Photographs Required for all Nonimmigrant Visas
Posted Apr 20, 1999

The Department of State has amended its regulations to state that all non-immigrant visa applicants must present photographs. Previously, the regulations allowed a waiver of the photo requirement in certain types of cases. As all Consulates and Embassies are now issuing the machine-readable visa which contains a photo likeness of the applicant, photographs are now required in all non-immigrant visa cases.

As readers of The Law Office of Sheela Murthy Bulletin may be aware, the nonimmigrant visa application form (OF-156) which has been used by the consulates for years, indicates that a photograph should be attached to the reverse of the form. Therefore, the photograph requirement is not new; the only change is that there is now no exception to the photograph requirement.

Even though all visas are now of the machine type, rather than ink stamps, it is likely that we and our clients will continue referring to "visa stamps," just as we still say "green card" when the card is no longer green!