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Ask HN: As a foreign remote worker, how to get US visa to work onsite?

3 points by st1ck ↗ HN
Currently I work for an American company remotely from my home country, or while traveling elsewhere in the world. I assume that my legal status is remote contractor, and I think essentially my employer just wires me money with very minimal paperwork (if any) on their side.

Let's say my boss want me to move to the US to work onsite for a year. Which visa would be appropriate for this, and how complicated the procedure is?

I know the answer depends on my citizenship, but I want to keep it quite generic, so let's say I'm from a random 2nd or 3rd world country (Eastern Europe / Latin America / Asia).

3 comments

[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 22.1 ms ] thread
mtmail
The company will hire an lawyer specialized in immigration law. H1B visa seems appropriate. The US company will file a visa petition and among a lot of other paperwork have to prove they haven't found a US resident with the same qualification for the position, e.g. by pointing to job ads they ran and counting number of applications. There is limit of number of visas granted per country, I think the total is 60.000 these days. The short answer is it's complex, expensive and waiting period is years.

> my legal status is remote contractor, and I think essentially my employer

You are your own company. The US company is your client.

facorreia
Agreed. I made that transition, and the question is somewhat naive. My best answer is that the company hires an immigrating attorney firm, and they will guide you through the options that are applicable to your particular situation. Expect fees to be $10K or more.
thiago_fm
Just give up this route. Go to Europe.

I've wasted 3 years of my life trying to move to US this way and just wasted my time. US doesn't want you. Even the likes of Google and Amazon have trouble to get foreign employees and the H1B visa sucks, your husband/wife can't work, your visa is tied to company etc.

Germany has much better laws in that regard, a market that respect workers more etc.

It took me literally 1 interview to get a job in Germany and since then I've been quite successful and happy here so far. Almost 5 years and counting. Nowadays I see the US as a declining, decadent society with very sick social issues.