The National Visa Center has a few different ways you can get in touch with them and this is a common question people are having. They want to contact the National Visa Center because they have issues with their online CEAC account, an account where you have to upload documents and get prepared for the next phase in your immigration case so the interview can be scheduled.

For individuals who are petitioning for their spouse or children or parents, after you file the I-130, you’ll use this online CEAC account. Another reason you might want to contact the NVC is to obtain your case number.

For many of you, when you receive your I-130 approval or I-129F approval, you’ll notice that on that notice it says, “If you don’t receive your case number within a certain amount of time you can contact the National Visa Center to ask for a status on that and to obtain the case number.”

Options to Contact the National Visa Center

The NVC Contact Information page at the travel.state.gov site gives more details on how to contact the National Visa Center as well as updates.

1. Call the National Visa Center

They have their number for immigrant visas and nonimmigrant visa inquiries. Sometimes, the wait can be long. What our office likes to do is we try to call early in the morning or later in the evening. There tends to be a shorter wait time but be prepared to wait a while.

2. Use the Inquiry Portal

NVC does not take inquiries by mail. But now, we’re in a time where snail mail is not our go-to mode of communication. They don’t have an email that you can email them. We used to have that but now we have this inquiry portal which is the equivalent of emailing the National Visa Center.

Again, this portal can be used if you’re having issues with your CEAC account. The CEAC account is very glitchy. We often find we might submit a document and it’ll say we still need to submit a document even though it’s clearly there.

The other thing you can use this for is to obtain your National Visa Center case number. If you don’t have your NVC case number yet, you can use your USCIS receipt number and that’s the number that’s on the receipt notice you received from immigration.

Make sure you definitely provide an email address so they can respond to you. With regards to whatever your inquiry is, take screenshots of some of the technical issues that you’re having and attach them so they can see exactly what the issue is so they can respond to you.