US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

So oddly, the US was far more permissive than other locales in this one aspect. All this change does is bring it in line with security practices that other nations already had in place.

Honestly am quite surprised that the US didn’t already have this restriction considering overall it’s one of the toughest countries to get a visa for or even enter with a valid visa.

The US visa vetting procedure is known to be so strict even for tourists that many nations give visa free access to nationals who would otherwise require a visa - just because they hold a valid (or sometimes even expired!) US visa. It’s a highly regarded sticker if you can get one in your passport and seriously ups the power of your passport if it’s a weaker one to start with.

(And in fact, in my experience, it is getting easier with online applications becoming more common.)

https://bkpk.me/peru-visa-for-indians/

The San Francisco consulate of India refused to process my spouse’s Indian visa because she was not resident in the US.

https://bkpk.me/how-we-finally-got-zaras-visa-to-india/

Several more examples but in this day and age you can just ask chat gpt to summarize for you. But if you check visa application requirements for many embassies, they will often say: proof of residence if not a national of the country of application. So that’s the requirement often.

I will add though that I’ve always maintained that this is a soft policy and they will make exceptions in some cases. It is mostly consulates wanting to do as little work as humanly possible. So there can be ways to get around it if you can talk to someone in charge. But usually that’s very difficult with consulates.

I’m pretty sure though in the US’ case now it’s a hard no. So there will be no working around it.