United States
The B-1/B-2 route, and the presumption you have to overcome.
Most guidance treats this like a paperwork exercise. It is not. One sentence of statute decides the outcome, and almost nobody reads it.
The sentence the whole route turns on
8 USC 1184(b), which everyone calls INA 214(b), says that every applicant
shall be presumed to be an immigrant until he establishes... that he is entitled to a nonimmigrant status
Read that again, because the order matters. You do not arrive neutral and get assessed. You arrive presumed to be an intending immigrant, and the burden of shifting that sits entirely with you. A refusal under 214(b) is not a finding that you lied. It means the officer was not satisfied the presumption had been overcome in the few minutes available.
What overcomes it
The answer is in the definition of a visitor at 8 USC 1101(a)(15)(B). A B visitor is somebody
having a residence in a foreign country which he has no intention of abandoning and who is visiting the United States temporarily for business or temporarily for pleasure
So the thing being tested is your life outside the United States. Not your bank balance. This is why applicants with substantial savings and nothing to return to are refused, and why a modest salary attached to a settled life is not.
The operational conditions sit in 22 CFR 41.31: that you intend to leave at the end of the temporary stay, that you have permission to enter a country afterwards, and that adequate financial arrangements have been made to carry out the purpose of the visit. That last one names no figure, deliberately.
How this differs from the UK
People apply to both and assume the preparation transfers. Much of it does not.
- There is no bundle. The UK reads a submitted file. A US officer decides at a window, usually in minutes, often without opening anything you brought. Documents are a resource you draw on when asked.
- The DS-160 is on their screen while you speak. Any gap between the form and your answers is visible immediately, which is why letting an agent complete it is a poor idea.
- The burden is reversed in form. The UK asks a caseworker to be satisfied you are a genuine visitor. The US starts from a presumption against you.
- The visa is not the permission to stay. Length of admission is decided by CBP on arrival and recorded on your I-94.
The decision happens in a conversation of a few minutes rather than in a bundle somebody reads. What the interview actually tests takes the four published requirements one at a time, including the condition in 41.31(a)(2) that catches out applicants living outside their country of citizenship.
If a previous application was turned down, the refusal slip almost certainly named this section and very little else. What a 214(b) refusal actually means covers why the notice is so short, why there is no appeal, and the 120 day deferral in the regulation that rarely gets mentioned.
The commonest question on this route is what counts as business and what counts as work. Where the line actually sits takes the statutory exclusion in 8 USC 1101(a)(15)(B) and the definitions in 22 CFR 41.31(b) together, including the one industry the regulation names.
Separately from any of that, there is the question of what happens when something on the form is wrong. Where a DS-160 error becomes misrepresentation sets out the three tests in 8 USC 1182(a)(6)(C)(i), and why a typo fails the first of them.
If you are also looking at the UK, the Standard Visitor route is assessed against a different test, and the genuine visitor requirement explains it in the same way this page explains 214(b).
How we weight it
These percentages are ours, not the State Department’s. No consulate scores applications out of 100 and none publishes a weighting. The factors come from the statute and the regulation. The numbers beside them are our reading of the emphasis, and a different reader could reasonably choose differently. We publish them because a number you can argue with beats one you cannot see.
Residence abroad and ties
26%INA 214(b) presumes every applicant intends to immigrate, and the applicant carries the burden of overcoming it. What overcomes it is the thing INA 101(a)(15)(B) describes: a residence in a foreign country which you have no intention of abandoning. Employment, family, property and business commitments are the evidence of that residence. This is the heaviest factor on the route and it is not close.
Financial arrangements
16%22 CFR 41.31 requires that adequate financial arrangements have been made to carry out the purpose of the visit. There is no published figure. What matters is that the money is genuinely available and proportionate to the trip described, and that its source is not a question left hanging.
Immigration history
16%Prior compliance is treated as evidence of future compliance, and previous history with the US system specifically carries more weight than history elsewhere. Overstays, earlier misrepresentation and previous refusals are all visible to the officer before you speak.
Information consistency
13%The DS-160 is on the officer's screen while they speak to you. Where the figures and dates you gave disagree with each other, or with what you say at the window, the discrepancy becomes the issue regardless of which version is correct. This dimension is scored from cross-checks between your own answers, not from any single question.
Purpose and trip coherence
12%22 CFR 41.31 defines business as conventions, conferences, consultations and other legitimate activities of a commercial or professional nature, and pleasure as recreation, tourism, visits to family and medical treatment. The boundary between permitted business activity and work is where these applications most often fail, and a vague purpose invites the question rather than answering it.
Travel record
10%A record of entering countries and leaving them within the period granted is documentary rather than assertive. Travel to countries operating comparable systems is weighted higher here than regional travel. That is our judgement about evidential value, not a published rule.
Evidence readiness
7%Weighted lower than on the UK route, deliberately. There is no bundle to submit and officers frequently decide without opening anything. Documents still matter as something you can produce when asked, but the interview is decided on what you say, not on what you brought.
100 points across 7 factors, enforced in code. A rule pack whose weights do not total 100 fails the build. The methodology page explains the ceilings and the cross-checks that apply to every route.
What the assessment covers
39 questions across 8 sections, with 7 cross-checks comparing your own answers against each other, and a catalogue of 27 documents narrowed to your circumstances. Free, and your answers never leave your browser.
Certain answers cap the reading regardless of the score. Paid work for a US source, a significant overstay, and earlier misrepresentation each cap it at red and point you to a licensed attorney, because those carry consequences under the inadmissibility grounds that no questionnaire can weigh.
Where these criteria come from
Common questions
What is INA 214(b)?
Is a 214(b) refusal permanent?
What does 'residence abroad' actually mean?
Does having family in the United States hurt my application?
Does a pending green card petition stop me getting a visitor visa?
How much money do I need in the bank?
How long can I stay on a B-1/B-2 visa?
An educational estimate based on published criteria. Not a prediction, and not immigration advice. See how we score.