stamped its report) and scraped_on (the date we last retrieved and checked it). When the two are far apart, the State Department has not published a newer edition — the figures are as old as source_updated, not scraped_on.

Can I reuse this data?

Yes, with attribution to MigrantUSA and a link to this page. The source figures are public State Department data; this file adds the Latin America scope, post-level normalization, and a stable schema with dated retrieval metadata.

Cite this dataset

Free to use under CC BY 4.0 — share and adapt, with attribution. If it was useful enough to build on, a citation is the whole ask.

MigrantUSA Editorial (2026). US visa interview wait times in Latin America (22 posts, 12 countries), in US Immigration Data. 10.5281/zenodo.21812233

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Permanent DOI (all versions): 10.5281/zenodo.21812233
Open repository and change record
Methodology and sources · data updated 2026-10-23

The underlying facts come from the official sources cited inside each file and carry no copyright; what we contribute is the curation, verification, and the banked history. If your claim rests on what a value used to be, cite the government source for the fact and this record for the change.

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