The United States Department of State has announced that routine visa processing at its Embassy in Abuja will be discontinued from August 1, 2026, as part of a wider realignment of visa operations across 25 African diplomatic posts.
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Under the new arrangement, Nigerian applicants seeking routine immigrant and nonimmigrant visas will be required to schedule appointments and pay the applicable fees at the designated United States visa processing hub in Lagos.
The Department explained that the restructuring was intended to strengthen national security, reduce government expenditure and ensure more uniform standards in the screening, vetting and determination of visa applications.
It said the administration of President Donald Trump was reviewing overseas operations to ensure that resources and operational capacity were aligned with America’s national interests.
“The Department of State is constantly evaluating its overseas operations in order to advance America’s priorities as efficiently and effectively as possible,” the statement said.
“This includes a visa process that maintains rigorous standards of security screening and vetting and aligns resources and operational capacity with America’s national interests.”
The Department added that the Trump administration had placed the safety and security of Americans at the centre of its foreign and consular policies.
It clarified that the realignment would not result in the closure of the affected embassies or consulates and would not alter their operating status or the other diplomatic and consular functions they perform.
The change also does not invalidate any currently valid United States visa.
Apart from Abuja, routine visa operations will be moved from Antananarivo, Asmara, Bamako, Banjul, Brazzaville, Bujumbura, Conakry, Cotonou, Durban, Freetown, Gaborone, Harare, Juba, Libreville, Lilongwe, Lusaka, Maputo, Maseru, Mbabane, N’Djamena, Niamey, Nouakchott, Ouagadougou and Windhoek.
The affected services cover routine immigrant and nonimmigrant visa categories, including tourist and business visas, petition-based employment visas, immediate-relative visas, family-preference visas, employment-based immigrant visas, fiancé and fiancée visas, adoption cases, Diversity Visas and follow-to-join refugee and asylum cases.
Applicants who already have appointments scheduled at affected diplomatic posts were advised to monitor their emails, as the Department said country-specific instructions would be sent to them.
The Department further warned applicants who had already paid the Machine Readable Visa fee at a post affected by the realignment to schedule an appointment at that location by July 31, 2026.
It said applicants who paid but failed to schedule before the deadline would not receive a refund.
Visa applicants may complete the required medical examination in their home country where an approved panel physician is available or undertake the examination at the designated regional hub.
Routine visa services will continue at United States embassies and consulates in Abidjan, Accra, Addis Ababa, Cape Town, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Djibouti, Johannesburg, Kampala, Kigali, Kinshasa, Lagos, Lomé, Luanda, Malabo, Monrovia, Nairobi, Port Louis, Praia and Yaoundé.
The State Department said transferring visa processing to regional hubs was a longstanding practice that had already been implemented successfully in parts of Africa and Europe.
It added that existing visa suspensions, visa bond requirements and pauses affecting certain nationalities would remain in force despite the operational realignment.
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