Getting an E-3 Visa is a stressful time, no matter how qualified, how prepared, how experienced, or how eager you are to get one. The least I can do is make the process a little bit easier based on reviews and travel expenses.
As you might know, I've compiled over 80 reviews of visa locations over at my U.S. Visa Location Review page! This takes into account how long it took to get an appointment, how long it took to get a passport back, and how the overall experience was rated. This should help immensely! But from it's first 4 months of collecting data what do we know?
Highest Reviewed E-3 Visa Locations
- Tied in #1 (with 5 stars out of 5)
- Paris, France
- Athens, Greece
- Vancouver, Canada
- Madrid, Spain
- Toronto, Canada
- Berlin, Germany
- Nassau, The Bahamas
- Seoul, South Korea
- Bern, Switzerland
- Dublin, Ireland
- Mexico City, Mexico
- Capte Town, South Africa
- Tel-Aviv, Israel
- London, UK
- Bridgetown, Barbados
- Sydney, Australia
- Montreal, Canada
But this doesn't really take in the whole picture. Because if one location gets reviewed 5 Stars once, is that really better than the venue that gets reviewed 10 times and consistently gets more than 4 stars?
So here's my slightly adjusted/weighted view of things from the end of 2018:
Overall Best Place to Get an E-3 Visa
- London, UK
- Lots of fantastic reviews because of a brand new consulate which quickly and efficiently processes everything and gets your visa back in your hands quickly.
- Bridgetown, Barbados
- Another incredibly highly reviewed place to get your visa, with a beach to lie on while you wait and a process that has your passport back in less than 3 days on average.
- Nassau, The Bahamas
- Similar to Barbados, this location is great to get a US visa because there's a beach attached and the process appears to be quick and easy.
If you'd like to check out the whole list, be sure to check out my list of U.S. Visa Locations
If you’ve recently gone through a visa process (good or bad), I’d love to hear about it so I can help people in the future!
Hi Josh – thanks for that. One other question for you.
I believe there are 2 ways to renew your E3 if you are already in the US. Either you leave country/send passport out of the US and get a new visa stamp in ones passport, or you can do it from within the US but don’t get a new visa stamp in your passport (though your work authorization is valid for another 2 years).
If one were to leave the US, renew their E3 and get a visa stamp in the passport, and then return to the US and soon after that reapply for an E3 within the US for a different role, would the visa stamp obtained in the first renewal still allow you to leave/re-enter the US? Or would that become invalid because you are then at a new role / new work authorization (not the same one as when you got the stamp).
Hi Martin, so just to clarify first: You can’t post your passport out of the US and get a new stamp, that’s not permitted. But the rest of what you suggested is correct.
As for arriving and changing status I BELIEVE you can continue using the visa to re-enter as long as you travel with the change of status I-797C and other confirmations.
Hi Josh – thanks for the helpful website!
Do you have any insight on current E3 processing times in non-Australian locations?
It seems Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt have appointment availability in less than 10 days, but it would be good hear any insights you have on these locations recently and their E3 lead time/ability to process.
I have heard that during Covid some embassies do not process visas for people who are not citizens of that country (ie the Paris US embassy may only process US visas for French citizens).
Hi there Martin, so the best place on the site for tracking right now is here: https://americajosh.com/learn-more/immigration/covid-19-u-s-visa-location-status-updates/ which shows reports of people getting appointments. You should be able to build a bit of info at least to start around that!