London Embassy approval!
Now that we’ve had our interview at the London US embassy and have had our visa approved, we wanted to share our timeline and other details of our case that may help future/current applicants!
We hoped for more cases & timelines on this page whilst we were in our application building & waiting phase, so hopefully this is helpful to those who need it.
Timeline:
Application sent: 12 Sept 2025
Received by reviewing team: 2 Oct 2025
Email invite to interview: 21 April 2026
Nearest interview available: 20 May 2026
Interview time slot was 7:30am - we were instructed by our lawyer to arrive 30 minutes before, however we arrived about 45 mins before and the queue was already building up but not too bad.
Waited outside for approx half an hour then the embassy team started filing people into various queues to check DS-160 & passports. Note: the 2x2inch photo of all applications is VITAL. People who didn’t have them were being turned away and told to come back with photos!
Got through security and up into the waiting room by about 8/8:15am and were back out the building with our application approved just before 9am!
So about 90 mins start to finish. I believe this would be longer if your appointment is later in the day.
Interview lasted approx 5 mins, questions were fairly basic, including:
What is your business?
Why did you choose this business?
What qualifies you to run this business?
What is your past experience?
Did you buy this business or start from scratch?
Have you ever had a visa before?
As most cases, we were instructed to invest about $100k, which we followed (give or take). This is SPENT money, not money being held in your US business bank account.
We are a service business, actively trading with W-2 employees on payroll at the time of application & up to today’s date.
We’d HIGHLY recommend using a specialised E-2 LAWYER (not ‘consultant’) to support your case, at least for the first application. Ours were pivotal to our success, in our opinion, and helped us create a strong case.
Happy to answer any questions!