The U.S. Department of State is adding three more visa categories to its mandatory social media vetting program. Beginning October 1, 2026, applicants for I, TN and TD visas will be instructed to set the privacy settings on all of their social media profiles to “public” or “open” before their consular interviews. The Department announced the expansion in a visa screening notice updated on September 18, 2026.
Who is affected
The I visa covers foreign journalists, reporters and other representatives of foreign information media traveling to the United States for qualifying media work. The TN category is for Canadian and Mexican professionals working in occupations covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). The TD category covers the spouses and unmarried children of TN professionals who accompany or join them in the United States.
What this adds to
These three categories join an already long list. Mandatory online presence review currently applies to F-1 and F-2 academic students, M-1 and M-2 vocational students, J-1 and J-2 exchange visitors, H-1B and H-4 temporary workers, and the H-3, K, Q, R, S, T and U categories, along with certain diplomatic and official visa dependents. The State Department has described the review as part of a broader visa screening and vetting process, and each expansion since 2025 has followed the same pattern: applicants are told to make their accounts publicly viewable so consular officers can examine them.
What it means in practice
Consular officers are not asking for passwords, and there is no requirement to create an account if an applicant does not have one. The instruction is narrower than it is often reported: make existing profiles viewable. But applicants should understand that a private account left private going into an interview can itself become a point of friction, and that posts, reposts and associations going back years may be reviewed.
For TN and TD applicants in particular, this is a meaningful procedural change. TN status has historically been one of the faster, lighter-touch routes into the U.S. workforce for Canadian and Mexican professionals, often adjudicated at a port of entry or in a short consular appointment. Adding an online presence review to that process raises the odds of delay.
Anyone with a consular appointment on or after October 1 in the I, TN or TD categories should review their accounts well ahead of the interview date rather than the night before.
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Source: US Department of State visa screening notice (Sept 18, 2026)