Booking a consular appointment
There is no single national booking system for Pakistani consulates in the United States. Each of the five offices runs its own arrangements, and the only thing they share is that turning up without checking is a bad plan.
What you can settle before booking anything
Two questions decide whether you need an appointment at all.
Does this procedure still happen at a counter? Visas do not: they moved entirely to visa.nadra.gov.pk. Passport renewals often do not, through onlinemrp.dgip.gov.pk. Powers of attorney frequently do not, through poa.nadra.gov.pk. Succession certificates never do.
Is this the right office? You apply where you live, under the jurisdiction set by the 2012 circular. That map has two boundaries almost nobody guesses: Wyoming and Kentucky are both served from New York, with closer consulates that cannot take your case.
Hours
The Consulate General in Los Angeles publishes the clearest schedule of the five: applications accepted Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 16:00, with document collection during the same hours. Other offices set their own, and every one of them closes on both American federal holidays and Pakistani ones.
That double calendar is worth checking. Eid dates move each year, and a consulate can be closed on a day that looks entirely ordinary from the outside.
What to bring
Three things account for most wasted journeys:
- A current NADRA card. No valid CNIC or NICOP means no passport, whatever else you have with you. The only exception is applicants aged 64 and over.
- The right payment instrument. Money order or cashier's check for consulate fees; a credit or Visa debit card for NADRA fees. Cash and personal checks are refused.
- Originals. Identity documents are checked in the original, not as photocopies.
Getting through by telephone
Not every office publishes a number. The Consulate General in New York has a contact page with a telephone label and no number behind it, and email is the route it offers. Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston all publish direct lines.
The five offices and what each one covers
- Embassy, Washington D.C.: the District, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
- New York: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Delaware, and then Kentucky and Wyoming.
- Los Angeles: California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii.
- Chicago: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin. The largest of the five.
- Houston: Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
No state is split between two offices, so there is always exactly one right answer. Getting it wrong is the most expensive mistake available here, because the journeys are long.
Websites worth checking twice
One trap is worth naming. A domain that reads like the obvious address for the Chicago consulate, pakistanconsulatechicago.org, is a parked advertising page with no connection to the mission. The real site is cgpkchicago.org.
Los Angeles has a similar problem in reverse: its correct address is on Santa Monica Boulevard, while listings still show an older one on Wilshire. Once inside the building, consular applicants use Suite 209, not the Suite 211 that appears on directories.
Grouping errands into one visit
Where the office is a flight rather than a drive, plan the whole list before you book. Biometrics are captured once, and several procedures share the same identity checks.
What cannot be grouped is anything that depends on something else finishing first. A passport needs a current NADRA card, so if the card has expired, the passport is a second trip no matter how well you plan the first.