The new Visa Bulletin has been released. This one is for interviews in May, and there is good progress in the numbers.

What is encouraging for me though is that they have released the VB “on time”. That hasn’t happened in a year, and shows that things are returning to normal. Since the last VB we also saw some interviews scheduled for April (around 600 interviews), so we will see how many interviews they can get scheduled for May.

Remember any case which is UNDER the VB number for the region (or country where there is an “Except” number) can be scheduled for interview. However, they will ONLY schedule interviews where the case is “ready for scheduling” (meaning the DS260 and documents have been processed), AND the embassy is operating (open) to accept the interview.

To those new to looking at VBs, let me explain what the “except” XXX country means. Some countries have been called out as “exceptions” meaning that selectees chargeable to those two countries (regardless of where they will interview) are subject to a lower VB number for the month than the rest of the region. This is done to slow down processing for countries with a high number of selectees to spread out the workload over a longer time. Please read this linked article on how to read the visa bulletin.