We’re starting to see things slowly but surely moving in the world of immigration because more and more interviews are being scheduled. There are also more approvals of K1 visas and more couples finally be able to be together in the United States. One of the questions that we are receiving is about the ready status in the CEAC Portal, a portal from the National Visa Center where you can check your case status.

In the CEAC portal, you can put your Department of State case number in and it will show your case status. The status that individuals have been asking a lot about recently is the ready status. I would like to answer this question both for K1 fiancé visas and for spouse visas because the response of what it means is just a little different for both.

CEAC Ready Status for K1 Fiancé Visa

For the CEAC ready status for a K1 fiancé visa, the description is very general. There’s a paragraph underneath that lets you know that if you received your interview notice, you should go and get prepared. If not, be ready to receive that interview notice.

If you log in and see that ready status, that means that your I-129F petition was approved. It is now at the National Visa Center. You should be receiving your NVC welcome letter with the next steps on scheduling your medical exam, getting your civil documents, and scheduling your K1 fiancé visa interview.

Every US embassy and consulate is different. But in general, when you receive that welcome letter, you will have instructions that you have to complete and you would schedule your own interview for the K1 fiancé visa. You’ll see a calendar to schedule your own fiancé visa interview.

If you have that ready status, that means that you should have received a welcome letter already with those instructions. If you haven’t yet, you should be receiving it soon. You would typically receive that welcome letter from the embassy.

You can always contact the National Visa Center if you should have received that notice but you haven’t yet.

See: How to Contact the National Visa Center & K1 Visa Welcome Letter Timing

CEAC Ready Status for CR1 Spouse Visa

If you’re going through a spouse visa process, one of the steps with the NVC is that you would submit documents on the CEAC website. There’ll be a whole list of documents that you have to submit online for your spouse visa.

The National Visa Center collects all of your information. Their job is helping to get all of the documents around so they know that you have everything and that you’re ready to be put in line for an interview with the US embassy or consulate.

Once you’ve done collected all of the documents and submitted everything to the National Visa Center, they will let you know that they’re going to put you in line for an interview and when the US embassy or consulate lets them know they have interview spots available, then they will forward your file to that US embassy or consulate.

The ready status means that you’re ready for an interview and your case is basically in line, ready to be scheduled for an interview at the US embassy or consulate.

For spouse visas, the US embassy or consulate is the one that notifies the National Visa Center, “We have x amount of appointments available in the coming month, please send us that many files so we can go ahead and schedule those individuals.” And then, the US embassy or consulate will send you a notification with your interview date. They schedule it whereas, for most K1 fiancé visas, you schedule that appointment.