The US issued 10,438,327 nonimmigrant visas to applicants around the world last year. This is a 34 percent increase in the visas issued compared to the previous year. The granted visas were for tourism, medical treatment, business, temporary work, study, or other similar reasons.
During the last whole decade, this is the second-highest number of visas issued by the US for the nonimmigrant category. The highest recorded in the same period was 10.8 million in 2015.
Citizens of North and South American countries dominated the visa approval list. In Asia, India topped the list where its nationals secured more than 1.3 million visas. In the last decade, this is the highest number of visas Indian nationals have got.
During the past 5 years, the issued visas to nonimmigrants are as follows:
The US also issued B1/B2/Border Crossing Cards to 1,821,030 applicants. The Combination B1/B2 visitor visa/Border Crossing Cards are issued to Mexican nationals. These issuances are included in the “Visas Issued” line.
The US State Department has released the statistics for the Fiscal Year 2023.
Nationals of countries who were awarded the most visas
Citizens of Mexico were able to secure most of the visas (2.3 million) issued by the US in 2023 but most of these were in the form of border crossing cards. Indian nationals remained in second position by securing 1.3 million nonimmigrant visas. Below is the list of the top 15 countries around the world whose citizens were awarded the most nonimmigrant visas in 2023.
| Countries | Number of Nonimmigrant visas(Including Border Crossing Cards) |
| Mexico | 2,328,664 |
| India | 1,387,940 |
| Brazil | 1,067,287 |
| Columbia | 476,293 |
| China | 417,008 |
| Argentina | 291,892 |
| Ecuador | 274,799 |
| Philippines | 285,860 |
| Israel | 190,415 |
| Vietnam | 133,781 |
| Dominican Republic | 130,360 |
| Nigeria | 113,695 |
| Peru | 111,851 |
| Indonesia | 108,752 |
| Pakistan | 107,183 |
Region Wise Visa Statistics
Most of the nonimmigrant visas were issued to the countries in the Asian continent which were about 3,369,079. The second most visas were issued to the nationals of North American countries which counted to 3,061,088. The citizens of South America were granted 2,399,393 nonimmigrant visas. People who applied for visas from Europe were issued 951,775 in total. About 597,570 visas were issued to African citizens and 57,373 were issued to the countries in Oceania zone.