U.S. Embassy Paramaribo is pleased to announce that due to diligent efforts by staff since last September, that the large backlog of visa interview requests due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been essentially eliminated.
“Through the hard work of our staff, we are able to maintain a roughly two-week wait time for visa appointments overall, far faster than the global average and roughly equal to our pre-pandemic levels,” said U.S. Ambassador to Suriname Karen Lynn Williams. Due to the global pandemic, consular operations around the world were shut down for a more than a year, causing significant backlogs that were exacerbated by a shortage of personnel certified to act as visa adjudicators. At some U.S. embassies, this has meant a wait time of one year or more. U.S. Embassy Paramaribo’s consular section returned to full operations in September 2021 and was one of the first U.S. embassies in the Western Hemisphere to return to full consular operations.
Several times a week, visa interview appointments are opened online. Embassy consular officials have seen a marked increase in the ability of individuals to find appointments after the Embassy’s recent efforts to end the practice of some of entities of mass booking appointments and then selling them to individuals. The Embassy is committed to ensuring that visa applicants are not charged unnecessarily by third parties for any free services the Embassy provides.
Individuals with pressing emergency travel needs (life or death, emergency business travel) can request an emergency appointment by e-mailing CAParamar@state.gov.
“We facilitate as many legitimate emergency cases as staffing allows,” Ambassador Williams added. “We remain committed to facilitating legitimate travel that is vital to our economies, our ties, and our lives.”
It should be noted, that due to staffing levels in July, that visa interview appointments at the U.S. Embassy will be limited at times.
