Ir 4 Visa

International adoptions have stacks of required paperwork, but none are as important to wrapping up the adoption process as obtaining an adoptee's adoption visa. There are two possible visas that can be issued: the IR-3 and an IR-4.

The IR-3 visa documents that an adoption was finalized overseas. With this kind of visa, a child is automatically made an American citizen upon arriving in the U.S. Although the adoptee is a citizen, most states require the child to be "re-adopted" domestically, enabling the adoptee to be granted a birth certificate, social security card and be documented with an adopted name.

In the event that an IR-3 visa isn't issued to and adoptee, an IR-4 visa will be issued in its place. This may happen if an adoption was not finalized overseas. Some countries, like Korea, do not finalize adoptions and keep adopters from getting an IR-3 visa. An IR-4 visa may also be issued instead of an IR-3 if only one of the adoptive parents flew out to the child's native country or if the parents were not able to spend the required amount of time in the child's country of origin before returning to the U.S.

When adoptive parents receive an IR-4 visa, they will need to finalize the adoption domestically. Unlike with the IR-3, the child will not have U.S. citizenship until the adoption is finalized domestically.