Yes, a person that is approved an H-1B visa can bring their spouse and they can also bring any children under the age of 21 years old.

Yes, a person that finds another employer can transfer the H-1B visa to that new company. However, before that person can go to the new company they file for an amendment to their H-1B to allow them to work for the other company. Another good thing about doing an amendment is that the person is not subject to the 65,000 cap on H-1B visas and the person would be considered to be cap exempt.

Normally, an H-1B visa is given for three years with the possibility of doing another extension for three years. The maximum a person can be in the United States with an H-1B visa is for six years. At the end of the six years the person either has a labor certification filed by the employer to allow them to stay here longer or they have to stay outside of the United States for up to a year before they can apply for H-1B visa status again.

There is something called premium processing to expedite the H-1B visa processing. Sometimes the government has it available for H-1B and sometimes they don’t. If the government has the H-1B available for that specific period, the applicant pays an additional $1,225 and then the government will expedite the case. Normally they would either adjudicate the case within 15 days or if they need additional documentation they will issue the request for evidence within 15 days.

It is possible to start your own company while on H-1B visa status. However, there are many challenges to doing that because the government many times questions the validity of the other position if someone is prospecting for themselves. While it’s possible, it’s very complicated and it has many challenges. For something like this a person has to specifically make sure to talk to a lawyer before even attempting to do it.

What an attorney does is make sure that the person qualifies for the position of the specialty occupation. That’s the first part of the process because if a person applies and doesn’t meet the specialty occupation requirement then their case is not going to be approved. Also, it is very important to clarify what the prevailing wage for that specific geographic area. Another thing that the employer is going to have to do is promise the government that they are going to pay the H-1B employee at least the prevailing wage in their specific area. Also, as with any other case in immigration, the details are very important because the government, especially right now, is getting a lot tougher on these kinds of visas. It is very important to make sure that all the requirements are met and they are not any errors in the application that could jeopardize the favorable adjudication of the case. As with any other case, in H-1B visas it is very important to make sure that everything is done correctly and there are no details that have been overseen to maximize the possibility that the application has been approved.

For people who are on H-1B and they are approaching six years on their H-1B visa, if they want to be able to stay longer they have to be in touch with human resources at their place of employment to make sure that they start the labor certification process as early as possible. If they submit the labor certification more than one year before the end of their six years then they are able to continue to extend their H-1B past their six years. If they fail to do that, if they fail to apply for labor certification before the last year on their H-1B, they will have to leave the country at the end of those six years. It’s very important to keep that in mind.