Short answer: in India, you get one free reschedule per MRV fee receipt. Move your interview date a second time and you pay the visa fee all over again. Few rules trip up applicants as often as this one, so learn how the clock and the counter behave before you touch the calendar.

How US visa scheduling works on ustraveldocs

Every non-immigrant visa interview in India is booked through ustraveldocs.com. The sequence is fixed: complete your DS-160, create a profile on ustraveldocs, pay the Machine-Readable Visa (MRV) fee, then log back in to pick your slot at the consular post you have chosen.

Nothing can be scheduled until the payment clears, which for most methods takes a day or two. Once it does, your receipt number unlocks the calendar, and every later date change happens on the same dashboard under “Reschedule Appointment” — not over the phone, not by email.

How many times can you reschedule?

Here is the rule that catches people out. Since 1 January 2025, the US Mission India allows one reschedule per paid MRV fee. When you go to move the date, the system flags that you have a single change left before the option closes.

What that means in practice:

  • First booking — you choose your slot. This is not a reschedule.
  • One free change — you may move that appointment once, at no extra cost, while the fee is still valid.
  • A second change, or a no-show — the counter is spent. Booking again means a fresh MRV fee.

One nuance worth knowing: an appointment cancelled by the consulate or embassy — a closure, a scheduling issue, and so on — does not burn your reschedule. Only a change you initiate counts against the limit. India once allowed several reschedules per fee; the single-change policy is the current position, so plan on having exactly one reschedule in hand, not a stack of them.

The 365-day MRV fee clock

The MRV fee is valid for one year — 365 days — from the date you pay it. Within that window you must schedule an interview. The appointment itself can fall after the year is up; the booking simply has to be made before the fee expires.

Miss the deadline and the money is gone. No extension, no refund — you pay again and start over. So the fee quietly does two jobs: it holds your place in the queue and runs a hard twelve-month timer in the background. If wait times at your post are long, book the earliest slot you can even if the date sits far off. That stops the clock, and you can use your one reschedule later to pull the date forward should something open up.

Booking smart across India’s posts

Interviews run at five posts: the US Embassy in New Delhi and the Consulates General in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. Log in and ustraveldocs shows the next available date at each, so compare before you commit — wait times can differ sharply from one city to the next.

A few habits save real grief:

  • Book early, not perfectly. Grab a slot to get moving; refine the date later with your single reschedule.
  • Check jurisdiction. Your state of residence maps to a specific post, and some appointment types — such as interview-waiver “dropbox” filings — are tied to that jurisdiction, so you cannot always pick any city freely.
  • Treat your reschedule as precious. Do not spend it chasing a marginally better time; hold it for a genuine clash or emergency.
  • Read the live message. Mission policies shift without much notice, so trust the on-screen warning at the moment you reschedule over what a friend did last year.

Get the order right — pay, book, keep one clean reschedule in reserve — and the system is far calmer than its reputation suggests. Whether the officer approves the visa is a separate decision entirely, and no scheduling trick can sway it.