Your tracking area shows where your application has got to. There are five steps, and only the first three are ours to move.

Your payment has gone through, your file exists and it has a file number. If a document is still missing, this is where your file waits.

A member of our team is going through your file: the passport, your identity details, your answers and your photo. This is where errors get caught and where we come back to you if something is wrong.

Your application has been filed officially. From this point nothing can be changed, by you or by us. Your documents are locked.

The US authorities are reviewing your application. This step is entirely out of our hands, and we have no way to see inside it, hurry it along or find out more than you can.

Most decisions come back quickly, sometimes within minutes. It can take up to 72 hours.

The answer is in, approved or denied, and your document is available to download from your tracking area.

If your file is on hold, it is paused because we are waiting for something from you, almost always a document. The reason is shown on your file.

While a file is on hold, the processing time for your plan is stopped. It starts again as soon as we have what we need. This is why a file can sit at step 1 for days: not because we have forgotten it, but because it cannot go anywhere yet.

Each traveller moves through the steps individually, and it is normal for them to arrive at different times.