CR1/IR1 and CR2/IR2

Step 1
A U.S. citizen files the Form I-130 petition with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office that covers his/her permanent place of residence. If the sponsoring U.S. citizen has been residing in China for longer than six months, the I-130 may be filed at the CIS offices in Beijing  or Guangzhou, depending on where in China the petitioner is living.

Step 2
If filed in the U.S., the approved I-130 will be forwarded to National Visa Center (NVC), and then to U.S. Consulate General Guangzhou. Note that visa petitions typically take 3-4 months to arrive at the Consulate after being sent by NVC; this is largely due to unavoidable delays in clearing official documents at Chinese customs.

Note: Once NVC has received your immigrant visa fee, it will send you the immigrant visa instruction packet (Form DS-230) along with further instructions. The sooner you respond to NVC with the documents requested in this packet, the faster your case will progress.

If the I-130 is filed in China, the petition will be sent directly to the Consulate in Guangzhou, without first going to NVC. An instruction packet will be sent to the beneficiary once the case arrives in Guangzhou.

Step 3
Once the Consulate receives the petition, it will review the file to ensure that all necessary documents have been submitted by the beneficiary.  If more documents are required, the Consulate will resend the instruction packet to the beneficiary.  Once all documents have been received, the case will be scheduled for an interview. Interviews are typically scheduled for a date within 2 to 4 months of this time.

Step 4
Once the interview date is set, the Consulate will send the beneficiary an appointment packet (known as Packet 4) providing instructions on how to prepare for the interview. The beneficiary will need to have a medical exam completed at one of a list of designated hospitals before the interview takes place.

NVC Pilot Program

The National Visa Center (NVC) has started a new pilot program of electronically processing visa petitions.  Under this program all documents related to your case will be sent to Guangzhou electronically, rather than by mail. This should greatly improve the speed and efficiency of visa processing by avoiding delays due to postal service delivery.

The electronic processing option is available only for the U.S. Consulate Guangzhou, China and will initially be available only to immediate relatives of U.S. citizens over the age of 21 years (visa categories IR-1, IR-2, CR-1, CR-2, and IR-5).

If you have heard from the NVC and have chosen to participate in electronic processing you should not mail any physical paper documents to NVC.  Doing so will result in a delay in the processing of your case. NVC will send instructions to all e-mail addresses you provided.  Please follow all instructions from NVC for submitting documents electronically and bring the original documents to the interview with you.

For more information, please go to the Guangzhou Electronic Processing webpage.