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US Embassy London · Immigrant visa interview

Public charge: the evidence and detail

Updated 1 October 2026.

1. Inside a 35-minute London interview

A beneficiary who sent a public charge statement in advance gave us this account of her 2026 interview at US Embassy London. Her profile drew extra questions: she works in a niche digital finance field, has Type 1 diabetes, owns property and earns cash from a family business. Read it for how the officer worked.

Your interview may run shorter. Each unusual feature of a case opens its own line of questions: a new business, a weak tax year, a chronic condition, remote work, co-owned property, cash income. The officer follows each line until satisfied. List the features of your case and prepare an answer and a document for each.

Shared with this site by the applicant, reproduced with her permission and edited for length. One case: treat the details as hers and the structure as a guide.

2. The written questionnaire posts issue

Some posts send applicants a written questionnaire before the interview, to answer and upload to CEAC. We reproduce one below, grouped as the post grouped it. London has not sent one to any applicant we know of. Your officer still works through the same five factors, and these twenty questions follow from them. Answer each one on paper before your interview.

Issued by a post outside London to an immigrant visa applicant in 2026, and shared with this site.

Some officers ask it out loud. In September 2026 an applicant's spouse posted an account of an interview at another post. With no written form beforehand, the officer worked through almost all of the questions in that questionnaire: the beneficiary's bank balances and property abroad, and who the joint sponsor is, whether they have sponsored anyone before and whether they have taken public assistance. You answer the same questions on paper or in the room.

3. What posts ask about a joint sponsor

When you use a joint sponsor, the written questionnaire adds a block of questions, and one consulate's 221(g) checklist asks for a more detailed description of how the joint sponsor is related to the petitioner. The joint sponsor does not attend, so you answer for them. Prepare these:

• Why you have one. At another post an officer asked: why did you add a joint sponsor if your wife's income was enough? Give a true answer in one sentence. "The petitioner's income was close to the threshold" works. So does "the petitioner had only recently returned to US employment." "We weren't sure" invites the next question.
• The relationship, described. "My husband's colleague" is a label. Say how they know each other, for how long, and how often they speak. An officer who cannot place a joint sponsor gives their support less weight.
• How long they have known the petitioner and you. The questionnaire asks about both in one question. A sponsor who has never met you still qualifies. Say so up front.
• Whether they live in the same state as the petitioner. Distance does not bar them. The officer uses it to judge whether the sponsor would hand over the money.
• Whether they have sponsored anyone else for an immigrant visa. An earlier I-864 obligation that has not ended counts toward the joint sponsor's household size on your I-864, and raises the income they must show. Check before you file, with the I-864 household decision tree.
• Whether they have used public assistance. Officers weigh their benefit history as they weigh the petitioner's.

If you have spoken to your joint sponsor only once or twice, have a proper conversation before the interview.

A short US tax history does not call for a joint sponsor

In the case above, the couple added a joint sponsor because the petitioner lacked three years of US tax returns. Form I-864 asks, yes or no, whether you filed a return for each of the three most recent tax years, and you can misread that as a requirement. The note under the question in the 08/24/26 edition says you must attach a transcript or photocopy for only the most recent tax year, and that you may submit three years if you believe they help (Form I-864, Part 6, Item Numbers 15 to 19, and their instructions). Send three years where you have them, because they show sustained income. Once you file a joint sponsor's I-864, the officer examines their details in the same depth as the petitioner's.

4. Who counts as a dependent

Posts' written questionnaires count all of the petitioner's dependents, and list them: minor children, spouse, parents, or extended family and friends you are financially supporting. Form I-864 has no equivalent of that last clause. It builds household size from tax dependents and sponsored immigrants.

A petitioner who sends money to a parent abroad, or supports a sibling or friend, has a dependent for the questionnaire and none on the affidavit. Both counts can be correct. Work out each one before the interview, and prepare to explain the difference. For the affidavit's arithmetic, use the I-864 household decision tree.

5. Benefits, charity and care at public expense

Posts ask two separate questions: whether you have received means-tested support, and whether the government has paid for your long-term care.

Means-tested support, from any country

Practitioners report that the November 2025 cable directs officers to consider any public assistance, social welfare or private charity for people on low incomes, in the United States or any other country. The test: did your eligibility depend on your income or savings falling below a threshold?

Written questionnaires give their own examples: social welfare, food banks, WIC, SNAP. WIC and SNAP are US federal programmes a UK applicant will not have used. A food bank is a charity. Answer the question as the post asks it. If you have used a food bank, say so, with when, why and what changed.

Institutional care at government expense

Questionnaires ask whether the petitioner or beneficiary has ever been institutionalized at government expense, for example in a mental health or nursing facility for a long stay. Most applicants can answer no. Ordinary NHS care, hospital stays included, does not count. It counts if the state paid for a long-term stay because you could not, such as a council-funded care home place or a long detention under the Mental Health Act. If it applies to you or your petitioner, say so in the statement, with the dates, the reason and what has changed.

6. The I-864 credit check

In the 08/24/26 edition of Form I-864, each sponsor signs a new authorization in Part 8. It lets USCIS and the State Department obtain credit reports and scores from consumer reporting agencies in connection with the sufficiency determination of the affidavit.

• It lasts through a 221(g). The authorization runs until the officer approves the case, the one-year window to overcome a refusal closes, or the sponsor withdraws the I-864. It stays valid during any period in which an application is pending administrative processing.
• A credit freeze can delay your case. The form warns sponsors that a security freeze may block the government's access, and asks them to respond to any request to lift it.
• The government can share negative findings with you, so that you can respond under 8 CFR 103.2(b)(16).

Each sponsor, joint sponsors included, should read their own credit reports before signing, and prepare to explain any defaults, collections or large debts. The officer may ask you about the petitioner's debts.

7. Income before and after tax

The I-864 uses gross income, and compares it against 125% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines. Written public charge questionnaires ask for the petitioner's annual salary after taxes, because the officer wants to know whether the household can absorb another person. Have both numbers, and say which one you are quoting. An officer who expects gross and hears net may read it as a contradiction of the I-864.

8. The worksheet, the training and the cable

• 15 August 2026. The Department sent consular officers a public charge worksheet for use at every post. Officers use it to weigh the totality of your circumstances.
• 1 September 2026. Four new training requirements took effect. Two affect your case: wider supervisor review of consular decisions, and mandatory training on the public charge analysis. Both cover immigrant visa cases worldwide, beyond the cases the courts sent back.
• 10 September 2026. Cable 26 STATE 88862 reminded every post to complete the worksheet in every immigrant visa case.

Your officer works through all five factors on a set form, and a supervisor may review the decision. Write your statement around the same five factors, and the officer finds each answer where the form asks for it.

You can read the filings. The government filed the cable as ECF 95-1 in Medani v. Trump, No. 5:26-cv-06332 (N.D. Cal.), on 11 September 2026. The worksheet and training details come from two filings the Department made on 8 September 2026 in CLINIC v. Rubio, No. 1:26-cv-00858 (S.D.N.Y.): a status report (ECF 96), and a declaration by the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Consular Affairs (ECF 96-1).

The manual has not changed. Under 9 FAM 302.8, a properly filed, non-fraudulent Form I-864, where one is required, is normally sufficient to meet INA 212(a)(4) and satisfy the totality of the circumstances analysis. The Department has not amended that text to match the November 2025 cable. This page describes what officers have done since November 2025.

9. What is confirmed, and what is not

Read this page as our best reconstruction of a standard the State Department has not published in full.

• The Department has not published the governing documents. Nobody outside government has released the November 2025 cable or the worksheet. We built this page from practitioner analysis, court filings that describe both documents, forms other posts have handed applicants, and interview reports. Those sources agree with each other. A published rule would still carry more weight.
• The written material comes from other posts. The questionnaire in section 2 and the public charge 221(g) checklist are real documents. No London applicant has reported receiving either. We include them because officers at every post apply the same five factors.
• London has few cases under the new standard. The embassy cancelled its September 2026 interviews so officers could complete the training, and it is rescheduling them now. The London accounts on this site are single cases. We expect to rewrite parts of this page as more reports arrive.

We are confident about the direction. The Department sent a worksheet to every post, required training for every officer and widened supervisor review of decisions. Those steps make a strict, uniform assessment the normal standard for immigrant visa interviews. Each post will apply it in its own way. The five factors, and the evidence that answers them, will hold.

Prepare for the version on this page. Gathering the evidence costs you an afternoon. Arriving without it costs you a 221(g) and months of delay.

10. Authorities and sources

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