Retrieving Your DS-160 and Starting Your Next One

Submitted a DS-160 and want your answers back, to read before your interview or to apply again? The free Retrieve tool reads them back from CEAC, the State Department’s site. You don’t need an account to see them, and nothing at CEAC is signed or submitted.

What you need

The same details CEAC asks for to retrieve an application:

the location you chose when you started the DS-160 (the embassy or consulate);
the Application ID, ten letters and digits such as AA00XXXXXX, on your confirmation page;
your surname and year of birth;
the answer to the security question you set when you started the DS-160.

Without the Application ID, CEAC can’t find a DS-160. If you’ve lost it, look for the confirmation page or the email CEAC sent you; otherwise you’ll need to fill in a new DS-160.

Retrieving it

Open the Retrieve page and enter the details exactly as on your DS-160.
Tick that you agree to the copy (below) and choose Retrieve my DS-160.
Wait while it is read; it usually takes a few minutes. We solve CEAC’s security code for you, and only rarely ask you to type it. You can leave and come back: the page’s address keeps your retrieval.
Your answers appear on the page, section by section.

The details you enter are used once, to open the DS-160 on CEAC, and then deleted.

CEAC makes a copy

CEAC shows a submitted DS-160’s answers only by making a new, unsigned copy of it. Your submitted DS-160 is not changed, nothing is signed or submitted, and the copy lapses unless it is used. You agree to this before the retrieval starts.

What you get back

Your answers, section by section, free to see on the page.
Not in CEAC’s copy: CEAC leaves some answers out of the copy it makes, among them the security and background questions, the trip and the address in the U.S., and parts of the work and travel history. They are listed with your result. Your submitted DS-160 still has them.
To check: answers that may be out of date, such as dates that have passed.

The tool doesn’t fetch your confirmation page (the one with the barcode you take to the interview). To print that again, use CEAC’s own site with the same details.

Downloading the PDF

Enter your email under Download as a PDF to download your answers as a PDF, set out section by section. A separate box, unticked unless you tick it, asks whether we may also email you occasional updates about filing a DS-160; the PDF doesn’t depend on it.

What was read, and the email you gave, are kept for 7 days and then deleted. Download the PDF to keep your answers.

Starting your next DS-160 with these answers

Under your result, choose Start my next DS-160 with these answers:

Create a free account, in the same browser. The sign-up page says your retrieved answers are saved.
When you reach your forms, the answers open as your first DS-160 form.
Answer what CEAC’s copy left out, check the rest, and file it with DS160.io, free.

If you’re already signed in, the button takes you to your forms and the new form opens there. A retrieval can become a form once, within its 7 days. If it can’t be opened, your forms page says so: retrieve the DS-160 again and choose the button again.

When it doesn’t work

What the page says	What to do
CEAC has no DS-160 with this Application ID	Check the ID. A DS-160 filed long ago may no longer be kept: we’ve seen one about 10 months old gone.
The surname, year of birth or security answer does not match	Check them and try again. The page shows the security question CEAC asked.
CEAC had archived this DS-160 and is restoring it	CEAC archives a DS-160 about a month after it was last used. Try again in about 15 minutes.
The security code was not entered in time	Try again, and type the code when asked.
Too many retrievals are running, or this Application ID was retrieved in the last hour	Try again in a little while. Each Application ID can be retrieved once an hour.
This retrieval can’t be found	Its link may be incomplete, or its 7 days have passed. Choose Start again.

Firms and agencies importing a client’s DS-160 into their workspace: see Importing a DS-160 from CEAC.