The H1B visa by the American government is getting popular these days. You might be thinking why. The reason is that the visa allows the applicant to come and live in the United States with a job offer.
Initially, an employer from the U.S. will offer a job requiring specialized skills to a foreign individual. Then the individual can apply for the visa showing the job offer. If the visa gets approved then the gate to the dream nation is open before the applicant.
Although, the visa procedures are not a cakewalk. Just equate you are qualified and you have the job offer, your visa might not get approved. You will be thinking of working there, which would be interrupted by the ‘your visa request is declined’ news.
Now think that your visa gets approved, finally. You reached there and started your job. It is everything that you have ever wanted, you love your job, you love the place, and you love your lifestyle. What is the next challenge that you are going to face?
It is definitely the message ‘your visa is expiring soon’. You will have to leave your job and the country and go back to where you came from. If you don’t want that to happen, you will definitely have to apply for a visa extension.
Some say that getting approval for the H1B visa extension request is more tedious than the entire visa application itself. It is a nightmare for the applicants whether their visas will get extended or not. What adds to this is the wait during the H1B visa extension processing time.
Let’s first read about the H1B visa before getting into the visa extension part.
What Is H1B Visa?
Before reading about the H1B extension processing time, one should know what is H1B extension, right? There is something that one should do even before that. That is about the H1B visa. If you don’t know what that is, it will be difficult when you read about the visa extension part.
The H1B visa is a work visa for nonimmigrants that enables American employers to recruit workers from foreign countries. Such recruitees can only work in the U.S. for a specified period of time. The fundamental H1B visa requirements are the workers need to possess a particular set of specialized skills and should have at least a bachelor’s degree.
If you have an H1B visa then you can stay in the U.S. and work for three years. After three years, the visa holder will have to renew the visa if they want to stay back.
What Is H1B Visa Eligibility?
In order to be considered eligible for the visa, the applicants have to meet the H1B visa requirements.
H1B Visa Application Requirements
- A job offer from a registered U.S. employer.
The H1B visa applicant should have a valid job offer from a verified American employer. The designation offered in the offer letter should be for a role that needs specialized knowledge.
- The minimum educational qualification is a bachelor’s degree.
The H1B visa applicant should have completed at least a bachelor’s degree program from a recognized university. Or the applicant should have completed an educational program equivalent to the undergraduate program.
- The educational qualification should be related to the offered job position.
- The American employer should provide evidence that there is a scarcity of qualified applicants in the United States for the same role.
The normal duration for which an H1B visa gets approved is three years. After that, you will have to extend your visa. You can get up to six years in the extension. This has to be requested by the employees. When it comes to employers, they can only request three years of time.
These are the general conditions applied to the H1B visa extension requests. However, it is to be noted that this might not be the case for everyone.
Applicants from nations such as Chile and Singapore will only get a one-year validity for their visas. There are options to renew the visa each year.
Now you know about the H1B visa and its requirements. You know what you need to apply for the visa and when it will expire and related. You are all set to read about the H1B visa 6-year extension.
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H1B Visa 6-Year Extension
Not everyone will get qualified for the 6-year extension. Let’s see what the mandatory requirements are.
To apply for the H1B 6-year extension, the applicant need to have had a Labor Certification Application in the pending list for more than 365 days. Such applicants can apply in 1-year increments. The extension will prolong until a final decision gets taken on the pending employment. This is also a permanent residence case.
The H1B visa holders can apply for a visa extension even after 6 years. How, right? Continue reading.
How To Apply For An H1B Visa 7th-year Extension?
To apply for this you need to be on the list of employees who have applied for a green card. And that green card application should have been submitted through the employment-based category.
The employees who have family-based petitions in the pending list can not apply for the 7th-year extension.
Another way that will get you a 7th-year extension is to have filed an employment-based preference petition.
If the applicant has filed this petition but does not have the provision to continue with the adjustment of status to the permanent resident they can get a 7th-year extension. One thing to be noted is that applicant’s inability to proceed with the status of the permanent resident should be due to a backlog in priority dates.
What can be done when I-40 Petition is pending?
The employment-based immigrant petition is officially known as the I-40 petition. If you have filed the I-40 with USCIS and received approval; but still face the following conditions you can work for any employer in the U.S.
The conditions are:
- Still waiting for the priority date to be current.
- The applicant’s spouse has an H4 visa and is eligible to apply for employment authorization.
- The applicant has dependant/s who is/are eligible to apply for employment authorization.
If the application for employment authorization gets approved they will get an Employment Authorization Document (EAD).
These cognitions will enable the H1B visa-holding individual to work without restrictions for any U.S. employer. And such jobs do not require to get security clearance.
H1B Extension Processing Time 2023
In 2023, the H1B extension processing time can go long and take more time than usual. It is because of the growing demand for visas due to inflation and global macroeconomic factors.
Until 2022, the H1B extension processing time was 3 months or a few more days.
However, this can vary according to the differences in the extension applications.
The first factor that will decide the H1B extension processing time is the service center from where you applied. If the service center has received a lot more H1b extension applications before you, it will take more than the 3 months.
Because yours will be considered only after the requests before you. If the service center has a lot of caseloads you can’t expect the extension processing to take place faster.
The second factor that will have an impact on the H1B extension processing time will be based on whether RFEs (Request For Evidence) have been used or not. If you have used RFEs in your application it will take around 5 months or more for the extension to complete processing.
Here is an overlook at the most common RFE for 1B
- Academic degree in a different discipline
- Determination of a specialized occupation
- Clarifications needed in the employer-employee relationship
- LCA issues
- Pending requests for an extension status
- Pending requests for a change of status
- Pending petitions filed on behalf of businesses in the case of professionals who are generally not associated to that particular field
H-1B Visa Extension Options
After the first 3 years of your H1B visa there are many ways to receive an extension. You will have to follow different processes and submit different applications in each of the ways. Let’s look at the different kinds of H1B visa extension options available.
H1B Extension For 3 years
There is an option to extend the H1B visa for three years. For this, the applicant needs to already have approval for EB-1, EB-2, or EB-3 employment-based green card classifications. And the applicant should be in a condition where his or her visa number has an unavailable status.
H1B Extension For 1 year
After the first approved 6 years of the H1B visa, the applicant can extend the program by one year. After one year, it can be extended for one more year. This can be continued in one-year intervals.
One thing to keep in mind is that this can only be done in two situations. One, if the applicant has a pending PERM petition. Two, the applicant has a pending I-140 filed 365 days before the 6-year expiration date.
What Is The H1B Extension Recapture Time?
Recapture time is an important factor that you can use to extend your H1B visa. This is applicable if you have traveled internationally during the first 6 years of your visa. An international journey means that, during it, you weren’t in the U.S. and you were outside its territories. By making use of the recapture time, you can recapture the period of time that you spent abroad and add that to your visa.
When applying for a recapture time in an H1B visa extension, you have to take care of a few things
- The applicant should have traveled abroad, outside the boundary of the U.S. during the visa validity period.
- The applicant should have government-approved data to prove that they have traveled outside the U.S. This could be tickets of the travel or similar pieces of proof, but the passport data is mandatory.
- The applicant has to submit the U.S. entry date and the U.S. return date
- The applicant has to submit the I-94 copies.
- The applicant has to submit the stamps relates to the entry and return dates, and the I-94 copies.
What is H1B Premium Processing?
The H1B premium processing is a method by which one can extend the visa. By this the processing of the petition will be extended to 15 more days. The applicant will have to file an I-97 and I-129 petition along with the request for premium processing. The H1B premium processing fee is 2,500 US dollars. There can be changes in the premium processing fees according to the petition that you file. The fee is 2,500 if you file a petition such as I-129 for H1B, E-1, E-2, E-3, H-3, Q, L, TN, O, or P.
What Are The Documents Needed To File An H1B Extension?
H1B extension documents that are required:
Given below is the list of the documents that are mandatory when you are applying for an H1B extension.
- Original H1B visa document along with the copy of passport
- The USCIS issued approval notice, I-797 form
- I-94 arrival form, or I-94 departure form. The departure date should not have expired
- The applicant’s resume or CV (curriculum vitae)
- Evidence of employment backed up by
- A letter from the employer
- A leave of absence letter
- 3 previous paychecks
- Bachelor’s degree certificate issued by the respected university (mandatory)
- Masters degree or any other advanced degree issued by the respected university (optional)
- University transcript
- Academic evaluation
- Letter of recommendation from the previous employer
- Letter of recommendation from the employer before the previous employer
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