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I am a foreign non-EU student studying for a PhD in the UK. I have a UK Tier 4 student visa which lasts until Jan 2018. I need to travel to the US in December 2017, and will require a US visa. I plan to apply for a US visa in the UK. After the trip to the US, my UK visa will be valid for just one more month.

My question: Does the fact that my UK visa will be valid for only one more month (after the trip to the US) affect the result of the US visa application?

According to the US Customs and Border Protection (see here, and the PDF file therein),

Visitors traveling to the United States are required to be in possession of passports that are valid for six months beyond the period of their intended stay in the United State. Citizens of the countries listed below are exempt the six-month rule and need only have a passport valid for their intended period of stay.

My passport actually is not valid for six months beyond my stay in the US. But fortunately, my country is in the list. The question is whether there is this kind of restriction to the visa of the country in which I am a resident. Thanks.

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The six-month rule applies, as stated, to passports. It does not apply to your visa. The point is for you to have a place to go when you leave the US; they don't necessarily care whether it's the place that you consider to be your residence.

The possible effect of your impending visa expiration is more subtle: it may make it more difficult for you to overcome the statutory presumption of immigrant intent. That is, it tends to weaken your case that you plan to go live somewhere else after the end of your trip.

Still, there's no absolute rule that prohibits a visa from being granted in your circumstances, so there's every possibility that the visa will be granted.

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  • Thanks for the information. The reason that I asked is actually not because of the six-month rule. It is because I know that when applying for a Schengen visa, they do care about the validity of my UK visa beyond the period of the intended trip to Schengen. I thought US might have a similar rule. It is good to know that US does not care. Do you have a reference for this information? – wij Sep 6 '17 at 10:31
  • @wij it's always challenging to prove a negative, but I'll have a look. – phoog Sep 6 '17 at 10:38
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In the end, I went to apply for a US visa without extending my UK visa. I applied in London. It went well. There were two stages: 1. document checking 2. interview. The two stages were done with two different people. In the first stage, the fact that my UK visa will expire soon after was actually written down on my documents by the staff (i.e., a message intended for the interviewer). But when I attended the interview, this issue was not brought up.

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