The new visa bulletin has been published and it is an exact repeat of the VB from last month.
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Edit:
Earlier I said:
Whilst I have seen some regions and countries have a repeated number many times, I have never seen a complete repeat such as this! So, this is a new one for the books.

Someone (Mike) helpfully pointed out that I was wrong, and this did happen before – and that I had written about it!!

https://britsimonsays.com/visa-bulletin-for-november-2022-interviews-released-maybe/

So it’s not a new one – it’s just when you are getting old you have the joy of experiencing things for the first time, again and again…. 😉
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Is it real? So why has this happened?

Yes it is probably real. There is a tiny chance that someone did a copy and paste and then forgot to apply any changes, but let’s assume that not to be the case.

Why then. Well, there are a couple of points I would make.

First, the first VB was quite generous. The numbers posted were larger than expected. That can happen at the beginning of the year because they don’t have any case feedback (cases issued, denied etc) which of course they will in later months. However, the DS260 processing also means that higher numbers are used to start with, because not all the cases are processed, and therefore the government need to make extra cases current in order to yield the number of cases they want to schedule. As DS260 processing continues, that impact reduces, and VB jumps can be lower (at least until density of cases drops). All a bit technical, but it is just some background info you might want to consider.

However, I think the more likely explanation is the worldwide technical problem or “glitch” that does seem to be happening. Just over a week ago, I posted a video that explained that it was not normal that 2NLs are not being sent. KCC are sending emails to individuals informing those people of their interview date, but the ESC page is not being updated with the interview details. The embassies do seem to be expecting the people to show up as scheduled, but many people will simply not be aware that they have been scheduled. So given this background mess, KCC seem to have pressed the pause button on the VB to give themselves time to sort the mess out.

So a couple of tips.
If you were logically expecting your 2NL and interview for October (“logically” meaning you submitted your DS260 early and your number is current), then do email KCC and you may be told you have an interview scheduled on a certain date. In that case you can contact the embassy to confirm the time of day you should attend. You should also use that email to try and book the medical and of course prepare for the interview. Try and attend your interview if possible. But if you cannot attend, then contact the embassy to reschedule.

The KCC email (if you are scheduled) will look something like this:


Other replies they might give follow the normal format, such as these below where I have explained the meaning:


If you contact them and they give you stage 4 email, it means either your DS260 was not processed by early August OR the embassy had insufficient capacity to get to your case. Either way, you will probably be scheduled next month.

Now, hopefully they will fix the chaos soon. It will have caused an impact, of course, but it won’t ruin the whole year. The early months of scheduling are typically “light” months of interviews, so they will be able to catch up.

If you want to watch my video explaining my thoughts on the glitch you can see it below, but also remember to subscribe to my channel so that you are properly warned about things like this. If you were subscribed, you would already have known about this ahead of most people. Information is important to your DV2025 journey!!

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.