Hello,
While on PR and waiting for citizenship my parents are planning to travel to the states. They are from a country that would need visa. Does anyone know the cost of this visa per person and how long it takes to get it. Also is there an interview process?. If anyone has any information or links that would be helpful.
They recently increase the fee about last/mid June to $185 (flat fee for B1/B2 regardless of country) and current wait time is Summer 2025. However, if you dedicate time Monday to Friday at about 10am you maybe lucky to get late 2023, early 2024 etc... (but you need to be dedicated, and constantly check and also be willing to travel to a different location of possible).
If they have not travelled to the US before or their previous visa has expired for more than 1 year they most likely will need an in person interview.
I am not sure if it's still one year or it's changed but when you fill out the form it will tell you if you are eligible for interview wavier
Yes your parents can apply for B1/B2 visa of in Canada they are a Canadian PR and they'd most likely get 10 years.
The below is my recent experience:
So I read on the US site or somewhere that the consultant updates time slots based on demand from Monday - Friday at 10am EST.
I somewhat believe it because I have tested it out and it seems there's a lot of action at that time but you need to be QUICK. The initial appointment I got was in Jan 2025 and I was boomed.... but I decided to wake up early the next day at 10am EST and I played with the site for about 15-30mins and I got March 2025, June 2024 and it appears to vary all over with each refresh. Surprisingly I got Jan 2024 on one refresh but was looking for something this year so I did not book it at the time I was checking only Toronto but then I decided to jokingly explore Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver
I kept checking daily and sometimes it will say Toronto has no appointment or sometimes the site will not load, after about a week of actively checking Toronto only daily and a couple of days of jokingly checking other, I saw some dates in Vancouver for Nov 31, Nov 13 and Nov 24 two weeks ago and was able to book one of it.
Summary is : I do believe they update the date daily but you need to dedicate time to search, I also believe you have to be flexible on location if you want it this year. We would still keep an eye out to see if Toronto opens up and if it does not open up by Mid Aug we would keep our Nov date in Vancouver.
Hope this helps