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Last month I applied for B2 - Tourism Visa(planning to visit my sister for this Christmas) from India. In the DS160 and also in the interview, I gave the purpose as tourism. Only four questions asked:

  1. Purpose and time of visit
  2. How long I will be there
  3. My company name
  4. My annual salary

And that's it. My visa got approved. I got my passport with visa stamped yesterday.

To my surprise, it has B1/B2 stamped and not just B2. Before I applied for B2, there was a proposal for me, from my company, to visit our head quarters for some hands on training. Since the plan was not confirmed, I went ahead with B2.

Could I use this to go for tourism as well as business? Like visit my sister for 2 weeks, go to my office headquarters and get the one week long training and come back to India?

Questions are:

  1. Is my employment details added to my visa? If yes, will those details be absent as I applied for travel?
  2. Will I be denied entry if I state my purpose as pleasure and business but given my purpose as pleasure at the time of applying for visa? the difference is very short time indeed(max of 3 months by the time of applying visa to the time to travel)

I checked the site and this and this seems to be closer to this question. Former is the reverse of my query and the latter is closed as a duplicate of former without any answers.

This question seems to be the answer for whether B1/B2 is valid for Business trip. My question differs in this that I will be mixing both my business and pleasure in single trip but stated my purpose as travel only by the time of application. The main factor here is time. In the other question linked, the time interval is lot more and one cannot question the intention of the traveler while using same visa for business purposes. However, in my case, it would seem like my intention of travel changed to business within a month and it could be easily questionable while I enter the country.

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thiruvenkadam
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    The question you link to has an answer for your case: "B2 is tourist. B1 is business. If you have B1/B2 stamped in your passport you have visas for both purposes." – lambshaanxy Nov 09 '15 at 09:55
  • @JoErNanO I could see two differences with that question. One is that this is the first time entry itself rather than the travel completed before. Second is that I will be mixing both business and travel in single visit rather than two different visits with specific reasons. – thiruvenkadam Nov 09 '15 at 10:06
  • @jpatokal I understand their purposes. But the problem here is that I applied for B2. I don't even know the VO has looked into my employment details as such. Could I be denied entry if I am to use it for business which is not stated while applying? Or to be blunt, will it be perceived as my intention is to work temporarily but trying to take the easier route to get a way in? – thiruvenkadam Nov 09 '15 at 10:10
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    You can always be denied entry, for any reason, but you have been granted a visa, which means you are considered a low risk. If you have justification and documentation for your business trip, you'll be fine to use your visa. – lambshaanxy Nov 09 '15 at 10:42
  • @jpatokal... Thanks. I understand the question was vague before. Now added more details on what I need. I am sure that I can use the visa for business. – thiruvenkadam Nov 09 '15 at 10:56
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    Your story is not unusual. Almost everyone who is approved gets a B1/B2 visa, even if they applied for only one. It would be strange if you had only gotten a B2. – Michael Hampton Nov 10 '15 at 01:01

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