American Presence Post

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An American Presence Post is a very small Diplomatic facility of the United States government located abroad. ^[1] It is usually staffed by a single Foreign Service Officer who carries the title of Consul. In terms of international conventions an American Presence Post (also referred to as an APP) is equivalent to a Consulate. However APPs do not have a regular consular section and do not issue visas. Such matters are referred to the closest full scale Consulate or the Embassy which has jurisdiction over the APP. It is not uncommon to hear an APP casually referred to as a Consulate.

APPs are a component of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Transformational Diplomacy strategy. The idea is to get American Officers out of capital cities and into new areas and cities that currently have no U.S. diplomatic presence. However, many of the APPs were opened before Rice became Secretary of State.