Hey I just checked the appointment time for B1/B2 visa and it appears to be around ~550 days across all US embassies across Canada - Anyone was able to take a visa appointment?
We booked visa appointment in October 2022 and got appointment for December 2023 at Toronto consulate!
This is unbelievable! If there is a company summit/conference - can it be expedited?
You could ask for an expedited appointment - Categories and Requirements - U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Canada
The decision to grant an expedited appointment is made on a case-by-case basis, but generally requests are accommodated for a bona fide medical or humanitarian emergency, and to facilitate the start of work or study in the United States.
But my reading of the criteria doesn’t suggest that a company conference or meeting would qualify for an expedited appointment.
You can try checking (using the reschedule option) every now and then. I was told that you can reschedule up to 20 times. People seem to find appointments this summer at random times.
We booked an appointment in October 2022 for an interview date of Nov 2023. Tried several times to see if we could reschedule to an earlier date but never got lucky 
I think the probability to reschedule gets lower if you have more than 1 person in the group since you need 2 people cancelling the same appointment date at the same time.
We tried to see if we can have 1 person in group reschedule and let other person keep same date (and do reschedule for that person again later). But that requires cancelling initial appointment date for all people in the group it looks like, so it’s a no go.
In Dec 2021, we could only find appointments in Mar 2023. Was never able to find an earlier date. If it helps, the actual process of interviewing and receiving our passports was very smooth!
Thanks everyone - I will try to schedule something for the 2024 year end 
I have escalated this with the immigration team of my company - will see what options they could provide me. I will keep everyone posted.
There’s also a telegram group (albeit riddled with spam messages every now and then) that may help. “Canada (USA visa appointment)” is the group name, I can’t find a link for it though. From my experience, they sometimes open up slots in bulk and you may want to keep checking at random times every day.
I think there is a Telegram channel, but that was for H1B visa only. Not 100% sure if there is one for B1/B2.
Hi! Quick question for anyone (@MissMapleFry and others ) who recently applied for a visitor visa: Did you get a visa stamp that mentions “B1/B2”? Or was it just B2?
The reason I ask is that I have applied for US visa for tourism purpose (appointment in April). I am wondering if I can use the visa both for tourism and later, for visiting my US office branch for meetings, attending conferences, etc.
I got a dual B1/B2 and yes you can use the visa for both tourism/conferences, etc.
Thanks!
Can confirm the same - SO applied for tourism purposes, but got the “R B1/B2” type. This was in Toronto.
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Thanks @MissMapleFry and @abff08f4813c
How was your interview experience? Any tips for the interview? I lived in the US for 11 years on F1 and H1B, so hoping the visa interview goes smoothly.
It was fairly simple, just asking a couple of questions like where are you going, what’s the purpose of the trip, are you going alone, where do you work right now, etc. Also showed Canadian PR card when they asked.
I’ve read that it’s tougher for those who are in Canada only on a permit of some kind (like work permit or study permit) and don’t have PR yet. Interestingly the rejection rate for Canada is pretty high - gallery | USA Visas - figure the majority of these are from temporary foreign folks (temporary workers or international students), with the remainder being native-born Canadians who are ineligible for some reason (like DUIs and such).
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Very quick and straightforward. Just a couple of basic questions like what is the purpose of your trip; what do you do, etc.
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