OFC appointment for a US visa: booking, rescheduling, and no consular slots

What is an OFC appointment? OFC vs consular

A US visa booking in India is two appointments, in order:

• OFC (biometrics). The Offsite Facilitation Center, also called a VAC (Visa Application Center), takes your fingerprints and photo. No interview happens here, and no officer decides your visa.
• Consular (interview). The appointment at the US Embassy in New Delhi or a consulate in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad or Kolkata, where an officer decides your visa.

Biometrics come first. Official guidance is to complete the OFC visit before your interview — most applicants book it at least a day earlier — and skipping biometrics leads to the interview being canceled. Dropbox (interview waiver) applicants follow a different flow with no interview; that's its own topic.

Almost all verified openings we record (dates still listed after our confirmation window) are OFC (biometric) dates for B1/B2, so the OFC step is usually where the wait is. SeeUS visa wait times in India for the numbers city by city.

Book your OFC and consular slots yourself

Booking happens on the scheduling portal, in your own account, after you pay the visa fee. You pick an OFC date first, then the portal asks you to pick a consular date in the same session. Have your DS-160 confirmation, passport details and fee receipt ready before you start, so the clock is spent choosing dates, not finding documents.

Be careful with anyone offering to book for you. Sharing your password puts your account and your application at risk.

Reschedule to an earlier date (and the reschedule limit)

If an earlier date opens after you have booked, you can move to it by rescheduling in your own account. Pick the new OFC date, then the consular date, exactly as when you first booked.

The portal limits how many times you can reschedule before you have to pay the visa fee again, and that limit has changed more than once. Check the current rule on the portal and the US Mission India visa pages before you move a booked date, and treat each reschedule as one you may not get back.

We are not the official portal, and this is not an official rulebook.

OFC booked but no consular slots: what to do right now

You finally got an OFC date. You clicked through to the consular step — and the calendar is empty. No interview dates. Maybe a timer is counting down somewhere on the screen.

Don't close the tab. Don't sign out. You're in the middle of a two-part booking, and the next few minutes matter more than the last few months of waiting did. Here's what's happening, and what to do, step by step.

What just happened?

A US visa booking in India is two appointments: biometrics at an OFC, then a consular interview. When you pick an OFC date, the portal expects you to finish the consular booking in the same session — applicants widely report a hold of about 45 minutes. An empty calendar means no matching interview dates right now. Your application hasn't failed.

You haven't lost anything yet. You're mid-transaction. The rest of this page is about using the time you have.

So "OFC booked, no consular slots" means: half your booking exists. The portal now needs to find the other half.

How long does the portal hold your OFC selection?

There's no official published number. Applicants widely report a hold of roughly 45 minutes between selecting an OFC date and having to complete the consular booking, and the portal usually shows its own countdown. Trust the timer on your screen over any number in any article — including this one. Holds can change without notice.

If your screen shows a timer, that timer is the truth. If it doesn't, work as if you have less time than you think.

What should you do inside the window?

Human steps, in order. All of this is you, clicking, in your own account:

1. Stay in the session. Keep the tab open. Don't sign out, don't go back to the start "to check something."
2. Let each page finish loading. The consular calendar can be slow. Clicking again before it responds doesn't speed it up, and rapid refreshing is how accounts earn view limits and lockouts.
3. One session only. Don't open a second tab, browser, or device on the same account. Applicants report duplicate sessions breaking the flow mid-booking.
4. Check every consulate you'd accept. If the portal lets you view other posts, an empty calendar in one city doesn't mean an empty calendar in all five posts.
5. Take a workable date, not the perfect date. An acceptable interview date now beats an empty calendar at timer-zero. You may be able to reschedule later, but the portal limits how often (see rescheduling), so treat that as an emergency exit, not a plan.
6. If a date appears, go all the way to the confirmation screen. Selecting a date isn't booking it. Finish every step, screenshot the confirmation, and check that both appointments show under your account's appointments page and in your email.

Why do consular dates flash and vanish mid-booking?

Two reasons. Real dates get taken — thousands of applicants are booking against the same five posts, so genuine openings can disappear in minutes. And the calendar sometimes shows dates the booking step won't honor at all: ghost dates. Seeing dates flicker during the consular step doesn't mean you did something wrong.

If the calendar said yes and the booking step said no, you most likely met a ghost date — the same portal behavior that drives applicants crazy outside the OFC flow. We cover it fully in What is a ghost slot? During the hold window, the practical advice doesn't change: stay calm, let pages load, and complete any date that accepts your click all the way to confirmation.

What happens if the window lapses?

Community reports say the hold expires: the consular calendar starts failing — often with SGA10-type errors — and your OFC selection may be released, meaning you start again from the OFC step. The portal doesn't officially document this, so check your appointments page and email before assuming anything about what was saved.

In practice, applicants describe this sequence:

• The consular calendar stops cooperating, or shows an SGA-coded error. (What those codes mean:US visa portal errors explained.)
• Going back to the portal home page and starting from the OFC selection again is the commonly reported reset.
• Don't assume you're booked. Until both the OFC and the consular appointment appear under your account, you don't have a finished booking. If an OFC appointment shows but no interview, contact official portal support rather than guessing — details and contacts are on usvisascheduling.com's support pages.

This is general guidance from applicant reports, not an official rulebook. The portal's own screens and emails outrank everything here.

Already booked the consular leg? Don't re-book it casually.

Once your interview is confirmed, changing it counts as a reschedule — even if it feels like "just picking a better date." The portal allows only a limited number of reschedules before it asks for a fresh visa fee (see the reschedule limit). A tempting Tuesday two weeks earlier can cost a move you can't get back. Re-book only for a date you will actually keep.

Be ready before you start the OFC booking

The window is short, so the real work happens before it opens. The best time to know whether consular dates exist is before you commit to an OFC date — not 40 minutes into a countdown. Ourtiming guide shows which hours and days verified openings have landed on.

That's what GetMyVisa is for: it sends verified alerts when B1/B2 OFC dates open at the US Embassy and 4 consulates in India, and its slot history shows how recently dates have been appearing for your consulate and visa type. Start the two-step booking when dates actually exist, with a plan — not on hope.

GetMyVisa is not affiliated with the U.S. government, the U.S. Embassy, or usvisascheduling.com.

OFC and consular booking questions