Under 14s and over 79s now need an interview: what changed

For years, applying for a visa for a small child or an elderly grandparent was the easy part of a family application: you did not have to bring them to the consulate. That is over.

What changed

On 18 September 2025 the US Department of State published a change that took effect on 1 October 2025: the in-person interview is once again the general rule for nonimmigrant visas.

Specifically, applicants under 14 and over 79 are no longer exempt. As a general rule, every applicant must now appear before a consular officer.

A few limited exceptions survived — mainly diplomatic and official categories, and certain narrowly defined renewals — but the automatic age-based exemption is gone.

One clarification, because there was considerable noise: during 2025 several different dates circulated in the press and on social media, and guidance published in July mentioning a September change was later superseded. The date that counts is the change published on 18 September.

What it means for families

Previously, a family of four with two small children brought two people to the consulate. Now it brings four.

That changes several things:

Everyone needs an appointment. And the group's appointments have to be coordinated, because two dates in March and two in October is no use to anyone.

Everyone goes to the CAS. Fingerprints and photograph apply too.

The trip to the consulate gets harder. If you do not live in the city with the post, you now have to move the whole family, small children and elderly relatives included, with everything that implies in cost and logistics.

Babies too. There is no minimum age. A newborn needs their own appointment.

The knock-on effect nobody mentions

Here is the underlying consequence, and it affects you even if you travel alone.

All those people who previously took up no space in the consular calendar now do. The children, the grandparents, each with a twenty-minute slot.

Consular capacity did not grow at the same rate. The result is predictable: the queue gets longer for everyone.

In several countries in the region waits were already measured in months before this change. Honduras was around 16.5 months as of January 2026; Colombia around 9 to 10 months; Peru between 250 and 450 days. Adding two entire age groups to the queue does not help.

What you can do

Book as early as possible, even if the date is bad. The consular fee receipt expires, and the queue only grows. A bad appointment beats no appointment by a wide margin.

Coordinate the group from the start. If several people are travelling, the appointment has to cover all of them. Accepting a slot that only fits one breaks the trip.

Do not treat the date as final. Consulates release slots continuously as other people cancel or reschedule. That is the real route to an earlier date, and it becomes more valuable precisely now that more people are queuing.

How we help

VisaBot watches consulate availability around the clock and rebooks your appointment as soon as an earlier slot matching your conditions appears. It rebooks the whole group, which is exactly what this change makes harder to achieve by hand.

We only charge if it works. See how it works.

Sources: The change was published by the US Department of State on 18 September 2025, effective 1 October, as reported by Proceso, El Imparcial and El Informador. Current exceptions are worth confirming at travel.state.gov or your consulate's site, as they have changed several times.