US Visa Requirement and Application Process

In this US visa requirement section, we will talk primarily about the most "popular" business visa out there. It is called H1B. During your application process, you should be aware of all requirements. For H1B cases, we strongly recommend you consulting an immigration lawyer. Do not try to do paper work on your own! It takes years of experience in business immigration filed to learn a complex immigration procedure for getting this business visa. Reading about it online will not help. The only thing you can ever hope to derive from this discussion is a little bit of understanding of what our immigration service is looking to find on your applications.

Now, we will briefly discuss what H1B visa means. This visa is reserved for foreign professionals who would like to enter the United States to work in a specialty occupation for a limited period of time . Typically, this period of time should be less or equal to three years. This does not mean, however, you will have to leave this country once this visa expires. In the past, you could extend it for only three more years. Presently, there are exceptions where you could stay even longer than six years. Of course, the employer still must have a need for you to be working on your job. Otherwise, once your initial job will end, you would have to leave the United States.

The main problem that we as immigration lawyers face is that the number of H1B's that can be issued each year is rather limited. As many foreign professionals constantly try to enter the United States, the number of applications quickly goes up. Consequently, the service stops accepting applications once the number of applications is about to exceed the limit, which has been placed on this visa. There is nothing else that can be done. The only thing that any foreign professional can do is to wait one more year before the service will begin taking applications again. However, the employer might not need this foreign professional in about one year.

Now, let's talk briefly about each US visa requirementfor H1B. There are quite a few of those.

* You must perform services in in a specialty occupation. Typically, specialty occupations are the ones that require people to have a university degree. Most often, the service officers would like to see even more than an undergraduate degree. They are willing to consider a combination of education and experience. Although, it is technically possible to have all experience and no college degree for a job, the service is reluctant to grant any visa in such circumstances.

* The employer must pay you at least the prevailing wage that is paid in the region where you will be working or the employer must pay the actual wage to similar workers. The employer must pay the higher of the two wages. What it all means is that the employer cannot invite you to the United States to work in a specialty occupation for a purpose of saving money. If this US visa requirement would have been eliminated, many foreign professionals would have taken these specialty occupation jobs from the US workers.

* You must have a job offer from a US employer. The funny thing about this requirement is that many foreign people want to get a business visa. However, they do not realize that they need to have a US sponsor before submitting their applications. You cannot just get H1B, enter the United States, and begin looking for a job. You must have a US employer who has a need for your service.

*There must be a shortage of US workers who are qualified for the same job. If there are qualified US workers in the area who can be hired to do the same job you can do, you will not get H1B. In fact, the service officers do look at how dilligent the US employer was in his adversing efforts to recruit someone in the area to do this job.

We now discussed each main US visa requirement for getting a H1B. Becoming familiar with all requirements will allow you to determine your chance of getting this visa. Once again, never attempt to do all application work on your own. This will cause your application and your US employer's application to be denied.

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