The 13-month visa gap: why identical B1/B2 applications wait a year in one city and two weeks in another (June 2026)

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

Across 22 US consulates in Latin America, the next available visitor-visa appointment ranges from 13 months in Santo Domingo to under two weeks in Guatemala City, Managua, and Buenos Aires — and inside Mexico alone the spread is 10 months. Live chart and downloadable data.

The 13-month visa gap across Latin America’s US consulates

The finding: in the June 2026 snapshot of the State Department’s own wait-time report, the next available B1/B2 (visitor) appointment ranged from 13 months in Santo Domingo to under two weeks in Guatemala City, San Salvador, Managua, Buenos Aires, and Nogales — for the identical application, form, and fee. Inside Mexico alone, the gap between consulates was 10 months: Ciudad Juárez quoted 10.5 months while Nogales quoted under half a month. Geography, not the applicant’s file, is the single biggest variable in how long a visitor-visa case waits.

Next available B1/B2 appointment at the 20 posts publishing the figure (retrieved 2026-07-13; source last updated 2026-06-18): from 13 Months at Santo Domingo down to < 0.5 Month at Managua. No published figure: Havana (Cuba), Caracas (Venezuela). Source: U.S. State Department — Global Visa Wait Times.

What the data shows

The spread is structural, not seasonal. The State Department publishes per-post figures because each post manages its own appointment book; demand concentrates at large posts (Santo Domingo, Ciudad Juárez, Lima, Bogotá quoted the longest queues in June 2026) while smaller or lower-demand posts keep near-immediate availability.
Within Mexico, the consulate is a choice. B1/B2 applicants in Mexico can generally book at any of the ten posts. In the June 2026 snapshot that choice was worth up to 10 months of waiting time — the largest within-country arbitrage in the region.
“Interview wait” and “next appointment” are different numbers. Tegucigalpa published an 8.5-month typical interview wait while its next open slot was 1 month away; Bogotá published 11 months while its next slot was 8.5 months out. Most coverage quotes whichever number is more dramatic — the dataset carries both, labeled.
Caracas publishes no figures. The US embassy in Venezuela suspended consular operations in 2019; Venezuelan applicants appear in other posts’ queues instead.

Method

The State Department updates its Global Visa Wait Times report irregularly (roughly weekly to monthly); we re-scrape it daily, keep the post-level strings verbatim, and add numeric sort fields. The chart above is regenerated from the current file on every site build — the retrieval date is printed in its caption. Narrative numbers in the text are anchored to the June 2026 snapshot and dated as such.

Download the data: visa_wait_times.json — 22 posts across 12 countries, five visa categories each. Schema notes on the dataset page.

Suggested citation: MigrantUSA, “US visa interview wait gap, Latin America,” migrantusa.com/datasets/visa-wait-gap-latin-america/, retrieved [date].

US visa wait times by country — the live per-country pages, all five visa categories
Visa interview wait times dataset — schema, method, download
Visa Bulletin movement tracker — how immigrant-visa queues moved this month

Frequently asked questions

Why do US visa interview waits differ so much between consulates?

Each post sets its own appointment capacity based on staffing, demand, and local conditions — the form, the fee, and the law are identical everywhere. The State Department publishes each post’s figures separately, which is why the same B1/B2 application can face a 13-month queue at one consulate and a two-week queue at another.

Can I book my visa interview at a different consulate than the closest one?

Within your country of residence, often yes — in Mexico, for example, B1/B2 applicants can generally choose which consulate to book, and in June 2026 that choice spanned 10.5 months (Ciudad Juárez) versus under two weeks (Nogales). Applying in a country where you don’t reside is possible at some posts but riskier: posts can deprioritize non-residents, and consular officers weigh local ties.

What is the difference between 'interview wait' and 'next appointment'?

The State Department publishes both: the typical wait an applicant faces for a B1/B2 interview, and the next calendar slot actually available when the report was generated. They can diverge sharply — in the June 2026 snapshot, Tegucigalpa showed an 8.5-month published interview wait but a next appointment only 1 month out. The chart on this page uses the next-appointment figure.

How current is this data?

The chart and table values are regenerated from the State Department’s Global Visa Wait Times report on every site build, and the underlying dataset is re-scraped daily; the retrieval date is printed under the chart. The narrative findings on this page are anchored to the June 2026 snapshot.

Can I reuse this data?

Yes — download the JSON below and reuse it with attribution to MigrantUSA and a link to this page. The underlying figures are public State Department data; our file adds per-country structure, sortable numeric fields, and a daily refresh.

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