The Consular Section of the Embassy of the United States of America to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean has announced a number of changes to its service.
With effect from May 17, 2004, persons can now pay for services at the Consular Section using American Express, Diner’s Card, Discover, Mastercard and Visa. {{more}}
The listed credit cards can now be used to pay for the following services: passports, consular reports of births abroad, notarials, immigrant visas, petitions for immigrant visas, waivers for immigrant visas, boarding letters, ten-digit fingerprinting in case of a FBI hit in the name check system, and reciprocity fees.
The US $100 (Bds $202) application and processing fees for non-immigrant visas ARE NOT covered by this new arrangement.
The Consular Section also recently instituted a split appointment system in order to more adequately serve non-Barbadian applicants.
Under the new system, persons who are not resident in Barbados are given appointments at 8 a.m., while residents of Barbados are now given appointments at 1 p.m.
The non-immigrant visa appointment hotline times have also changed. Applicants can now call between the hours of 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. and again between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. The telephone number is 1-246-228-6340. However, the fastest way to get an appointment is to make it online by logging on to http://210.177.22.41/barbados.
The US Consular Section has also announced that with effect from May 24, 2004 the Consular Section will admit visa applicants in the following order: – those who use the bar-coded application form available at http://evisaforms.state.gov,
– those with machine readable passports,- those who don’t fit into any of the above but who have the appointment letter in hand from our automated website http://210.177.22.41/barbados, – all others.
The US Embassy has made these changes to encourage persons to use its automated services.