US Mission in Nigeria Now Requires Visa Applicants to Disclose Social Media Handles

The United States Mission in Nigeria has announced that all non-immigrant visa applicants must now provide details of their social media accounts from the past five years.

In a statement issued on Monday, the mission said the new policy requires applicants to list all usernames or handles across platforms they have used within the period.

According to the embassy: “Visa applicants are required to list all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used from the last 5 years on the DS-160. Applicants certify that the information in their visa application is true and correct before they sign and submit.”

The mission warned that failure to disclose such information could result in visa denial and future ineligibility.

The DS-160 is the mandatory online form for most non-immigrant visa applications. Categories under this class include B-1 visas for business visitors, B-2 visas for tourists, F and M visas for students, and H visas for temporary workers such as the H-1B for specialty occupations.

This development extends earlier vetting measures. In June, international student applicants were instructed to make their social media accounts public. A month earlier, the Trump administration had suspended student visa appointment scheduling as part of efforts to tighten restrictions on applicants deemed hostile.

By July, students seeking F, M, and J visas were directed to adjust their privacy settings to “public,” granting U.S. authorities full access during background checks.

The U.S. government maintains that these requirements are necessary to strengthen national security. However, they come at a time when Washington has repeatedly criticized other governments for stifling online freedom. In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. would impose visa restrictions on foreign nationals who censor Americans on social media. He stressed that free speech remains “one of America’s most cherished rights” and accused some foreign officials of curtailing it.

Earlier this month, U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Richard Mills clarified that the revised visa rules were not designed to punish Nigerian applicants but to improve both security and service delivery.