Don't type personal details, such as a client's name.
Groups of Forms: Families and Tour Groups
Keep the forms of a family or a tour group together: who the principal is, how each applicant is related, and everyone's progress on one page.
Families and tour groups file several DS-160 forms for one trip. A group keeps those forms together: one page shows who is in it, how each applicant is related to the principal and how far each form has got.
Who this is for. Anyone in a workspace, business or personal. In a personal account a group is your family, as the last section explains.
What a group is
A group is a set of forms filed together. Each applicant still has their own form: their own answers, client link, filing and, in a business workspace, their own credit. A group changes no answers. It holds the forms together, so the family or the tour can be followed on one page.
A form is in one group at most.
The principal and relationships
The principal is the applicant the others’ visas depend on: the E-2 investor, the H-1B worker, the J-1 exchange visitor. For a visitor visa it is simply the head of the family. Everyone else’s relationship is stated to the principal:
| Relationship | For |
|---|---|
| Spouse | The principal’s husband or wife. A group has one. |
| Child | The principal’s son or daughter. |
| Parent | The principal’s mother or father. |
| Other relative | Anyone else in the principal’s family. |
| Not related | A traveller who is not family, such as someone in a tour group. Business workspaces only. |
A tour group usually has no principal, and then everyone in it is Not related.
Making a group
There are four ways to put forms in a group:
- On the New DS-160 form page, the Group section: pick a group or New group, and the applicant’s relationship. The form joins the group as soon as it is created.
- On a form’s overview, click Add to group. Pick a group, or New group and its name. The first form in a new group is usually its principal.
- On the group’s page, click Add existing form and pick a form that is not in a group yet.
- On the Groups page (business workspaces), click New group and name it. The group starts empty and opens, ready for Add existing form or Add applicant.
Once a form is in a group, its overview shows a line such as Group: Reddy family · Spouse · Forms in the group: 3, with Remove from group. Removing a form from its group leaves the form itself as it was.
Adding an applicant
Add applicant on the group’s page (on a personal account, Add a family member) makes a new form from the principal’s. Give it a name and the applicant’s relationship to the principal. In a group without a principal, such as a tour, pick the form to make it from; everyone in such a group is Not related.
The new form starts with:
- Copied: the trip (travel plans and the address in the U.S.), the U.S. point of contact and the preferred consulate. For a spouse or a child, also the home address; for a child, the primary phone.
- Worked out from the principal’s answers:
- the visa class, from the table below;
- for an H-4 or L-2 spouse or child and a J-2 spouse, the principal’s name on the Purpose of Visa page, and for H-4 and L-2 the principal’s petition receipt number;
- for a J-2 spouse, the principal’s SEVIS ID and program number;
- for a spouse, their own name, birth, nationality and marital status from the principal’s spouse page, and the principal on their own spouse page;
- for a child, the principal and the principal’s spouse as parents;
- who pays: when the principal pays for themselves, the principal pays for the new applicant; an employer paying for the principal becomes the company paying;
- the travel companions: everyone else in the group, or the tour’s name.
- Left blank for the applicant: passport, phone and email, work, education, previous travel and the security questions.
| Principal | Spouse | Child |
|---|---|---|
| E-1, E-2 (trader, investor, executive) | E1-SP, E2-SP | E1-CH, E2-CH |
| E-3 | E3D-SP | E3D-CH |
| F-1 | F2-SP | F2-CH |
| H-1B, H-1B1, H-1C, H-2A, H-2B, H-3 | H4-SP | H4-CH |
| J-1 | J2-SP | J2-CH |
| L-1 | L2-SP | L2-CH |
| M-1 | M2-SP | M2-CH |
| O-1, O-2 | O3-SP | O3-CH |
| P-1, P-2, P-3 | P4-SP | P4-CH |
| R-1 | R2-SP | R2-CH |
| TN | TD-SP | TD-CH |
A parent or other relative of a visitor (B-1/B-2) gets the same class. A worker’s parent gets none, because there is no dependent class for them.
When the principal is a spouse following to join a worker who is not filing here, a child gets the child class of the same visa (H4-CH from H4-SP), with the worker’s details copied from the principal’s own form.
For a J-2 child, and for F-2 and M-2, only the class is filled in: answer the questions about the principal yourself.
Once the form is made, DS160.io lists anything to check on it, such as a U.S. point of contact left blank because the principal’s is their spouse. In a business workspace the new form uses a form credit, like any form you create; on a personal account it is free.
Keeping answers the same
Some answers should be the same on every form in a group, and DS160.io checks them:
- For everyone: travel plans, the address in the U.S., the U.S. point of contact and the preferred consulate.
- For the family only (the principal, the spouse and the children): the home address. A tour group is never checked for its members’ homes.
- Travel companions: each form is checked against the companions the group gives it.
When one differs, an amber note says so on the group’s page, on the form’s overview and on the screen where a filing run starts. It is a warning: a run can still start.
To fix one, click Use these answers for the group next to it. Choose whose answers the rest of the group takes, and which answers, then click Preview changes. Each form shows what would change, old → new. Tick the forms to change and confirm. Each change appears in that form’s history.
- A form that has been filed, or has a run in progress, is never changed.
- A form the applicant fills in themselves, and has answered already, is left unticked: tick it to change it anyway.
- If an answer changed between the preview and your confirmation (an applicant editing it, say), it is left as it is and listed afterwards.
Some differences are right: a spouse’s U.S. point of contact may not be the principal’s. Click This difference is intended under the answer, and the group stops warning about it for that form. It is listed under Differences marked intended, where Check again brings the warning back.
Working on the whole group
Above the list of applicants:
- Start next run opens the filing screen of the next applicant whose form is complete and has not been filed or started filing, in the order of the list. Each run is started there, with its own settings, one at a time: nothing starts runs on its own.
- Invite all (business workspaces, Owners and Admins) emails each applicant who fills in their own form and has a client email their own client link, with your workspace’s default link settings. Applicants already invited are left unticked, and applicants the lead fills in for are left out: they are reached through the group link, below.
- Assign all (business workspaces, Owners and Admins) assigns every form in the group to one team member.
The Groups page
In a business workspace, Groups in the sidebar, under Forms, lists every group in the workspace, newest first. Each row shows:
- the group’s name, which opens its page;
- how many forms are in it, its principal and its lead;
- when the group last changed.
New group makes an empty group and opens it. Show archived adds archived groups to the list, marked Archived.
The group page
Open a group from the line on a form’s overview, or from the group’s name under a form on the Forms screen. In a business workspace, the Groups page in the sidebar lists every group; on a personal account, My family in the sidebar opens your family’s group.
The page lists every applicant’s form with:
- Relationship, which you can change in place. A group has one principal and one spouse.
- Progress: how many sections are complete, and one mark per section. Green is complete, amber is started, red needs correcting, grey is not started. Point at a mark to see the section’s name.
- In a business workspace, Filled by (the group’s lead or the applicant), the client’s status with their link, and who the form is assigned to. For a form the lead fills, the status is the group link’s: Invited via the lead, then Lead opened link. The Forms screen shows the same.
From the menu at the end of each row, Set as principal makes that applicant the principal. Every relationship is stated to the principal, so DS160.io asks you to choose each other applicant’s relationship to the new one; no answer changes. Remove from group takes the form out of the group.
In a business workspace the header also names the group’s lead: the person who fills in forms for the group. That is often the principal, and sometimes someone with no form of their own, such as an employer’s HR contact or a tour’s organiser. The lead and Filled by decide what the group link opens, below.
Archive group when the trip is over. Its forms stay in it and stay as they are, but the group is no longer offered when you add a form to a group, and it can’t be changed until you bring it back with Bring back group.
The group link
In a business workspace, the group’s lead can fill in every form marked as filled by the group’s lead through one link, instead of a client link for each form. The lead needs no account.
To send it, name the lead in the group’s header, with their name and email. The Group link card on the group’s page then shows the link’s settings in one line, with Change to set them for this link, and:
- Email the link to … (Owners and Admins) emails the lead their link, from your agency like your client invites, on your custom domain if you have one.
- Copy a new link makes a link and copies it, to send another way.
Under them are the links made so far: when each was made, who it was sent to, when it was opened and when it expires, with Revoke.
The link opens a page with your branding, the group’s name and its forms:
- A form the lead fills in shows its progress and Open, which opens the same pages a client link does, with All forms in your group to come back.
- A form an applicant fills in themselves shows only whether they have been sent their link and opened it. The lead never sees those answers.
The lead sees the names you gave the forms, so name them as you would for the client. When the lead’s forms are complete, Send all to the agency marks every complete one ready for review. You get one Ready for review email for the group, and forms that are not complete stay with the lead.
The email to the lead names the group and lists the forms they fill in, in the link’s language. Its wording is ours: it is not one of your client email templates. If the lead does not open it, the reminders follow the group link instead of each form’s own. Messages you send about a form the lead fills in go to the lead.
A link works until it expires or you revoke it. Archiving the group, or changing or removing its lead, revokes all its links. A form stops opening through the link as soon as it leaves the group or is set to be filled in by the applicant.
Adults fill in their own forms. By default the link opens every form marked as the lead’s. To keep adults to their own forms, tick Adults in a group fill in and agree for themselves under Workspace Settings → Client intake → Groups. The lead’s link then opens only the forms of applicants under 18, by the date of birth on the form, or a Child with none entered yet. Adults get their own client links.
On a link that asks for consent, the lead agrees on each form, on the applicant’s behalf: see asking clients for consent.
Tour groups
In a tour group most travellers fill in their own forms, and the lead, the tour’s organiser say, helps them start. From the group link the lead can also:
- Send their link to an applicant who fills in their own form. If you have the applicant’s email, the link goes there. If not, the lead types it and it is saved on the form; the lead can never change an address you entered. The email is your client invite template in the link’s language, or our built-in one, never words of the lead’s. Each applicant can be sent one this way a day, and the form’s Client links log marks it Sent by the group’s lead.
- Add a traveller while the group has room. You set the room on the Group link card: Travellers the lead can add is the most forms the group may hold, archived forms not counted. Leave it empty and the lead adds no one. The traveller’s form is made from the principal’s (without one, from the lead’s own form or the first in the group) the way Add applicant makes it, as Not related and filled in by the traveller. It uses a form credit, like any form you create.
Each time the lead sends a link or adds a traveller, the workspace’s Owners and Admins get an email.
Finding a group’s forms
On the Forms screen, each form in a group shows the group’s name under its own, linking to the group’s page. In a business workspace, the Group filter beside Client lists the forms of one group. The Groups page in the sidebar lists the groups themselves.
On a personal account
A personal account keeps one group: your family.
- On your form’s overview, Add a family member makes a relative’s form from the principal’s. The first one starts a group called My family, with your form as the principal. Rename it on the group’s page.
- Everyone in it is a relative of the principal: a spouse, a child, a parent or another relative.
- You fill in every form yourself, so there is no lead and no Filled by.
- Once the group exists, My family in the sidebar opens its page.
To file for clients, or for people you are not related to, use a business workspace. It adds client links, team members and as many groups as you need, tour groups included.