How to fix the FNU issue on your USA visa
If you are someone like me, and immediately knows what FNU means, and needs to know how to fix it, this article is probably for you.
I have an Indian passport, and have held US’s B1, L1 & H1 visas with my first name as “FNU”, i.e, “First Name Unknown”. This had led to countless problems during my stay in the US, which kept escalating until I finally decided to bite the bullet and change it once and for all.
For the purposes of this article, let’s assume the name on my USA visa is
First Name: FNU
Last Name: ABC DEF XYZ
and my correct name should have been
First Name: ABC
Last Name: DEF XYZ
Indian passport correction
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If you live in the US, and want to get your passport fixed from the US, you have to go through VFS here , and follow the steps listed there to get the process going. On the govt application form,
- Apply for a reissue of passport, and under reason, select “Change in existing person particulars”. And state that you are changing your Given Name, and Surname
- Note: Other articles ask you to select the reason as “Name split”, but I didn’t see that option when I had filled out my form. But if you see it, by all means, enter that. - Enter your names as the corrected names, example, Given Name: ABC, Surnames: DEF XYZ
- I filled out the Alias to have my older name just in case - Go ahead and fill out the form as needed.
- Make sure you don’t change any other details in the passport like your permanent address, or someone’s name. This process will require extra documentation and will probably have a different set of requirements in the first place - There will be a list of documentation that will be required to be submitted along with your passport, get that checklist from the VFS website as well
- Once you have that, collect all the required documents for your use case.
- For my use case, it did tell me to send in “Newspaper advertisement”, I had no idea how to do that in the US & India and then get the cutting shipped from India, so just skipped this part and it ended up being fine. 🤷🏻♀️ - The passport needs to be printed in the landscape format as mentioned on the website
- Yes, your 2 inch passport photo will overflow on the edges in this format, but it is what it is. 🤷🏻♀️ - You will need to find a Notary in your area to sign the documents that need to be Notarized in the checklist mentioned above.
- The documents that need to be notarized is specifically called out in the checklist
- Your company premises might have a Notary or you can find one on Yelp.
- You will need to sign a name change affidavit, which will essentially state that, I am changing my name from “ABC DEF XYZ” to “ABC DEF XYZ”. Yes, its counter-intuitive but it is what it is.🤷🏻♀️ - Once all of this is done, follow the steps mentioned to ship the documents to your consulate. I used the Fedex option, and just shipped all of these documents to the mentioned address.
Then there was almost 5 weeks of radio silence, followed by an email from the consulate asking a follow up question. And then my passport was shipped to my address and I got it in 2 days. All in all, I had to wait for 7 weeks from the time I shipped my passport to the day I got it back. ( For the duration of those 7 weeks , keep in mind you can’t likely fly domestically unless you have a State ID, and definitely cant fly internationally)
Yes, this process is time consuming. Yes, this now means you have a new passport and will in all likelihood need to carry two passports when you travel (one for the visa, one for the passport identification, your visa on your old passport continues to be valid). Yes, for a while you will be without your passport as the government gives you the new passport. But, all of this is definitely worth it, and I wish I had done it sooner.
One of the articles that really helped me through the name change process was this , hope it helps you too.
SSN Correction
Once you have your passport, follow the prompts on the SSN website to change your name on the social security card.
I had to collect all the required documents, call the Social Security office and schedule an appointment. Name change could not be done online, and needed to be done in person
- Note: I didn’t get an email/text confirmation of the appointment. 🤷🏻♀️ So make sure you get the place and time right when you book the appointment, just show up there and it will be there under your name.
Driver’s License / State ID Correction
I was not able to get either of these in the first place because of the whole name fiasco so wouldn’t know how to correct these IDs, but once I got my corrected passport & SSN, it was really easy to get my state ID. just had to follow the steps listed on the DMV website.
Hope this article helps you, and you never have to be called FNU again in the country of your residence.
H1B Visa Renewal
After changing my name, I did have a H1B visa renewal in 8 months that went by without any hiccups.
In my DS160 I mentioned my new name, and cited my old FNU name in the “Alias” section. It was a dropbox renewal, and my visa came back in time with the new updated name without any issues.
