Built by a dad who was stuck in the same situation you're in.

In late 2025, I was living in Cebu, Philippines with my wife and our six-month-old son. We needed to get his Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) done — his first step toward U.S. citizenship — and I had no idea what I was walking into.

I pulled up the embassy calendar. Empty. I checked the Cebu Consular Agency. Empty. Manila? Also empty. There were no appointments anywhere, and no explanation of when they'd be available. The website just said to check back.

Making things more stressful: there was confusing language suggesting we could only schedule at the Manila Embassy, even though we were on a different island and didn't want to travel there with an infant. I'd seen people online say they went to Cebu just fine, so I emailed the U.S. Embassy directly to ask when appointments would open up.

This was their reply:

"Continue to check back." That was the answer. No timeline, no notification system, no estimated availability. Just: keep refreshing.

So I built a script that did exactly that — but automatically, multiple times a day. When appointments dropped, I'd know immediately instead of hoping I happened to check at the right moment.

The stress was real. Our visa had an expiration date of March 5th. I started checking in early December and didn't get a confirmed appointment until January 28, 2026 — after waiting nearly a month for slots to even appear. Every day without an appointment felt like the clock was ticking.

The silver lining: when the consulate finally dropped a fresh batch of appointments, I was the first to know. I got to pick exactly the time slot I wanted. That feeling — of not being caught off guard, of being in control instead of scrambling — is what I wanted to give to every other parent going through the same thing.

The truth is, there's no public schedule. Consulates release appointment batches on their own timeline, with no announcements and no warning. The only way to get ahead of it is to have something watching 24 hours a day so that when it happens, you're first in line.

That's what CRBA Tracker is. It checks every embassy calendar, around the clock, across 50+ cities. The moment appointments open up, you get notified — before anyone else who's just manually refreshing.

If you're in the middle of this right now, I get it. The uncertainty is the hardest part. Hopefully this tool makes it a little less stressful.

— Joey, founder of CRBA Tracker