Should the Democrats retain the presidency, the State Department will add one million visa appointments in 2025, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during remarks on Tuesday.
Blinken said that over the last few years, the State Department has made significant investments in visa and passport processing, leading to a record 11.5 million visas issued in fiscal year 2024, including 8.5 million visitor visas, a 10% increase over the previous year.
"And we are going to continue all of this progress," Blinken said. "We aim to add an additional 1 million visa appointments in fiscal year 2025. And that's on top of the record number of appointments that we had this past year."
Blinken also said that visa wait times are down by nearly 60% since the acute phase of the pandemic, "which made it so difficult for our embassies and consulates around the world to issue visas. Today, the median wait time is under 60 days for a first-time visitor's visa interview."
The U.S. Travel Association, which has long railed against the State Department for not doing enough to decrease visa wait times, applauded the announcement.
"As U.S. Travel has long stated, announcing a formal processing goal and prioritizing the reduction of visa wait times will allow the United States to be far more globally competitive for decades to come," U.S. Travel Association CEO Geoff Freeman said in a statement.
"The United States will be a more competitive destination by adding one million visa appointments that will enable visa wait times of 90 days for the vast majority of visitors. The administration's actions are in the best interest of our country and our economy, especially as we prepare to host World Cup games in 11 U.S. cities that will attract as many as 6 million international visitors to the United States, as well as other major upcoming events."
Blinken said the increase in appointments will support travel to the U.S. ahead of the slew of major sporting events being held here over the next decade, including the FIFA World Cup, the Olympics and Paralympics and the Rugby World Cup.
"We're doing everything we can to ramp up our capacity to make sure that everyone who's coming to this country for these incredible events, as well as for so much else, get their visas in a timely way and a smooth way. And all of that I think you'll see play out over the next couple of years," he said.
U.S. Travel this year had specifically warned that a visa backlog would inhibit people from being able to visit the U.S. for the big sporting events.
Commerce Department secretary Gina Raimondo, also speaking at the event, gave a shout-out to travel industry leaders, including those on the Commerce Department's Travel and Tourism Advisory Board, for letting the administration know about their concerns.
"We heard from them that visa wait times were a pain point, were an obstacle to this commerce," she said. "And that's why we got together with the State Department to make sure that it will be easier, faster, more streamlined to get your visas and come to the United States.
"Travel and tourism isn't just fun and isn't just meaningful," Raimondo added. "It's real business. It is real economic activity, sustaining millions of good-paying jobs in this country. And so what we are doing today is making it easier to travel to this country, which will be a real shot in the arm for the travel and tourism industry."
Raimondo said that the U.S. is expected to attract 90 million annual visitors by 2026, up from 66 million last year and 50 million the year before.
The speed of online passports renewals
Blinken also said that since the State Department rolled out online passport renewal in September, the turnaround time has gone from a month to a week for those passports.
"We're modernizing. We're making sure that we're delivering for the American people. Already more than a million Americans have taken advantage of online passport renewal," he said, adding that a record numbers of passports were issued to Americans -- 24.5 million -- in 2024. "And even with this record-breaking number of passports, wait times are also going down, now just four to six weeks."