The new visa bulletin has been released – this one being for interviews in December.

Many are shocked and disappointed in this latest VB because there is very little change from the previous two months.

So what changed? There was a change for the “except” countries in Africa (but no change for the region number in Africa), No change in EU or AS, a small increase for OC region, no change for SA region, and for those interested a small change in NA region.

So why so little change. Well we don’t know exactly what is happening, but here are some factors:


1. I have previously explained that the early visa bulletins are a “guess” because there is no feedback from the embassies yet since interviews have only just started.

2. I had pointed out that the early VB numbers were “generous” and we should not have based any assumption of how the pace will go based on those numbers.

3. We know that there were problems scheduling cases for October and November, and whilst we hope those technical problems are now resolved, we don’t know for sure.

4. The first 3 months of the year are typically quiet months for scheduling compared to the other months of the year.

5. We don’t yet know the distribution (density) of the cases in each region, and that means it is difficult to compare VB numbers in this year to some previous year. Those comparisons are generally meaningless.

6. We don’t yet know the true data on which embassies have scheduled cases, which haven’t, or how many. We are just basing assumptions on rumor.



So there are some factors that may have impacted their decision – of course we can’t be exactly accurate in knowing what caused more impact.

All this means is that we need to understand that VB progress is unpredictable. As I have said before, don’t make assumptions about what will happen next based on what happened in previous years, or you assumptions that they are trying to get to all case numbers. That may well not be true.

SO – please understand, there is no need to panic if you now see that numbers are not moving aligned with your expectation. The expectation is “the problem”, not necessarily the movement.

Those that are current, and have forms processed early enough, can normally expect their 2NL in the next 2 to 3 weeks from now. This is supposed to be the same every month. VB from the 8th to the 15th of each month, and 2NLs in the second half of the month. For the last few months there have been 2NLs in daily batches, but we seem to be moving to a more normal procedure where almost all the 2NLs are sent before the end of the month, with just a handful being sent earlier this month. I would normally expect all the interview 2NLs to have all been sent by the end of this month, but we can see recently they are exceeding that to try and get as many interviews in as possible. They can be sent right up until the last day of the month, and even the first few days of the following month during exceptional times.

To those new to looking at VBs, let me explain what the “except” XXX country means – and you can also read this post on how to read the visa bulletin.