US Embassy Santiago

Visa interview wait times at US Embassy Santiago, Chile. U.S. Department of State global-wait-time data published for March 2026 reports wait figures across 5 visa categories at this post. The headline number for tourism and short-term business travel, the average B1/B2 visitor interview wait, is currently 3.5 Months (≈ 3.5 months). The next-available B1/B2 appointment slot sits at 3.5 Months. These figures measure the interview-scheduling backlog only; actual case adjudication and administrative processing can add additional time before a visa is printed and returned.

Category-by-category contrast. Students and exchange visitors (F, M, and J classifications) currently face a next-available wait of 1.5 Months (≈ 1.5 months) at this post, category Chile applicants should plan academic start dates around. Employment-based applicants (H-1B, L-1, O-1, P, and Q) currently see a next-available wait of 2.5 Months (≈ 2.5 months), which adds on top of USCIS I-129 processing time before a petition-based worker can actually schedule their consular interview. Crew and transit (C/D/C1D) applicants face 1.5 Months at this location. Because the State Department updates these numbers monthly, they can shift materially between snapshots.

Where this post sits in the corpus. Among 43 posts with a published B1/B2 average wait, Embassy Santiago ranks #36 by visitor backlog length (#1 = longest). On employment (H/L/O/P/Q) next-available waits it ranks #9 of 200. That's a 27-place gap: employment-visa next-available waits rank among the longer posts, while B1/B2 visitor backlog sits comparatively shorter. Visitor interview availability is currently long by global standards (over ~3 months on the snapshot). Ranks are computed live from the same State Department snapshot shown above; they are interview-scheduling backlogs, not visa-approval predictions.