K1/K2
Step 1
A U.S. citizen files the I-129F petition with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office that covers your permanent place of residence. Note: I-129F petitions CANNOT be filed overseas.
Step 2
The approved I-129F will be forwarded to the 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 Chinese customs resulting from a bilateral treaty with China limiting the movement of official documents into the country.
Step 3
When the Guangzhou Consulate receives the approved petition, it will send your fiancé/e beneficiary an instruction packet (known as Packet 3).
Note: If there is any change in your fiancé/e’s address, please inform NVC (or the Consulate, if NVC has already sent the case on) immediately to ensure that you do not miss out on receiving important information.
Step 4
Upon receiving the completed Packet 3 forms, the Consulate will schedule an interview for the beneficiary. Interviews are typically scheduled for a date within 2 to 4 months of receipt of the forms.
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).
Please Note: The NVC electronic processing project for K visa (fiancée/spouse non-immigrant visa), has different procedures. For these cases, although the petitions are loaded electronically, the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou still contacts visa beneficiaries to provide more documents prior to interview scheduling.
If you are a K visa applicant and you have opted in for electronic processing, you will still have to wait for paper Instructions via mail from the Consulate.
For more information, please go to the Guangzhou Electronic Processing webpage.