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H1B stamping in Milan
- Thread starter tusharvk
- Start date
Any Indian national (or non-EU citizens) have applied for h1b stamp at Milan, Italy?
Please post your experience if you can.
Let me share my experience having returned from italy.
Please note that none of the following is legal advise and caveat emptor.
case is straightfwd and I have got a couple of visa stamps from India and a couple of others from toronto consulate. This time I could not secure appontment at toronto consulate.
For milan consulate, appointment can be made by calling the number for visa appointment booking in Italy. You may call any work day after 20th of a given month to get an appointment in the next month. The appointments are readily available.
Further, the interview fees are to be paid in any branch of bank nationale del lavore. These branches are all over Italy. No one can pay the fees for you; you have to do it in person by actually showing your passport. Please be prepared for the fact that you may have to converse in italian with the bank staff.
On the day of visa interview, I went to the consulate. However, there was already a queue of people waiting. Some of them even had appointments half to one hour before me. However, the admission into the consulate is based on your order in the queue alone.
After screening your bags (only plastic bags allowed), you are issued a temporary ID badge and let in. Security people and many other consulate staff know only italian and knowledge of english is pretty much a bonus.
Regardless, after being let into the consulate, I waited in a seating area for quite a while with other visa applicants. The interview order is actually based on the number that you will receive as you are entering the waiting area.
The interviewing staff is very conversant in english. At my turn, my interviewer asked me for documents and took fingerprints of both of my hands.
I handed the gentleman my documents. He told me that I will be further interviewed by the consulate officer and told that I should wait in the meantime. During my wait, a particular consulate officer was interviewing third country nationals (TCNs). So, I expected to be interviewed by her. However, she rejected visa applications of several applicants (chinese gentleman, indian couple, etc.) The wait, therefore, drove me very anxious compounded by the fact that I could not understand the reasons being given for the rejects as the conversation even with the TCNs was in italian.
At my turn, I was asked my employer's name, the reason for myself being in Italy (can't be tourism or just visiting for visa purpose as it can be in Canadian consulates). She asked me if I had other visas to US. Then she told me that my application was by mistake given to her as I had got several visas on my passport already. I offered to show her all my prior visas from my older passport. Then after a couple of casual questions such as where I went to school in US (she did not look very interested in the answers and was looking more at the computer screen rather than listen to my answers), she announced that my visa had been approved and will be available for pick up at Mail Boxes etc in 1-2 business days.
They will hand over your passport to Mail boxes, ,etc. You have the option to pick up in person by visiting office in Milan (very near the consulate) or have it mailed to your address. It is better to call Mail Boxes to check if they have got your passport back from the consulate and again be prepared to talk in Italian at mail boxes, etc as english is not understood well.
So, you need to have all documents with you and a valid reason for being in Italy (if you are TCN) and visa should be approved.
Good luck to everyone.
Hi tusharvk, that was really nice of you to share the experience. It is nice to know that it could be easy getting H1B stamped as a TCN. Could you explain why the reason for being in a third country cannot be tourisim? Would you be willing to share your reason? Thanks in advance!