passport expiring with a h1 extended for 1 year

T

tscfiler

New Member
Hi all:
My Indian passport expires on Feb 9th 2004.
I recently renewed my H-1 for one year after using the H-1 for 5 years.The validity of the new H-1 is from March 23 2003 to March 23 2004.
I am travelling to India in February.
I plan to stamp my new H-1 visa in India.
But since my passport is expiring in Feb 2004 the visa may not be stamped on the passport. The Indian Consulate in US says that I cant apply for a passport renewal now since it is too early.

Can anyone please advise what should I do?
Should I re-apply for a new passport in India and get the new H-1 visa stamped on it?
Or should I get my visa stamped on the old passport now and get the new passport later?
Please advise.

Thanks in advance
 
TSC flyer,

Two issues

1) passport:

Embassy in USA has a window for renewal a) either passport validity less than 6 months or b) less than 12 months have passed since passport has expired. You have 13 months left before passport expires, so they will not do it. Use your passport for travel till it expires feb 2004. Six months prior to that say in oct 2003 apply to embassy for renewal , they will do it within i week.

2) VISA

What i beleive is that most countries will stamp visa on a passport which has validity of at least 6 months. For US visa i know that they used to stamp visa on passport with atleast a 6 month validity . If the visa date stamped on your current passport is say march 2004 and your passport valid till feb 2004, then when you apply for new pasport in say Oct 2003, the embassy will staple and seal new passport and old passport as passport has valid visa. You need to carry both passport for future travel.

Hope this helps
 
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