The United States(US) has announced that routine visa processing at its embassy in Abuja will be transferred to Lagos from August 1 as part of a broader restructuring of visa operations across Africa.
The move, unveiled by the US Department of State, will equally affect 24 other African cities, with routine immigrant and non-immigrant visa services being consolidated into designated regional processing hubs. This is aimed at strengthening national security, ensuring more uniform screening and vetting procedures, and improving operational efficiency.
According to the new arrangement, applicants seeking routine US visa services from Abuja will now process their applications through the US Consulate General in Lagos. The Department of State said visa applicants in the affected locations must schedule appointments and pay visa application fees at their designated regional processing centres from August 1.
The new regional hubs include Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Dakar, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Kigali, Kampala, Abidjan, Addis Ababa, Dar es Salaam, Lomé, Luanda, Kinshasa, Monrovia, Yaoundé, Praia, Djibouti, Malabo and Port Louis. For instance, applicants in Benin Republic and Niger will now be processed in Lomé, Togo, while those in Mali will use the US mission in Dakar, Senegal.
According to the Department of State, the realignment follows a long-standing practice of consolidating visa operations into regional hubs and has already been implemented successfully in parts of Africa and Europe.
It stressed that the change would not affect the operations of US embassies and consulates in the affected countries, which will continue to provide other consular services.
The department explained that the restructuring aligns with the Donald Trump administration’s policy of strengthening border security while maintaining rigorous visa screening and adjudication standards.