US visa on your own: step-by-step guide 2016

In this article we lay out a step-by-step guide to getting, in 2016, US tourist visas of type B1/B2 (a visa for business and tourist trips) with a 3-year entry window. How do you fill out the DS-160 application form? A US visa is easy!

US tourist visa

The B1/B2 visa is a multiple-entry visa, and the length of stay for each visit is set right at the arrival airport by an immigration officer. As a rule, it is 1, 3 or 6 months.

The internet has loads of information on getting a US visa on your own, but every guide we came across has way too much unnecessary information (for example, a heavy focus on filling out the DS-160 form and an emphasis on having to prove to the consular officer, by every means possible, your so-called ties to the homeland), and badly lacks sequentially laid-out steps.

That is exactly why we put together an easy and clear step-by-step guide for you to getting a tourist visa to the USA. The guide is current for 2016. Everything is actually quite simple, and only 3 simple steps stand between you and a US visa.

A step-by-step guide to getting a US visa in Moscow on your own for 2016

We fill out the DS-160 form on the application website. On the internet you can find claims that this is a very complicated and long process that takes 4–6 hours. It isn’t. If you understand that you have nothing to hide and there is no reason to deny you entry to the States, and that this form is a formality, then for you, as for us, it will take no more than 20 minutes. After filling it out, we get your application ID (Confirmation No.), which we save:

If you are getting visas not alone but, for example, as a family, then after filling out the form don’t miss the Add another applicant button — it will save you time, since the next time you fill it out the information in the standard shared fields will already be pulled in from the first application.
It is important to upload good photos that meet the format requirements, because then you won’t need to bring any printouts. After your interview is scheduled, you can contact the embassy and check whether the uploaded photos were accepted and whether you can skip printing them. Tip: take the photos at home against a white wall and save them in different formats (3/4.5/5, with a corner/without, etc.). Now, whenever you need prints, print them at any photo kiosk for ~10 rubles per 10/15 print (it fits 4 photos). That’s not 200+ rubles for mediocre photos, but a way to get, anywhere and anytime, exactly the photos you took yourself, at a price twenty times lower.
On the consulate website we pay the whopping consular fee of $160 at a whopping exchange rate, and right there we book the interview. This is where we use the DS-160 form ID. Again, it is important not to miss the step where you add your relatives who are going with you, so that you all go together, at the same time, to one joint interview.
We arrive at the scheduled time for the interview. For the interview we take: international passports, the appointment confirmation for the interview, the confirmation of the completed DS-160 form, and the payment confirmation for the consular fee (you will find all these confirmations in your email).
The documents listed above are the only required ones. But in some rare cases you may raise the consul’s suspicions of insufficient so-called “ties to the homeland.” To dispel such suspicions just in case, it is recommended to additionally bring along, as a safeguard, if you have them: an old international passport, a letter from your employer, a bank statement, property certificates (car, real estate). Once again, in 99% of cases the consul won’t ask for any of this, but since the occasion is quite important, it is better to play it safe.
Next, we get a number in the electronic queue, go through fingerprint scanning, have the interview, and then hear from the consul that your visas are approved.
The interview is conducted in Russian (it may switch to English, but you can always change the language :) Don’t start the conversation yourself (say hello, of course). Just answer the questions simply and confidently. Shove your urge to prove anything as far away as you can — you just want to take a vacation and see the country, spend your money there. You have no thoughts of immigrating whatsoever (right? :) In any case — believe it.
After the US visa is approved, the consul keeps the passports, and you wait a few days for a courier from Pony Express with the passports, which will have the visas pasted in. Ours were delivered on day 2. The interview itself took 35 minutes from entrance to exit.
By the way, since 2013 the security rules have been tightened regarding items you can bring into the consulate building. It is forbidden to bring in cell phones, tablets, laptops, cameras, perfume, liquids, etc. And while there are special lockers at the entrance for storing cell phones, with other items you may run into unsolvable problems. So we advise bringing to the interview only the bare minimum of necessary items.

You might also wonder whether the latest chill between the countries, the sanctions, “Crimea is ours” and so on have affected the work of the US consulate in Moscow. It might seem logical for the Americans to make getting a US visa harder for Russians, or ban it, and to start scheming against our citizens in every way.

But no, nothing like that is happening. Now, in 2016, the consulate has the same atmosphere and procedure as when we got our first visas 5 years ago. Only the exchange rate has gone up 2 times. As of October 2026, the US Embassy in Moscow does not issue visas other than diplomatic ones: the State Department invites Russian citizens to apply for a tourist visa in Warsaw (Poland) or Astana (Kazakhstan).

That’s it! See you in the States ;)

Getting a US visa in Moscow on your own: a step-by-step guide for 2016

US tourist visa

A step-by-step guide to getting a US visa in Moscow on your own for 2016

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