The latest visa bulletin was just published, and as many had hoped there has been some movement in the numbers. Good movement for AF region, but a small increase for EU. Those were the two regions I had expected to move, and I had thought the other regions might not move at all. Surprisingly though, AS has jumped to 15000 and OC and SA have stayed at the same numbers.

So that certainly shows the impact of the travel ban in AS region. So many of the selectees in AS region are impacted by the ban, that high case numbers will probably benefit unless the ban is removed.

EU only increasing by 750 is also a bit of a surprise, I did expect more, but I would again remind everyone that we are only seeing the 4th of 12 visa bulletins for the year. So much can happen over the coming months.

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. One quick point, the 2NLs tend to come out in an approximate alphabetical order, based on the city name of the embassy. So, Addis and Accra tend to be early, and an embassy such as Yaounde would be later. As ever, just be patient…

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.