 Hi guys my name is Shachi and I'm a travel and a visa coach. On this channel you will find lots of useful videos on the US visa process. This video is for all of you who are trying to book your US visa appointment in 2024 and this could be for any of the non-immigrant categories that is F1, F2, M, J, H, L and of course B1, B2. So in this video I'm going to show you the exact steps for using the new USA visa portal including how to start your DS160 form, where to create your visa portal and your profile, how to add dependents in your account, how to pay the US visa fee and book your slot and I'm going to address some common errors and mistakes which happen while doing the process and how you can resolve it. Plus in the description box below you will find all the links that I talk about in this video and some resources to help you in the visa interview prep. So let me share my screen with you and let's get started. Let's get started with the process. The first thing that I'm going to do is to use incognito mode for the entire part of filling the DS160 form as well as booking the appointment. The reason is that the new visa portal tends to have a lot of technical errors and glitches and if you're going to use incognito mode or clear the cookies of your browser then you can reduce the number of these technical glitches and errors. So when we start you will see that you have to deal with two portals. The first portal is for booking the appointment and the second one is for your DS160 form. So the portal that you see right now is the DS160 one and this is the portal for booking the appointment. We're going to leave links for both of this right below in the description box so you can access it from there. Now the first thing that we need to do is to start our DS160 form. The reason is that when you book the appointment it asks for a DS160 number. So we're going to quickly start the DS160 form and then continue to booking the appointment. So let's start with the DS160. The first thing that we need to do is to select a location. Now when I select India you can see that there are five different options that are available to you. Pick the consulate which is closest to your location. So let's say that you live in Bangalore. You can go with Chennai or even Hyderabad. Once you pick the location you will be required to enter the capture code. So I'm going to enter this and then we are ready to start the application. So here I just need to accept these conditions and then create a security question. Now the security question is really important. You should note it down and remember it because when you come back to the DS160 form to complete it you will have to put in the same security question and the answer. So I'm going to select a childhood friend enter and then continue. So here is our DS160 form. We have started the form. At this point of time all I need is this application ID that you see on top. This is also called the confirmation number or the confirmation ID of the DS160 form and when I book my appointment I'm going to use this application ID for doing the process. So what you can do at this point of time is to pause the DS160 form and go ahead and book the appointment because getting the appointment usually takes a longer period of time and later you can come back and finish your DS160 form. The only thing you have to be careful about is to not let the DS160 form expire since it's an online application if you do not log into it in 30 days it'll expire. So make sure that you're logging into your DS160 every two to three days keeping it active and then slowly you can complete the application. So now that we have the DS160 number we can continue to setting up our visa account. So this is this website and here if you just look down you will see an option of sign up now. Now if you're doing this for the first time you need to click on this and sign up. Some of you might have an account in the old portal that's the CJR portal and you might be using the new portal after some time. In this case also you need to sign up and create a new account in the new visa portal. So let's click on sign up and this is the entire process. So if we quickly scan through you can see that you need a username, password, email ID and then you're required to answer some security questions. Now all parts of the sign up are really important and it's good to keep a note of everything that you enter in a place safely because when you come back to the account you will need all of these details with you. A very common error that we see is that people tend to forget one or two security questions or they forget the username and then they're not able to log into the account and you get stuck at that point. So keep a very safe note of all the details that you're using to sign up your account. So let's start. First is the username. Username can be any name that is easy for you to remember. For example it could be your name followed by some digits. It could be a shorter version of your name, whatever you will remember. So I'm going to use a username, a fictious one, then the password and then comes the email ID. Now this is important. Make sure to put an email ID that is active and which you regularly come back and check. This is because all the updates that you will receive about your visa application and anything else which comes from the embassy will come to the same email ID. So this is the ID you will need throughout your US visa process. So make sure to pick an active one. I'm going to put my ID here and then request for a verification code. So to continue the process we need a verification code and this code is going to come to the same ID that you have entered. So let me go back and check if I have received this verification code. Yes, that it is. So I've received an email from the US Embassy with the verification code which I'm going to enter here and we'll click on verify. Alright, so we are done with the first part. Now we'll go into the second part which will be about creating all our login credentials. So we need a given name and a surname. You can keep this similar to what is there in your passport and we need to answer security questions. So like I said, answer it carefully and keep a note of all the details that you use. Once we are done, we'll click on create. So now our account is getting set up. So let's wait for that. Here we are. So our account is now set up. Now what we have to do is login to the account and then we can begin the actual process of booking our appointment. So now that we have a login, we'll just sign in with the same username, to the password, to the capture code and click on sign in. Alright, now it asks us to enter security question as well. So this is also a process of signing in and it typically asks for two of the security answer questions. So let me just enter this, click on continue. Hopefully it works. Yes, so we are in. Officially we have created our new USA visa portal and we are into the portal. Let me just take you through this. So there are some initial information given. You can read all of it, click on continue. Alright, so we are into the portal and before we start, I'll just give you a quick overview. So on the left side, you will see a number of tabs. Let's understand these tabs. First one is the start application. So when you're starting the process fresh and you're doing the entire process for the first time, you will have to click on start application, which is what we'll be doing today. In case you're going for a group appointment, then you'll have to click on group request. Manage applications. This is used once your appointment is booked. Let's say that your appointment is booked and you need to view the appointment or reschedule it or make any other changes, then you need to use the manage application and feedback requests and messages. These are the ways in which you can communicate with the customer support or the help. Now contacting the customer support can be done through the portal itself and feedback request and messages. These are the two tabs which will help you send emails to them. If you have any query, if you're stuck anywhere and receive the replies or the messages from them. So let's begin and we will click on start application. So now we'll start the process of creating the application. Do keep in mind that as per the new visa rules which are being enforced, we cannot change any of the details of the applications once it's created and this is being done to prevent frauds, to prevent people from creating dummy profiles and holding onto slots. So whatever details you enter have to be accurate and they have to be of the person who's going to attend the interview. So let's start. So country where you're applying from India, first name, last name, you need to enter both of this as per your passport. So the first name as per the passport, last name again as per the passport, then country of birth, gender, select both of these, then comes the contact information. This is important. This is here you need to give details which are valid so that if the embassy wants to contact you they are able to reach you. So it's good to enter two phone numbers, enter a primary one and a secondary one and then the email ID. This email ID has to be the same one which you have used to create this account. Then comes the mailing address. So you can see here a note. So when your passport is ready to be shipped, it will be sent to this particular mailing address. So the mailing address should be the address which is current, which is active and where you can receive the passport. So you need to enter the entire street address, the city, the state, as well as the zip code. I have just entered some dummy details here just to show you but you will be entering your actual address here. And then finally comes our passport details. Again passport details very very important. This is something we cannot edit. Now do keep in mind that a few months back there was an option to go back and edit the passport details which means that we could enter some detail then come back and edit it. They have removed that option now so we can no longer edit any passport details. So enter it accurately, issue and state, place of issue, expiry date, birth date that is your birth date and your nationality. All right. So once we are done with all of this, do a quick check, make sure that all the information is accurate and then you can submit the application. All right. So once the application is submitted, next step is to select the visa type. So you need to select which visa category you are applying for. So we will start with the non-immigrant. Under non-immigrant, you need to select the consulate or the embassy. Again at this point of time, this need not be the accurate or the final one because you haven't got your slot yet. So you can just pick the embassy which is closest to your home location. So I'll pick Chennai and post visa category. This is a broad category under which you will be applying. So you can see the different category, business tourism refers to the B1, B2 visa, HL come under the employment visas. Then you have J visas, you have the L blanket visas and you have the students. So for the sake of this video, I'll just take example for student and visa priority is English. Now a lot of you ask us questions as to how to change this language here if we are not going to give the interview in English. Well, in the portal, there is no option to change the language. By default, it's going to be English. But if you need a translator, you can request for a translator on the day of your interview. So when you go for your interview at the first counter, they're going to check the passport. There you can request for a translator. But in the portal, there is no option to select the language of the interview. It's going to be English by default. So under student, also there are different student category F1, F2, M1, M2. So we're going to pick one. I'll just select F1 for now and we'll click on next. So the next page is about your DS160 and service information. Now keep in mind that this page will change depending upon the visa category. Because I've selected student visa, it's asking me these details. If you go with HL, it'll ask you details related to your petition. If you go with B1, B2, it'll ask you some other details. So depending upon the visa category, this page is going to change. So for students, the first thing that we need to do is to enter the DS160 number. Now remember when we started this process, we got a DS160 number that has to be entered here. And do keep in mind that when you go for the interview, the DS160 number on your appointment as well as the DS160 confirmation page both have to match. So let me pull up my DS160 number. I have made a dummy one for this video. Yeah, there it is. And I'm going to enter that. Then I'm going to enter service number. So service number is something that you will find on your I-20. So right on top of the I-20, you will see a service number is mentioned. So I'm going to enter that. Then it adds exchange visitor number. Now exchange visitor number is valid for J-1 visas. If you're going for F visa, there are two ways to do it. Either you can simply write NA that's not applicable. Or if you look at your service fee receipt, there is a number which starts with CCC. You can even enter that number here. Then we're going to enter our university name. So let me write UTD and zip code. So let me write the zip code. Keep in mind to use full forms. So I have let me also write the complete one. Don't write any short forms here. Okay. So I've entered all of these details. Now another thing to keep in mind is that once you submit and go to the next step, again, you cannot edit these details. All right. So when you create your profile, make sure that you have the final service number, the DS160 confirmation number, and you're creating the profile. So we're going to go on next. All right. Now we need to answer a few questions. Some of you might be eligible for an interview waiver if you have a prior US visa. So these are the questions to determine that. If you don't, we're just going to select no everywhere. And then we will, it'll take us to the interview scheduling part. So are you a citizen of India? Yes. Do you have a previous visa? I'm going to select no. All right. So with that, our profile and our application has got created. Now some of you might have dependence with you. Maybe you're giving the interview with your spouse, your children, your parents. In that case, you can add your dependence to the same portal. You don't have to make different portals for them. In this portal itself, you can add them. And that's the option that it's showing right now to find or add dependent. So if you have more than one person giving the interview, you can click on this and you can click on create new dependent. Okay. Create new dependent. Click on next. So actually I got locked off while I was trying to add the dependent. So I had to log back into the account. And when I log back in, you can see that there is a slight change in the tabs on the left side. So initially, when we started, we had the start application tab, but now that we've already into the process, you can see an option called continue application. So for some reason, if you get logged out or you had to stop and come back later, then you need to click on continue application. And that is where the system will pick up from where you had left last. So let's click on continue application. And you can see that it brings me back to the point where I had left it last, that is adding dependent. So let's see how to add dependent. Now there are different options here. So create new dependent, add existing dependent by the UID, return to manage the dependent. So if you have already added the dependent or some partial information was added, you'll be able to continue from there itself by clicking on add existing. Or if you want to delete certain dependents or add more, you can click on manage dependent. But since I'm going to start from scratch, I'll click on create new dependent. And here we'll add the profile. So just like how we made our profile, same way we have to make the dependent profile also. And the dependent needs to have all unique identification. That means the passport number, the email ID, of course, the name and the DS16 number, everything has to be off the dependent, which has to be unique. So let's see what all details is asked. So I'm just going to enter a few fictional details here. Preferred language again, there is no option to select any other language. You have to select English by default. And if at all you want to give the interview in some other language, you can request for a translator at the embassy. Let's click on continue. And here it asks for some more details, relationship, let's say spouse, country of birth, general. And again, some numbers have to be given here. So again, we're going to enter a few numbers, just entering some fictional numbers. So you can see that these are the numbers where you will be contacted. So the email ID, the numbers that you give me to be accurate need to be clear that similarly it's asking for some details. So I'm just going to again quickly enter some random numbers here and passport details. So passport numbers have to be unique have to be real. And you don't have the option to edit it once you have booked the appointment. So be careful when you're entering all the details, try to enter accurate numbers. So I'll just quickly enter some numbers here. All these details, of course, you'll get it from your passport. So it even prompts you to check passport information is correct because we cannot alter it later. So once we have the dependence, the next step is to select the delivery option. And this essentially refers to how the passport is going to reach you after your visa interview. Broadly, there are two ways it can be done. Either you can pick up yourself or you can have it courier to your home. So this is essentially the option you need to select. So you can see that there are three options here, premium delivery, which means that it'll be delivered to your home. So you need to give the address, the city, the state, the postal code accurately. And there are also some instructions which are given if you give the delivery option. For example, who has to be at home and there is a fee to be paid for the delivery. If not delivery, you can even look at the pickup option. So in pickup, there are two ways to do it. Either it can be a premium location that is you can pick up from any of the blue dart express locations essentially, which I mentioned. And you can see there are tons of options. So you could pick whichever option is closest to you, or you could pick up from any of the VFS center. So Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai at any of these locations, you can go to the VFS center and also pick up your passport. So depending on your convenience, you can choose the option which is best. Also another point to remember here is that this also cannot be changed once you book the appointment. So once you pay the visa fee and book the appointment, we cannot change the document delivery option. We get a lot of questions from people who initially had selected pickup, but they now they want it to be delivered. Unfortunately, it cannot be changed. So right here itself, you need to make up your mind and decide which option to go with. In terms of the time, there is hardly any difference. It might be just about one or two days difference between the given options. Generally, we see that pickup is a little faster. It's about one or two days faster. Of course, considering the fact that you might also have to travel for the pickup. So pickup usually is one or two days faster, but you also need to make that extra effort, whereas delivery takes maybe about one or two days more than the pickup option. So you can weigh in the timelines that you have, whether you're willing to travel to pick up or not, and then choose the option. So for now, I'll just go with pickup in Chennai and update this. All right. So now we move to the next. Now comes a very important step that is paying your visa fee. So there are a lot of things to keep in mind here. So let's go into it. When you come to this page, the first thing you'll see is an option of claim receipt. Now claim receipt is a very important option and this will be applicable for those of you who might have paid the visa fee already, but you didn't attend the interview. So there might be students who have paid the visa fee for the spring and take, but they didn't get a slot, never attended the interview, or there might be some of you who have paid the visa fee long back in the old portal, but you never booked the appointment. So you still have that payment pending. For all of you who are in this situation, you can claim the old payment. Do not make the payment again. Essentially, if you've paid the visa fee, but not given the interview and you haven't completed that old process, you can come back and claim the same visa fee. So click on claim payment and it'll take you to this. Here, all you need to enter is the receipt number. This receipt number is something that you will find in the confirmation email of your old payment. So whenever you've made the old payment, you would have received a confirmation email, which will have the receipt number, you need to enter that here and also enter the date of payment. Once you enter these two options, it'll activate this button claim and you can claim the payment and the system will automatically pull in that old payment and let you proceed ahead. So this is one of the main things to keep in mind that is claim payment. But if you don't have any old payment and you're going to make the payment fresh, then just scroll down and here you can again check the details. So in case you have added dependence, this number will change and this should reflect the total number of people who are appearing for the interview. There might be some of you who are appearing as a family, so you might have three or four people together, then the number of applicants should reflect the total number of people who are appearing for the interview and the fee will automatically calculate for that many number of people. So it'll be about 15,500 into four. So once you verify this, go down and you can select the type of payment. So there are different ways in which payment can be made. Cash deposit essentially refers to going to the bank. There is a designated city bank option that they will give you going there in deposit. VFS, debit credit card, VFS UPI, that means you can pay to VFS either by a debit credit card or a UPI and there are a few other options as well. Typically in India, we see that the cash option, debit credit card and UPI, these three are the ones that work. So you can pick any of the three that is convenient to you. Keep in mind that if you're doing a cash deposit, it's going to take time. So it takes one working day for that payment to get confirmed and for your receipt number to get activated. Whereas with a debit credit card or UPI, the payment confirmation is going to be instant. So just for convenience sake, I'm going to go with the UPI option and let's click on submit. So here click here and pay by UPI. So now it takes me to another portal, which is the VFS portal, where we're going to make the payment. So this is a pretty standard payment gateway that you'll see will come up in just a bit. Yeah, here it is. So we need to enter our name, last name. Again, you can enter this similar to the way it's there in your passport, your email ID. And once you enter all of this, it's going to take you to the payment page. So you can pay by UPI, debit card, credit card and complete this process. Once the payment is done, the system comes back to this page. And let me show you that in just a bit. So once the visa fee is paid and validated, the next step is to book your appointment. Now in India, there are two appointments that you need to book. First is the OFC. OFC refers to the biometric. This is where your photo, fingerprint scan is taken. And second is the interview. This is a one-to-one interview with the visa officer. So once you pay the fee, this is the page that is going to come up. On the left side, you will see all the people who are there giving the interview. If you're alone, single name is going to come. If they're multiple people, you might have a main applicant and then the dependents. So all their names are going to come. And then on the right side is the calendar. So first you will see OFC. So the first thing that you need to do is to book the biometric appointment. Then it takes you to the process of booking the interview. So you can select any of the biometric location, but very practically because in India, the availability of slots is less, you will have to scan all the locations and see where exactly biometric is available. For example, if you look at Chennai and we are looking at March, then we can see that almost no appointments are available in the near future. This also happens, this also depends on the time you log in. So you'll have to keep tracking the appointments and then see when the appointments are available. Whereas if I go to 2025, I can see quite a number of appointments available. So if you're just looking at Chennai, we can see that the nearest appointment or the closest appointment rather is June 2025. Now, this will be different for each location. For example, if we say Mumbai, let's go to Delhi and check. So if you go to Delhi, the nearest biometric appointment is also sometime in June. So whichever is the nearest appointment, you need to select this. And you will also be able to select the time. And this also gives you an indication of how many slots are actually available as of now for all of these appointments. So just for this, let's say that I click on this and then I'm going to hit submit. And now the system takes me to the consular appointments. So here again, we need to select the location and let's look at the nearest appointment in Chennai. So the nearest appointment in Chennai as of now is 16 July. So again, you'll be able to select the time. You can also choose any other location. The biometric and the interview can be in totally different location and you can have a gap of almost like 14-15 days between the two. So again, because the availability in India right now is not very, very great. It's good to be flexible in terms of the location and you might have to give both biometric and interview in different locations. So just be prepared for that. So if I look at Kolkata also, the nearest appointment is of June 2025. So whichever is the appointment that is available to you, you can go ahead and book it and then once you click submit, it's going to get confirmed. Another thing to keep in mind is that the appointment portal gives you an option to reschedule. So once you book one appointment, you can reschedule up to four times. So when you start the process, you might not be able to see immediate dates. That's okay. It's good to have something booked because once you have something booked, you can always come back and reschedule it. So whatever appointment that you're getting right now, you can book it and then you can keep monitoring for earlier appointments and whenever an earlier appointment is available, you can just come back, reschedule and shift it to an earlier date. Remember that in total, you have four reschedule options that are available to you. So once you're done with the booking, you'll get the appointment confirmation and this is what the appointment confirmation looks like. So you can see that there'll be details of the primary applicants, all the group members and details of both the interview as well as the OFC. And most importantly, bar codes. Now there are two bar codes that you'll see. One is related to the DS160 form and second is the payment, the visa fee payment that you have done. So both the bar codes are going to be important. We get a lot of questions as to how to get the payment fee receipt or the MRV fee receipt. That's not required anymore because they've already put the bar code for the fee payment right here in the appointment confirmation itself. So if you take the complete appointment confirmation page along with the bar code, then you can just show this to the visa officer. Now one thing that you will be really careful about is as soon as you book the appointment, please save this page. You can see there's a print option here. Click on print, save as PDF and saved in your laptop in your system. Email it to yourself and keep it safe. The reason is that the portal has a glitch that let's say that you booked the appointment. Now next time you come back and you try to change anything in the portal, let's say that you're changing some dependent or you're trying to even reschedule your appointment. It does not show you the appointment confirmation tab. The appointment confirmation tab which usually comes on the left side completely disappears. So in that case what happens is the appointment everything is still valid but you'll not be able to view or you'll not be able to print this page. So just to be really careful once your appointment is booked, the first step is to save it, keep it somewhere safe so that next time whenever you come back and you're doing anything in the portal in case the appointment confirmation page goes away, you're still going to be okay. Now that we've seen the entire process of starting your DS160 form to getting your appointment confirmation, let's talk about few common errors and mistakes which you need to be careful about. The first thing is the DS160 number. If you remember when we were creating the profile, it asked for a DS160 number. This is where you have to be really really careful. The DS160 number has to be valid, the form should not be expired. Many of you would have started to form long back and you have the number but you're not sure whether the form is valid, is it expired and you tend to use the number, do the entire process of booking the appointment and then realize that this form is no longer valid. Please be very careful at this point of time because once the appointment is booked, we cannot go with a DS160 form that is expired. The only option will be to cancel this process and do it again. So before you begin the process of booking the interview appointment, double check and make sure that your DS160 form is still valid. Either it is submitted or it is still active so that you can come back and finish that form. And if you have any doubts with respect to the DS160 form, it's best to just start a new form and use that number to continue the process. The second thing to be careful about is managing the application. So you will see that there is an option of close start application and continue application. So continue application is basically means that you're already in the process, you can continue from then. Now what is important to keep in mind here is that once the appointment is created, we cannot do any changes with respect to passport number, name or even the DS160 number. So before you book the appointment, double check all the details of the applicants of the primary as well as the dependence and make sure that the name, passport number, date of birth, DS160 number, all this is accurate. If at this point of time you find any errors, you can always close and start a new application that is the first tab right here. So if I click on it, you'll see that it'll permanently close any application and whatever is the visa fee that still remains valid, but you can do it again. So if you find any mistakes in your application, but you haven't booked the appointment yet, you still have the time. So you can just click on it, close these applications. So you will see that all the applications I had created earlier will be closed and I go back to the beginning. So here again I can edit, I can change all the details and then go ahead. Before you book the appointment, keep in mind to check and if any mistakes are there, close the application and just start again. The third thing to be careful about is with respect to your login details. I cannot tell you the number of instances which happen where people give their security questions, their login details to someone to book the appointment and that person changes it and then asks for money to give back the account. And the problem with the US visa portal is it's very difficult to create another account because it tracks everything by name and passport number. So if your account gets blocked, it's not just, it's not very simple to just create a new account and you know continue from there. You will need access to the old account. So please be very, very careful while handing over your security questions, logging details to anybody. It's okay to take help to book slots, but make sure that the person is trusted, genuine, someone has used it before and can verify it for you. And the last thing is to have patience. So even during this entire process you would have seen there are a lot of times I had to wait, I had to log in multiple times to continue. This is completely normal, this portal though I would say has become much, much better in the last few months because initially when they rolled out last year it was an absolute nightmare. Compared to that things have become a lot more streamlined, it's a lot better. Yet there are still glitches happening now and then and especially the portal, the speed is quite slow. You can see even now that I'm trying to go back to the homepage, but it's still not loaded that. So just keep in mind that all this is completely normal, everyone is facing it. So when you're doing this process, you need to have patience, you need to give enough time to it. And if at all you're stuck in anywhere, do reach out to the customer support. Usually they respond quite quickly. So any issues you can reach out to them, you can also reach out to us. We have also in fact managed to solve many of these system errors. There is an entire video on it, I'm going to leave it right here. You can even check out the video to see what are the portal errors and how to resolve it. So I hope this video has helped you and given you clarity on how to book your visa appointment. If you have any more questions, feel free to leave it in the comment section below. You can also reach out to me on Instagram, my Instagram handle is at Shashi.mull. We also have exclusive closed WhatsApp groups and communities. So you can join the WhatsApp group, depending upon the visa category you're interested in and this will help you stay up to date with the process and get all the latest information. So all this good stuff is right below in the description box. Plus, if you want to work one to one with me and get my help in filling your DS160 form, preparing for the interview, we can do that too. And the links for this is also in the description box. So thank you so much for watching. I'll see you in the next one. And if you're a Fall 2024 student, then once you're done with this video, make sure to check out this video and this entire playlist because this is going to give you the entire preparation strategy for your Fall 2024 visa interview. See you in the next one. Bye.