Tag Archives: h1b jobs

H-1B Visa Checklist & Fees for April 2, 2012 (FY2013)

The USCIS have released a handy checklist for those doing their H-1B filings for their I-129 form that helps you organize all the relevant fees and documents for your case.

H1B Visa Application Fees
Base fee of $325
ACWIA fee of $750/$1,500 (if/as applicable)
Fraud Prevention and Detection fee of $500 (if applicable)
Public Law 111-230 fee of $2,000 (if applicable)
Premium Processing Service fee of $1,225 (if applicable)

All checks or money orders are signed and made payable to the “U.S. Department of Homeland Security.” If the 
petition is submitted with the wrong filing fee, it will be rejected as improperly filed. If one or more of the required fees are returned due to insufficient payment, the H-1B petition will NOT retain the original filing date. 


H-1B Regular Cap

1.  Requested start date must be on/after 10/01/2012 and within 6 months of the filing date.
2.  Includes current H-1B visa holders that were previously cap exempt and are now seeking to change to cap-subject employment.
3.  Check the box for 1a on Part C of Page 18.

H-1B Advanced Degree Exemption
1.  Requested start date must be on/after 10/01/2012 and within 6 months of the filing date.
2.  Beneficiary has earned a master’s (or higher) degree from a U.S. educational institution.
3.  Check the box for 1b on Part C of Page 18 and complete Question 2Part C on Page 18.

 H-1B Cap-Exempt or Non-Cap H-1B Extension of Stay
1.  If the petition is cap exempt or otherwise not cap-subject, check the box for 1d on Part C of Page 18 and complete Question 3Part C on Pages 18 and 19.
2.  Includes current H-1B visa holders that were previously counted towards the cap.
3.  Includes amended petitions where the petitioner is seeking to notify USCIS of changes to employment conditions of a current H-1B beneficiary.

Chile/Singapore H-1B1 Cap
1.  Requested start date for a FY 2013 H-1B1 must be on/after 10/01/2012 and within 6 months of the filing date.
2.  Beneficiary is a national of Chile or Singapore.
3.  Check the box for 1c on Part C of Page 18.
4.  Complete, sign and submit Page 10, Trade Agreement Supplement to Form I-129.

POINTS OF NOTE:
Petition includes original signatures (preferably in black ink) on Pages 67, 10 (if applicable) and 12 of Form I-129 (with a revision date of 11/23/10 or later).

All sections of the Form I-129, H Classification Supplement to Form I-129, and H-1B Data Collection and Filing Fee Exemption Supplement (with revision date of 11/23/10 or later) are completed and all required pages are enclosed.

Form I-907 (with revision date of 08/10/09 or later) is completed, signed in the original, and enclosed if seeking Premium Processing Service.

A certified Department of Labor (DOL) Labor Condition Application (LCA) is signed by petitioner and enclosed.

Petition is being mailed with appropriate labels to the California Service Center (CSC) or Vermont Service Center (VSC) consistent with filing jurisdictions and instructions listed at www.uscis.gov.

All questions on Form I-129, H-1B Data Collection and Filing Fee Exemption Supplement (with a revision date of 11/23/10 or later), Pages 17 through 19 (particular those in Part C) are answered correctly.

Top 10 H1B Visa Companies & H1B Visa Cities 2011-12

We always try and give our readers as much insight and information to help you in your H1B visa search to live and work in the US. This information comes to us from Rediff and looks at monthly spending of the top 10 companies and top 10 cities in relation to the H1B visa (it should be noted this is equally applicable to a great degree to the E3 visa just at a smaller scale)

In the past we have looked at the Top 100 companies that sponsored US work visas and E3 Visa specific employer sponsors among other tips around creating US resumes, US interview tips and our Top 10 steps to working in the US. So there is many a good grounding of resources across the site along with the many reader experiences as to how they traveled to the US and found a job.

Given the nature of this information we think it gives a foreigners a good idea of the pulse of the US hiring market and where the majority of opportunities currently lie from a corporate and sector perspective as well as the cities and regions of the country that you may have most success.

The data below while not specific in the source of the numbers from Rediff, is certainly great from a directional perspective and shows everybody a great perspective on the US economy and job market at large. Firstly we look at the Top 10 companies in terms of spending on the H1B visa

Top 10 H1B Visa Companies

Company Monthly Spend
Microsoft $226,901
Patni Americas $67,744
Oracle $61,592
Satyam $60,032
Fujitsu $51,682
Cognizant $38,857
Polaris $38,354
Marlabs $32,233
Larsen & Toubro Infotech $31,550
Tata $30,930

This list of company is not that different from some of the past years and other top employer lists we released. You can see it is dominated by high tech and bio tech companies obviously seeking the highly skilled foreign engineers, computer scientists and graduate/phd level foreigners. A good proportion of which would have graduated as students on the F1 visa from US colleges and universities and may have worked during their F1 OPT period at these companies prior to their full employment and H1B visa sponsorship. US students are a minority as colleges and universities for studies in the sciences, engineering, math and technology particularly at the graduate level. Hence the push from a lot of these companies to push for even greater quota for the H1B visa to help fill large vacancies.

Top 10 H1B Visa Cities

City Monthly Spend
New York $112,335
Mountain View $90,529
Cupertino $88,143
Palo Alto $87,832
Redmond $87,086
Santa Clara $85,032
Sunnyvale $81,028
Chicago $78,312
San Jose $77,273
San Francisco $72,442

The Top 10 H1B visa cities presents information that in many ways matches the list above. 7 of the 10 cities in this list come from the Bay Area and Silicon Valley in Northern California home to the tech industry of the world and some of the most innovative companies of recent history such as;

– Apple (Cupertino)
– Facebook (Palo Alto)
– Twitter (San Francisco)
– Yahoo (Sunnyvale)
– Google (Mountain View)

Then when you consider that Redmond in Washington is home to Microsoft and that Oracle is also located in this Northern California area and that New York and Chicago are two of the world’s largest cities for not just technology but finance, health and many other industries you can start to see a common trend.

One thing to note is that where there is opportunity there is also competition. So if you look at other major centers like Houston TX, Charlotte NC, Austin TX, Boston MA among other areas of the country that there are also many other great regions in the country to live and work