The trend
Two different published metrics, same underlying table. Total Overstay Rate (solid lines) counts
everyone who overstayed their authorized admission period, including people who departed late but whose
departure was eventually confirmed. Suspected In-Country Overstay Rate (dashed lines) is the narrower
subset: only travelers whose departure DHS still cannot confirm as of the report's data run. Total is always
the higher of the two, by construction. The December 2025 White House proclamation (see callout below) cites
the Total figures, so this chart leads with Total.
Direction of travel: most recent two years
Year-over-year change in Total Overstay Rate (the proclamation's metric), the two most recent transitions.
FY2022 spike, in context
Zimbabwe's FY2022 rates (16.48% B-1/B-2 total, 18.54% F/M/J total) are the peak of the ten-year series. This
was not unique to Zimbabwe: the same FY2022 DHS report's own national totals (all non-VWP countries
combined, Table 1 & Table 3, p.14/p.24 of
23_0707_FY22_FY23_CBP_Integrated_Entry_Exit_Overstay_Report.pdf) show the aggregate B-1/B-2 Total
Overstay Rate jumping to 7.18% in FY2022, versus 2.00–2.55% across FY2018–FY2020 and
back down to 2.33% in FY2024 — a broad, report-documented shift across the whole non-VWP population,
not a Zimbabwe-specific anomaly. The same FY2022 report attributes part of this to a 334.89% rebound in total
expected departures from the COVID-depressed FY2021 base, and separately notes FY2022 "saw a high number of
travelers expected to depart and identified as eligible for Temporary Protected Status," who are included in
these tables (p.14, footnote 33). Zimbabwe's own rates have declined for two consecutive years since (see
year-over-year figures above).
Data confidence, year by year
- FY2015: F/M/J was not broken out by DHS that year — the source report explicitly says future reports would begin covering F, M, and J visa categories. FY2015 F/M/J values are a genuine data gap, not zero and not an extraction failure.
- FY2021: no dedicated FY2021 report exists among the source PDFs. This row is gap-filled from the FY2022 report's year-over-year comparison appendix (Table C-3/C-4). Treat as lower confidence: DHS's own FY2022 report cautions that FY2021 figures were affected by COVID-era policy allowances (temporary USCIS filing accommodations, expanded Visa Waiver Program "satisfactory departure" grants) and states this data "has not been previously released." It is an official DHS-published figure, not an estimate — but the underlying data-quality caveat is DHS's own, and the population size that year is very small (355 B-1/B-2 and 692 F/M/J expected departures), so its percentage swings more per case than other years.
- FY2017: the source PDF (
18_1009_S1_Entry-Exit-Overstay_Report.pdf) is a flat scan with no extractable text layer. Figures were read directly off the rendered page images rather than machine text, then independently cross-checked against the FY2018 report's year-over-year comparison appendix, which reproduces identical numbers. - FY2024: resolved discrepancy. Two figures circulated for Zimbabwe's FY2024 rates: 7.63%/13.97% and
7.89%/15.15%. Both are correct — they are the Suspected In-Country and Total columns, respectively, of
the same table (
25_0912_cbp_entry-exit-overstay-report-fiscal-year-2024.pdf, Table 3 p.26 / Table 4 p.32). The Zimbabwe row was re-verified against the row above and below (Zambia, then Totals) to rule out a mis-read. No errata or superseding table exists elsewhere in the PDF. - All other years (FY2016, FY2018–FY2020, FY2022–FY2023): both metrics confirmed present in the source table and cross-checked against at least one adjacent year's comparison appendix, with identical figures in every case.
Methodology & sources
Each row below is the exact source PDF, table, and page the figures in the chart and data table were pulled
from. PDFs are in data/ in this repository; links use the #page=N fragment supported
by most PDF viewers.
| FY | Source file | B-1/B-2 table/page | F/M/J table/page |
|---|
Full column definitions (Total vs. Suspected In-Country, expected departures, etc.)
are documented in data/README.md. The underlying dataset is data/zimbabwe_overstay_trend.csv.
The December 2025 proclamation text cited in this page is reproduced verbatim in
docs/Proclamation-Entry-Restrictions-Executive-Brief.pdf (Section 5(p)), sourced from
whitehouse.gov.
Full data table
| FY | B-1/B-2 Total % | B-1/B-2 In-Country % | B-1/B-2 Departures | F/M/J Total % | F/M/J In-Country % | F/M/J Departures |
|---|
— = not reported that year. See Data confidence section above for FY2015, FY2017, FY2021, FY2024 caveats.