Last year, the US Embassy in Tashkent refused to issue category B visas (tourist and business visas) to 47.04% of Uzbek citizens who applied, Turanews.kz reports citing gazeta.uz
According to the report of Deparment of State of USA, Refusal rate was higher than previous year (in 2021 it was 45.98%) however it was still lower than the year of pandemic 2020 – 74.14% and previous years
The refusal rates of previous years as follows;
- 2019 – 68.06%
- 2018 – 61.76%
- 2017 – 50.29%
At the end of last year, in the countries of Central Asia, Uzbekistan ranked second in terms of visa refusals after Tajikistan, where a permit was not issued in 57.03% of cases. The share of refusals;
- in Kyrgyzstan was 37.85%
- in Kazakhstan – 44.02%
- in Turkmenistan – 35.69%.
In other CIS countries, visas are issued more often:
- Azerbaijan – 23.54%
- Belarus – 26.05%
- Russia – 26.18%
- Armenia – 37.87%
- Ukraine – 41.27% (it was 15.15% in the past year).
Former US Ambassador to Tashkent Daniel Rosenblum noted in 2019 that Uzbek citizens often overstay their visas.
“That is why we, as United States of America, must study each person in detail and be sure that he will not overstay his visa and remain an illegal immigrant in the country,” the diplomat pointed out.
It must be noted that over the past years, the Consular Section of the US Embassy in Tashkent ranked fifth in the number of approved visas (5511) for immigrants of different nationalities under the Diversity Visa (Green Card) program around the world. The first place is occupied by Egypt (5529) and Algeria (5526).
