How to Track Your National Visa Center (NVC) Case
When I just came back home almost 5 years after studying and hanging out abroad, I couldn’t unlock the front door because the door code number had already gone far, far away from my memory. But instead of asking my family for help, I simply used my fingerprint to open the door to my sweet home. I didn’t have to beat myself up for my bad memory because the other house key is part of my body. Takeaway? It’s good to have two options.
National Visa Center (NVC), unlike USCIS, also provides two ways for tracking your National Visa Center case: enter 1) your Application ID or 2) your case number. Find out where those appear during your visa application process and where you can effectively track your case.
Your Application ID
When you start applying for a Non Immigrant Visa (NIV), you are assigned your Application ID that begins with AA.
Every time you turn to the next page, you will find your Application ID on the upper right corner of all pages. As the instruction mentions, you are highly encouraged to record and save your Application ID because you will need to enter it when coming back to resume your application. On the other hand, the instruction here doesn’t apply to Immigrant Visa (IV) applicants since Application ID isn’t issued to IV cases.
Your Case Number
If you are going through a NIV application, the U.S. embassy or consulate may have given you a case number, which looks similar to 2012118 345 0001. There are a few different formats for NIV numbers, but the number is always 8 characters long. It could be 8 numbers, or one letter followed by 7 numbers. For IV applicants, you should have received a welcome letter from the National Visa Center (NVC), where you can find your case number. An IV case number is 13 characters long. It usually has three letters in the beginning, followed by ten numbers. Once you have located your visa number from the NVC welcome letter, enter the number in the portal without any dashes between the characters.
Where to Check your NVC Case Status
No other case trackers other than Lawfully has dared to launch the National Visa Center (NVC) case tracking service. Those who applied for IV, especially a family-based or employment-based green card, outside the U.S. were able to check their Form I-130/I-140 case status either on the USCIS website or on other third-party platforms. However, they couldn’t stay updated beyond that using those platforms, where the National Visa Center (NVC) takes over the rest of their case process.
Now, with only a few steps, Lawfully bridges the two separate processes and helps you seamlessly track your case from start to finish.
All you need to do is 1) turn on the Lawfully app 2) go to “Add NVC case” 3) select your visa application type and 4) for an IV case, just enter your IV case number. For a NIV case, select your location and enter your application ID or assigned case number. The completion of those steps generates your NVC case on the app. Not only can you see the history of your NVC case application, but you will also get real-time updates on your NVC case status. Just make sure you turn on push notifications!
