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Key Takeaways
- The US Department of State has issued more than ten million visas worldwide in the last year, with Indian nationals obtaining thousands of student visas.
- Student visas were issued to 600,000 applicants, reaching a new record.
- International visitors to the US have generated billions of dollars in annual spending
The Department of State has issued more than 10.4 million nonimmigrant visas between October 2022 and September 2023, reaching one of the highest records ever.
According to the authority, nearly eight million visas were issued for business and tourism, marking a new record high since 2016, VisaGuide.World reports.
Moreover, more than 600,000 visas were issued to students, which is the highest number recorded since 2017. It is estimated that international students at US colleges and universities boost the economy with $38 billion in additional income every year.
The US embassy and consulates in India have issued the most visas, which is a record of more than 140,000 student visas issued. The visa issuance rates were high also among African students with nearly 40,000 student visas being issued, of which 9,700 were to Nigerians alone.
Economy Boosted by Billions & Supported Almost 10 Million American Jobs
International visitors to the United States have brought to the national wallet as much as $239 billion in annual spending, which enabled the economy to support around 9.5 million jobs.
The visa issuance also helped in attracting foreign workers as 442,000 visas were issued to temporary and seasonal workers, with the majority of workers being in agriculture and other sectors where there was a labour shortage.
In addition, some 590,000 visas were issued to highly skilled workers to work in the United States’ most needed sectors such as technology and healthcare. Around 365,000 visas were issued to airline and shipping crew members.
Recently, the US announced its plans to start issuing digital visas, with the process expected to take up to 18 months.
According to the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services in the Bureau of Consular Affairs, Julie M. Stufft, the pilot program has been successful.
“It’ll take us probably 18 months to have widespread use of this – or longer – but it’s very exciting that we’ve had this first step where we’ve seen visitors come through, and in this case, they were immigrant visas, without a physical paper in their passport.” Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services Julie M. Stufft
Two months ago, the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs announced that it was working to substitute the traditional printed visas with digital visa authorization (DVA), making the visa-issuing process paperless. The pilot program was launched in Ireland initially, where the US embassy in Dublin started issuing visa authorizations to those obtaining K-1 (fiancé(e)) visas. (https://visaguide.world/news/us-issued-more-than-10-million-visas-in-a-year-reaching-record-breaking-levels/)
