U.S. Embassy, London

I came here for a new student visa and my experience was pretty good!

10:00 appointment:
9:20 - arrived at embassy, took 15 minutes to go through security. all the non-immigrant visa applicants had to wait downstairs until their designated time to go up, so we were standing in the lobby (nice interior, clean, quite a lot of space) until ~10:05.
10:30 - number called for the first window, where they asked basic questions about your visit to the US and put all relevant documents in a transparent folder.
11:00 - number called for the second window, where a visa officer conducted a more detailed interview & determined if your visa would be approved. my conversation with VO was very friendly and pleasant! visa was approved on the spot, transparent folder collected for visa stamping.
out of the embassy by 11:10.

i would advise not arriving too early for your appointment (15 minutes early is fine i think!). you can bring liquid inside as long as you sip it. there’s free wifi & coffeeshop upstairs too while you wait. i had appointments in other embassies beforw (shanghai & budapest) and i would say the experience in london is pretty great! would be better if the wait time wasn’t so long but also can’t blame them given the number of applicants.

Visa appointment. It’s better to be late than early. You have to join first queue outside the body scanner on the street - if it rains, it rains on you, if you are too early, they don’t allow you in and ask you to wait on a side. Too much time wasted in the queues in general. when you finally in the building as soon as you pass the reception and go on 1st floor this is where you have your appointment and finally toilets available (I thought I will wet myself). Numbering system - random, confusing and in the end annoying (constant irritating beep indicating which number to which station). Confusing because they allocate you to one station and it looked like you just go in. Apparently no, because you have at least one person ahead of you. Well. It could have been organised a lot better.

15/9/22
Came for a US passport renewal and what good service they had. We had very low wait times when in the building and did not have to queue long either (10am appointment on a Thursday in termtime). Not to mention that the building itself is inviting and clean too. Refreshment’s are available.

We walked around the outside which was fairly pleasant.

Nice to see the waterfalls and autumn colours.

The building opposite is the one with the amazing glass bottom swimming pool on the roof between two buildings.

Not sure about the random foot sculpture nearby!

Can't vouch for anything that goes on inside the Embassy building though. We aren't American citizens!

Honestly, it was a great experience. Really organized well. Everything was clearly explained. Friendly government employees. Stunning building, great architecture.

Stood in a mile long queue for three hours in the rain along with 500 others (totally unexpected)! Finally got assigned a ticket for my F1 visa processing - for some reason the display board froze thus causing a lot of delay. There are a lot of counters inside - but anyway the time at which I was supposed to have my interview got delayed by approximately 4 hours! But the interviewer and staff were very friendly in general. I even noticed some B2 visas were approved within like one minute - so depends on what visa you are applying for. Overall - my visa got approved and am looking forward to study in the USA!

Nice embassy, and very easy to get to.

At the beginning, make sure you check in first at the smaller queue. Then you can proceed to queue at the queue closer to the wall (and longer). You will then go through the security check - like at the airport.

Keep your documents out as you will need it again not long after.

The staff inside are very helpful, and it's very organised.

Scheduled an emergency appointment online for emergency passport in order to travel to Germany for sudden business trip. Since my original passport expires within 3 months. The process is so smooth, everyone’s nice and efficient. Got my emergency passport within an hour! Finally I feel like tax money’s not wasted❤️

There’s also a circular counter at the middle of waiting area where you can get some non-alcoholic drinks, coffee, and pastries in case your appointment’s early in the morning when you don’t have time for breakfast. Overall very nice.