The red visa number on a U.S. visa is the visa foil number printed in red ink in the lower-right corner of the visa sticker in your passport. It is usually eight digits, it uniquely identifies that one visa, and it is not the same as your passport number, your Alien Registration Number, or the control number that sits elsewhere on the same sticker.
What the Red Number Is
The Department of State assigns a unique visa foil number to every visa it issues, whether tourist, student, work, or immigrant. That number is printed in red so it stands out from the rest of the fields on the sticker, which are printed in black. You may see it called the visa number, the visa foil number, or simply the red number. All three names point to the same thing.
The red ink is functional. A visa sticker packs a lot of information into a small space, and the color lets both travelers and officers pick out the unique identifier at a glance. Federal agencies use this number to pull up the specific record of your visa, so accuracy matters any time you’re asked to write it down.
Where to Find It on the Sticker
Open your passport to the page where the U.S. consulate placed the visa. Look at the lower-right area of the foil, away from your photograph, name, and date of birth. On most visas the red number is the only element printed in red, which makes it easy to spot once you know where to look.
The format is normally eight digits. Some older visas carry a letter prefix before the digits, but the layout has been standardized over the years. The placement is the same across visa categories, so locating the number on an H-1B works the same way as locating it on a B-2 or an F-1.
Lincoln Foil and Bridge Foil
Starting in 2023, the Department of State began issuing a redesigned visa sticker called the Bridge foil alongside the older Lincoln foil. Both remain valid through the printed expiration date unless the visa has been revoked or canceled. If you have a Bridge foil, the visa number is still on the sticker, though the overall layout looks different. Look for the number printed in a color or style distinct from the surrounding text, in the lower portion of the foil.
Numbers That Are Not Your Visa Number
Mixing up the various numbers on your visa and in your immigration file is one of the most common mistakes on immigration paperwork, and it can delay processing or trigger a rejection. A few of them look similar enough to catch people out.
Control Number
The control number also appears on the visa foil, but it exists for internal Department of State purposes and is printed in black, typically in a different area of the sticker than the red visa number. A simple rule works here: if the number isn’t red, it isn’t your visa number. When a form asks for your visa number, the control number is always the wrong answer.
Alien Registration Number (A-Number)
The Alien Registration Number is a seven-to-nine-digit number that starts with the letter “A.” USCIS, ICE, or CBP assign it to noncitizens with long-term interactions with the immigration system, such as green card holders or people in removal proceedings. If your A-Number has fewer than nine digits, USCIS forms generally require you to pad it with a leading zero after the “A” so all nine spaces are filled.
On an immigrant visa the A-Number appears labeled as “Registration Number” near the top-right of the stamp. Nonimmigrant visas, such as tourist or student visas, don’t carry an A-Number at all. The A-Number follows your immigration file across agencies over time. The visa foil number identifies one specific visa. Different jobs, different places on the page.
Passport Number
Your passport number lives on the data page of your passport booklet, not on the visa sticker. The sticker reproduces your passport number in one of its fields, but that reproduced number is not your visa number. If you see it on the sticker and it matches the number on your passport’s data page, move past it and keep looking for the red digits in the lower right.
DS-160 Confirmation Number
When you applied for a nonimmigrant visa you filled out a DS-160 online and received a barcode confirmation number. The consulate uses that number to pull up your interview file. It has nothing to do with the visa foil number that was printed after your visa was approved.
When You’ll Be Asked For It
The visa foil number tends to come up in three settings: employment verification, immigration filings, and travel.
When an employer completes Form I-9 to verify that a new hire is authorized to work in the United States, they record the relevant document numbers from the identity and work-authorization documents the employee presents. If you present a foreign passport with a U.S. visa stamp, the visa foil number may be part of what the employer writes down. Errors on I-9 paperwork carry civil penalties for the employer, so accuracy is worth the extra minute.
Several USCIS forms ask for the visa number when you apply for a change of status, an extension of stay, or adjustment to permanent residence. The number ties your new application to the visa record already on file. Leaving it blank or entering the wrong digits can cause the petition to be returned or held up while USCIS reconciles the mismatch.
Airlines and other carriers may also request your visa number at check-in for U.S.-bound flights, since they are responsible for confirming that passengers hold valid travel documents before boarding.
If You Can’t Read or Find It
If the red digits on your visa stamp have worn away, or you no longer have the passport that contained the visa, recovering the number takes some effort. The Department of State does not offer a public online portal for looking up a visa foil number after issuance. The Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC) lets you check visa application status, but it is not designed to display the foil number.
Practical options are to contact the U.S. consulate or embassy that issued the visa, or to make an InfoPass appointment (where available) with a local USCIS field office. If you’ve previously submitted immigration forms that required the visa number, copies of those filings or their receipts may still show it.
Keeping the Number Within Reach
Photograph or scan the visa page in your passport as soon as you receive it and store the image somewhere secure but accessible, such as an encrypted cloud folder or a password-protected file. That one step avoids the most common scramble, which is needing the number while the passport is locked in a safe, sitting at an embassy for renewal, or simply in another room.
When you copy the number onto any form, check it digit by digit against the red print. Transposing a single digit can send an application to a dead end. And confirm you are reading the red number in the lower right, not the control number or the reproduced passport number that sits nearby on the same sticker.