Bit of a niche question but I’ve got an appointment at the US embassy in Tokyo tomorrow for a J1 visa (I’m not American).
I’m only visiting Tokyo for around a week after today and was hoping I’d be able to pick up my passport a day or two after my appointment. I’ve had a look at the reviews for the company that handles the logistics and they’ve got some really bad reviews and some okay ones.
Does anyone have any experience with a visa appointment there recently? How was your experience with getting your passport back?
Thanks!
2 comments
Not recently, 3 years ago right before covid hit. It was pretty straight forward and rather empty. Passing security may take some time so it’s good if you come 15min earlier.
The only special issue I had was that they send me the visa via post and requested me to bring a specific letter envelope. On that day, I forgot the envelope and needed to sprint out of the embessay to next combini that has such envelopes. After that, all was good. The guy I talked with was pretty chill too. Typical visa questions, why you go, where exactly, how long you gonna stay, how do you pay for that etc.
Unfortunately I am not quite remember the name of the envelope they wanted but I remember it was all well explained online.
I doubt you can pick up the visa a couple of days later. As I said, they send you the stuff back via post.
The weirdest stuff was that they kept my passport which felt super scary. Leaving the passport behind living in a different country just feels wrong. But they glue the visa directly in the passport so they needed to keep it. So avoid traveling (or anything passport related) for 1-2 weeks after your visit.
My partner got a B1/B2 visa back in December. Took a week or so to get his passport back.
There is an option to have it shipped to you, or pick it up in person. He paid to have it shipped.