Millions of people seek to travel to the U.S. every year and such individuals will have to obtain U.S. visas to travel to the country. But the U.S. does not grant visas to all the applicants and it only issues a certain number of visas every year. It also assigns every visa, a unique visa number. Likewise, the National Visa Center (NVC), assigns case numbers to the immigrant petitions it receives.
Case Number
Case numbers are alphanumeric numbers. The first three digits of these case numbers denote the overseas embassies or consulates that process the visa applications and these three letters will be followed by ten numbers. The ten numbers will help you to know when the NVC created the case. For eg., if your case number is CDJ2001747007, your case has been assigned to the embassy in Ciudad Juarez and 2001 is the year in which the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) forwarded your case to the NVC. The number shows that your case was created on September 4, 2001, the 247th day of the year 2001 and the Julian date is 500 plus 747. The last three digits of your case number, 007 shows that your case is the seventh case that was created for Ciudad Juarez, on September 4, 2001. The case number assigned to you will help the overseas consular section to find your case.
Immigrant Visa Number
There is no limit on the number of family based immigrant visas that the USCIS issues to the immediate relatives of U.S. citizens but there are numerical limitations on the number of visas that the USCIS issues to the other applicants. Hence, the USCIS assigns immigrant visa numbers based on preference categories and priority dates. If an immigrant visa number is assigned to you, it means that the USCIS has assigned an immigrant visa to you. However, an immigrant visa number may not be assigned to you immediately and you may be required to wait for years to get an immigrant visa number.
The Immigrant Visa Number also known as the Visa Foil Number, is present on the bottom right side of the visa documents. These numbers have eight numeric characters. For eg., 02988657. But in some cases, the visa number will contain one letter followed by seven numeric characters.
Hence, immigrant visa numbers are different from case numbers. At the same time, you need to remember that, receipt numbers and case numbers are both not the same. An application receipt number will be printed on Form I-797, Notice of Action, that the USCIS sends after receiving your application.