This employment visa is available to noncitizens who will be working in a specialty occupation in the United States. Typically, this means just about any job that requires a specific U.S. bachelor's degree, a requirement that the foreign national has attained by getting the necessary degree or equivalent training in that field. So this could mean working as an accountant, an engineer, as an information technology professional, a pharmacist, a scientist, and more. While the number of jobs that would qualify a worker for this visa are numerous, there are only a limited number of these visas issued to first-time applicants annually: 85,000 of them every fiscal year (October 1 to September 30).

But first of all, what is the H-1B visa? This visa can only be accepted for a particular employer hiring someone for a specific job at a certain location. If a worker gets a new job, a new employer, or works at a new site, then whoever the worker's employer is has to file another petition for this visa. Also, in order to qualify for this visa, the employer has to be paying more than the actual wage or prevailing wage.

Once an employee obtains this visa, he or she can work inside of the United States for up to six years at a time, which would require reapplying for this visa after the first three years. After six years, if that worker spends one year outside of the country, they can reapply for another six years as an H-1B worker. Also, if an H-1B employee works for less than six months a year inside of the United States, then the six-year restriction does not apply. It also would not apply in cases where a worker has gotten closer to getting a green card based on employment.

Spouses or minor children of an H-1B worker could qualify for H-4 visas, allowing them to join the H-1B employee while he or she works in the United States. This H-4 visa would not qualify them to find work in the U.S. If an H-1B worker is laid off or fired, then their employer has to be willing to pay for the worker's transportation back to where he or she last lived outside of the U.S. The employer would not have to pay this if the worker resigned or quit the job, and H-4 relatives would not have to be paid for their trip back either. Once the period of employment is over for an H-1B worker, their employer has to update the USCIS on this fact, so that the USCIS revokes the petition. For as long as that H-1B petition is in place, the worker is owed payment from his or her employer.

So what qualifies as a specialty occupation? The position must require that the applicant have a certain type of bachelor's degree in a certain field. Then the foreign national worker who applies for the job must have satisfied this requirement with the necessary degree or training.

For the first part of this requirement, an employer would have to show that the job usually requires an entry-level applicant to have a bachelor's degree, that this requirement is typical of similar employers, or that a job is "so specialized and complex" that someone generally needs a bachelor's degree in order to be competent for the job. This is evident in such lines of work as accounting and engineering. But a marketing job may be hard to designate as an H-1B job because usually, employers will accept any number of degrees, not a specific degree.

Then the employee would have to show that they got the requisite degree at a U.S. college, or the equivalent at a foreign university. Unfortunately, a three-year bachelor's degree will not fulfill this requirement. But pertinent experience could help someone with even a three-year degree to qualify. Here is how that would work. The USCIS counts three years of progressive employment as one year of university education. By progressive, this entails that a worker is taking on more duties, which become more difficult. So with a three-year degree and three years of progressive employment, someone could qualify for the H-1B visa. This also means that someone who has had 12 years of progressive employment could qualify for this visa.

This is a very complex process, one for which you will definitely want to consult an immigration lawyer. To help you better understand your options when it comes to employment based immigration, be sure to find the legal expert you need on our directory and to contact them today!