H-1B Visas

H-1B Visas For Specialty Occupations

Based in Louisville, Barth Law, PLLC, assists employers across Kentucky and beyond with business immigration issues. Our founding attorney, William Barth, has extensive experience working with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to satisfy H-1B visa requirements for skilled workers.

Here are the primary requirements to bring an employee into the country to fill a specialized role:

1. Your company must establish an employer-employee relationship with the worker. To prove that such a relationship exists, you may provide evidence that your business pays the worker, supervises him or her, has the ability to fire him or her, or otherwise controls his or her work.
2. The job must be considered a specialty occupation. To qualify as such, the position must typically require at least a bachelor’s degree, or it must require such specialized knowledge that someone with at least a bachelor’s degree would be the usual candidate.
3. The specialty occupation must be related to the worker’s educational degree. To prove that this is the case, you may submit various types of evidence. Such evidence may include expert testimony or detailed analysis of how a particular degree relates to the proposed job duties.
4. Your company must pay the worker either the actual or prevailing wage for the position in question. The exact amount of the wage should be based on your company’s geographic location, the type of occupation and other factors. The company will need to submit a certified Labor Condition Application.
5. An H-1B visa number must be available. The U.S. government caps the number of H-1B visas at 65,000 annually. However, if the worker has at least a master’s degree and your company files one of the first 20,000 petitions, you may be exempt from the annual limit.

Contact Barth Law, PLLC, by email or call 502-429-9049 to learn more about H-1B visa.