Nonimmigrant Visa Types

There is an alphabet soup of nonimmigrant visa categories for which foreigners may apply when they want to travel to the United States. The most common ones—visas for temporary visitors for tourism or business and student visas—account for the great bulk of all visas issued to foreigners.

Visas are issued for varying periods of time and frequency of use ranging from a day or two and one entry into the United States to unlimited entries and indefinite validity. The U.S. consular officers abroad decide the type of visa that is appropriate and the number of entries based on many different factors. The criteria that influence the visa issuance process are spelled out in the immigration law and the regulations of the Department of State. They include such factors as the nature of the proposed travel, the characteristics of the individual applicant (e.g., ability to cover costs of the stay in the United States without taking a job), and the characteristics of the country of nationality of the applicant (e.g., whether many of its nationals abused visas by becoming illegal residents, or, what policies the foreign government applies to U.S. citizens seeking entry to its country.)

A common misconception is that the visa governs how long a visitor may stay in the United States. In fact, the visa is only a permission to apply for entry into the country. It is the immigration inspectors of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that determine whether the visitor may enter the country and the length of stay. Of course, the visa tells the DHS inspector that the consular officer has found the traveler to meet the criteria in the immigration law to be admitted into the country, so it is infrequent that a person with a valid visa would be refused entry. But, because a visa may be for multiple entries, circumstances may have changed from when the visa was issued, and an INS inspector may conclude that the traveler is no longer a bona fide nonimmigrant.

Foreign travelers may legally enter the United States at designated ports of entry by air, sea or land. Entry by sea accounts for the smallest number (about a million a month), followed by entries by air (about 5-7 million a month), and the largest number enters by land from Mexico or Canada (about 35-40 million per month). Canadians enter without visas and the vast majority of Mexican entries are done by residents near the border who present a Border Crossing Card that allows entry for not longer than three days to destinations within 25 miles of the border.

Below are listed the nonimmigrant visa categories, the number of entries into the United States on that type of visa in FY06 (the latest year for which the Immigration Statistical Yearbook has been published), and the share of all non-immigrant admissions ( 33,667,328) by travelers with that type of visa. These data do not include 13,618,132 entries by persons under the Visa Waiver Program that allows travelers from designated countries (27 at present) to enter for business or pleasure without obtaining a visa, nor do they include the high volume of entry with Border Crossing Cards.

Visa Categories

Nonimmigrants Who May Work in the United States

• Intracompany Transferees
• Students and Exchange Visitors
• Temporary Visitors
• Temporary Workers and Trainees
• Treaty Traders and Investors

Nonimmigrants Who Do Not Work in the United States

• Transit Aliens
• Representative of Foreign Information Media
• Other Categories 

Updated 03/08