CLIENTS ARE UNABLE TO PAY FEE BILLS AND SUBMIT IMMIGRANT VISA APPLICATIONS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

By: Alexander D. McShiras, Senior Attorney of Kirby Gamblin Joseph, ABIL Lawyer
Joseph Law Firm Immigration Blog

The Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC) is an essential tool for completing any consular processing case that involves an immigrant visa. Applicants (or their attorneys) must login to this online system to pay the government filing fees (fee bills), choose an agent, and to submit their immigrant visa application. There is no other option to do all three of these required steps. The only way to do so is through CEAC. The CEAC web portal has been down since approximately July 20, 2018 and it displays the following error message:

“The Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC) Immigrant Visa web portal is currently unavailable due to maintenance. During this time, IV applicants will be unable to access/login to the CEAC Immigrant Visa Agent (DS-261), Online Immigrant Visa Application (DS-260), or the Immigrant Visa Fee Payment portal. We are working to restore access as soon as possible.”

Source:  https://ceac.state.gov/IV

The government does not give any direction to applicants who need to access the portal immediately. This is especially important for people whose interviews have been scheduled and are preparing to attend the interview in the coming weeks. If this is your situation and you are a current client, we will contact you (if we have not already). We are contacting the consulate or embassy where your case is processing to ask them for specific guidance. The government does not give any timeline regarding when they expect to restore this essential web portal. Please be patient with us while the government is restoring CEAC.