m1chu

I have another urgent DCF question about paying the $230 fee to process the DS-260. From what I understand, there is an I-130 filing fee of $420 (which we already paid), and then another $230 to process the DS-260, and then finally a fee of $165 after you get your visa and before you enter the US. My husband just had his interview and passed (yay!), but didn't see a place on the 3rd floor of the Guangzhou Consulate to pay the fee. I previously emailed the Guangzhou Consulate, and they emailed back saying that the fee could only be paid on the day of the interview at the Consulate. However, he said that he asked several people who worked there, and they all said that he either didn't have to pay the fee, or he could pay the fee at a CITIC bank. Others who also passed the interview said that the fee wasn't necessary because he already passed. However, I read a story on Candle For Love about a couple who didn't have to pay, then went back to Yunnan and found out they had to come back to pay the fee. We're in Guangzhou for a few more days so I'd like to take care of this before we leave if we need to. Please help! Specifically people who have interviewed there recently and paid the fee at the Consulate.

I kept seeing different things about when to pay the $230, which is the processing fee for the DS-260, so I emailed the Guangzhou Consulate. I specifically asked them if it was possible to pay that fee ahead of time at a CITIC bank so we don't have to deal with it on the day of my husband's interview. Here is their reply below: Thank you for your inquiry. This is to confirm you that the immigrant visa fee can only be paid in the Consulate at the time of the visa interview if the immigrant petition was filed in China. The CITIC bank doesn’t accept any immigrant visa fees. Sincerely, Immigrant Visa Unit U.S. Consulate General Guangzhou So we're going to just wait until the day of the interview and see if somebody inside the Consulate can tell us how to pay that fee. Also, to those who have DCF'd in another city, such as Beijing, and interviewed in Guangzhou already, can you confirm if your documents from the I-130 filing were forwarded to the Guangzhou Consulate? We only have one copy of the translated and notarized marriage certificates, which we gave to the Beijing embassy upon the I-130 filing, and I just want to make sure that Guangzhou will have it when we interview. Thanks!

Thanks for the detailed replies! I think I have a better understanding now, and I contacted my mom to get her to send me the I-864 form instead of the I-864A. Crossing my fingers that that's the only thing I misread...

Also, I read on VisaJourney that there were some cases (possibly different from my situation) where the VO rejected the I-864A forms and required a I-864 from the joint sponsor. Like I said, those could have been cases where the joint sponsor was from a different household than the primary sponsor/petitioner. Has anyone come across a situation similar to mine? Where the petitioner/primary sponsor is in the same household as the joint sponsor, and the joint sponsor just fills out the I-864A?

I'm an American woman married to a Chinese man and we're DCF-ing from Beijing. We've scheduled our interview (hooray!) and are gathering the documents for my husband to bring to his interview. I've been doing some research but am confused about the I-864 because I am seeing different answers. I filled out an I-864 form as the petitioner and primary sponsor for my Chinese husband. However, I don't meet the poverty guidelines, so my mom will be the joint sponsor. I included her in our personal household size (just me, my husband, and my mom) because we will be living with her when we move back to California. I have a driver's license and bank statements to prove that my mom and I reside at the same address. In this situation, where we are from the same household and she is my joint sponsor, does she fill out the I-864A or the I-864? I originally thought that the joint sponsor who's in my household fills out the I-864A to supplement my income, but now I am going over the instructions again and wondering if I misread them. Please clarify!

Thanks so much for your detailed description of what to bring. I'm filing DCF for my Chinese husband and we've reached the interview stage. One question I have is, we submitted our translated and notarized marriage certificates (the white books) with our I-130 filing in Beijing. Guangzhou should have those marriage certificates already from the first round of documents, right? It was expensive to get them notarized, so I want to make sure we don't need to bring another copy of each marriage certificate to Guangzhou and that the originals are okay.

Just to clarify, the $230 fee to process the DS-260 application is paid on the DAY of the interview? Or do we need to pay that beforehand at a CITIC bank? Then after the interview and before going to the US, we have to pay another $165 online somewhere? I mostly want to make sure when we need to pay the $230 fee in case we need to prepare it for my husband's interview.

Thank you guys for all your quick responses so far! I have a few more questions: 1) For initial I-130 filing in Beijing, do I need to bring the beneficary's (my Chinese husband's) birth certificate?? Based on my research thus far (such as people's cover letters and what they brought to the I-130) and an info sheet from the US Embassy, I thought that I don't need the beneficiary's birth certificate until the interview in Guangzhou. Please please confirm this as soon as possible. 2) Do both the birth certificate and police certificate (my husband's) need to be translated into English? Can I do that at any notary public? 3) What exactly do I need to send back with the P3 packet? I know that I have to prepare the I-864 and I-864A, but do I need to send that with the P3, or do I just have my husband bring it into the interview in Guangzhou? 4) What is P4? Thanks so much in advance. I know there are a lot of questions. Hopefully I'll be able to pay it forward and answer other people's questions once I get through this process! 4) Will the documents I include with the initial I-130 filing be sent to Guangzhou? The reason I ask is because I read that we'll need to bring a certified copy of our marriage certificates (and translated) to the interview. However, if we're already including that in the I-130 packet, do we need to have an additional official copy for the interview? Do I need to pay the notary public for another two translated certifications or can I just photocopy the translated and certified marriage certificates from the first time around?

I'm trying to figure out where in Beijing to get the 结婚公证书, or the wedding white book notarized translation. We got registered in Henan, but I've heard that I can still get the white book in Beijing. Can anyone confirm if that's true? Also, if anyone got the white book (for marriage certificate) in Beijing, can you tell me where to get it? I went to the Beijing Fangyuan Notary Public office today and was told that they don't do Chinese to English translations, only other languages to Chinese. I need to get this done sometime this week, any advice on where to go would help, thanks!

Thanks for the quick replies and the great information and links to others' stories! For this first step, can I get the marriage certificate "white books" and the apartment contracts translated and notarized at the Gong Zheng Chu in Beijing, or does it need to be where we registered the marriage? (Henan Province) I'm a bit worried when it comes to prepping for the interview and getting the Birth Certificate (which my husband doesn't have, but we need to get the notarized document) and Police Certificate because we'll have to do it in a small town in Henan, and I'm sure they've never had to do one before. If he's lived in Beijing for 10 years, does he also need a Police Certificate from a Beijing police station? (or Gong Zheng Chu?)

Hello! I've been reading these forums for a while and am finally ready to begin my own journey! However, I'm a bit worried that what I've previously read may be different from what the process currently is for DCF in Beijing/Guangzhou, since I know there were some changes in May 2013, and then the Guangzhou Embassy moved very recently. A bit of background on me and my husband: I am a Chinese-American woman, and my husband is a Chinese citizen. We met in Beijing about four and a half years ago, dated for two years, got engaged, then married in his hometown of Henan Province in June 2012. We're getting ready to DCF in Beijing to get the CR-1 visa, and I have a couple of questions. 1) I would be really grateful if anybody could post their experience beginning or going through the DCF process from within the past month. Particularly, are there any big differences now in the process than there were before? 2) From the first step of filing the I-130 to preparing for the interview, what are the documents I need to get translated and notarized? So far, I have: His/hers marriage certificates (is there a difference between white books and the notarized translation?) And since my husband and I each got a marriage certificate book, do we need to translate both?Apartment contracts for the last two years for proof of residenceIs there anything else I need to get translated/notarized? 3) Just to confirm, the address we put for the beneficiary and petitioner on the I-130 form is the address that we'll receive the P3 packet? On that note, what's the difference between the P3 and P4 packets? I'm sure I'll have more questions as we start filing (hopefully in September), and I'll also try to post about my own experiences to help others in the future. Thanks!