The United States (U.S.) Government has announced the review of its reciprocal non-immigrant visa policy for Nigeria and other countries.
This is contained in a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday in Abuja.
Titled, “Revised Visa Reciprocity for Nigeria”, the statement explained that the visa policy review, would impact several countries, including Nigeria, and would take effect immediately.
“Effective immediately, most non-immigrant and non-diplomatic visas issued to citizens of Nigeria will be single-entry visas with a three-month validity period.
“Those U.S. non-immigrant visas issued prior to July 8, 2025, will retain their status and validity.
“We wish to underscore, that as is standard globally, visa reciprocity is a continuous process, and is subject to review and change at any time, such as increasing or decreasing permitted entries and duration of validity,” it said.
It further explained that U.S. visa criteria and standards were designed to protect the integrity of U.S. immigration systems, and the standards were based on global technical and security benchmarks.
The embassy urged prospective U.S. visa applicants to view the latest information on visa reciprocity schedules for all countries at travel.state.gov.
It also said that the U.S. Mission was already working with the Federal Government of Nigeria to ensure that Nigeria met the standard criteria, which it enumerated below.
The first standard criteria, the government said, is the “Secure Travel Documents”, by which individual countries are required to issue secure travel documents with verified traveler identities.
Another standard criteria is that of “Visa Overstay Management”, which requires the implementation of measures to limit overstays by travelers on U.S. visas.
It also listed “Information Sharing” as one of the standard criteria, which required the sharing of relevant security and/or criminal record information to protect public safety.
