(incomplete) Getting your O1 Visa as Fast as Possible (2024)
with a little bit of Singapore focus
I have just received my O1A Visa and like for the H1B1, I figured I should write down my experience, thoughts, and tips for those who may wish to make the same journey. Note that I am not a professional at this, I’m just a guy who recently went through it so dont rely on me for precise facts, mostly a fellow traveler a little ahead of you.
Most o1 visa guides are written by lawyers and visa applicants with time on their hands. my main frustration going thru the process was people were not precise enough about what needs to happen when and how specifically long each section can be expected to take, so that you can get thru it as fast as the systme will allow. so that is the focus of my guide.
things everybody knows
you can skip this if you know the basics about O1 but it can be helpful to list out some facts for newer folks:
- O1 is a nonimmigrant visa valid for 3 years, after which you’ll have to renew. EB1 is the immigrant equivalant, with similar but stricter requirements than the O1. There is no quota or lottery unlike the H1B (i think).
- commonly designed for scientists and artists, but in the last decade+ also used by engineers and founders. You can find old Hacker News posts from 11-12 years ago talking about its rise in usage for engineers
- FOR FOUNDERS: There is a lot of uncertainty around whether or not you can “sponsor your own visa”, mixed in by bad advice from carrying over rules from other, different, visa categories. I can affirmatively state that there are many founder/ceos including myself whose companies they own a majority stake of were the employer of record for the O1 visa. What is LESS clear is meeting the bar for having someone/someones meet the “right to hire fire and otherwise supervise” rule
- Safest way to do this is appoint a 3 member board where you have only 1 vote — your advisor will nudge you toward that but the final say is yours/your lawyer’s — however i know a number of cases where either no board was appointed or mine, where 1 external board chair was appointed with firing rules via Stripe Atlas’ standard articles of incorporation that was sufficient.
- mainly based on qualifying for 4 out of 8 requirements listed in the O1 mandate (you can look it up). I submitted for 5. Easiest for engineer/foudners to meet:
- judge peers at hackathon (many friendly ones in sf)
- high past remuneration (within profession, relative to state/city. i think 150k+ is fine).
- correlated w above is a “critical role”, eg I was a “VP level” manager at a unicorn startup. obv this is not strictly necessary, it merely helps
- press: written up in major industry publications (some lawyers will insist on mainstream media, which ~never happens, but niche tech media does fine, eg for me InfoQ, CSS Tricks, Redmonk were fine)
- awards: the examples given are like nobel prize, or olympic medal… but really VC funding works here haha
- It is VERY HARD to handicap whether or not you fulfil the requirements, AND you will hear wildly different opinions from different lawyers/firms (I heard “you will have trouble” vs “yea you’re a shoo in” on the same day) so don’t prematurely disqualify yourself. There are 21 year olds who have never had a real job who aren’t particularly superlative engineers (but were on a once-notable open source project for a few months) walking around with O1’s.
- I-797 approval rates are high - about 92-95% in the last 8 years - although of course there’s a fair amount of self selection pushing that number up, it’s still an impressively high number, I would guess higher than the B1/B2 6 month business/tourist visa.
please check bc i’m not sure: i don’t think the O1 is strictly tied to one employer; i.e. you can change employers after you get it and still be on the same visa, but doublecheck this since i didnt care about it bc i have no intention of changing
Rough expectations of timeline, cost and process
Most people in this situation want to know how long the entire end to end process will take and want it done asap. Here you need to understand the very extreme differences that can happen if you screw up parts of your process like I did.
- You’ll want an agency to help you — i think it’s technically possible to DIY this, but I’m not sure I would risk it if time matters, and if past rejections matter (i dont care enough to find out)
- Cost is: Govt filing fee $460, Govt expedited filing fee $2500, advisor/legal fee ranges from $10-15k
- TLDR the standard advice is you should budget 3 months normally, and 2 months “expedited”. I do think that the median person can get it done in 2 months, with an extreme lower bound of 2-3 weeks (seen a couple lucky people report that), but every mistake you make can add 2-4weeks to your timeline each mistake, including the unlucky one, the RFE (request for further evidence) where the USCSIS “challenges” your application.
- I didn’t get an RFE so i have no idea how long that sets you back. (asking a friend who did… wil update if i get something)
- “expediting” has a specific meaning - the USCIS is obliged to respond in 15 days if you pay for the expediting.
- i think for my expedited timeline it took 9 calendar days including shipping (may 21 fedexed to USCIS - may 30 USCSIS emailed notification of I-797 approval - you’ll need the Receipt Number from this which looks like IOExxxxxx98059 to unblock you for the next step)
- Fill out DS160 for a US consulate abroad (usually your home country but people have done this in Canada/Mexico/London/etc as noncitizens) - for an O1 DS160, you’ll need this Receipt Number. Note that different consulates have different waiting times - and different waiting times for citizens vs “third party nationals” noncitizens - there are websites that list the rough times, but those sites show average/normal times, and they can SPIKE very aggressively (happened to me) in times of high load (eg a lot of students apply for visa appointments in july ahead of Fall semester in the US)
- after you pay for the DS160 (something like $250 i cant remember) then you get the right to book an embassy appointment (in singapore it takes a whole ass 36 hours to get this done via OCBC bank as well because you have to onboard a new payee that takes 12 hours to prevent fraud, then 24 hours for the payment to register in the embassy appointment system)
- TO BE CONTINUED
by far my biggest hurdle was procrastination. there is a slog of paperwork and biographical information you’ll have to frontload so that the rest of the process can get going, and YOU are the blocker. Procrastination hurdles are so common that Legalpad has it built in that they’ll just put you on ice if they don’t hear from you after a while.
Selecting a Firm To Work With
This was perhaps
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TO BE CONTINUED
https://harshitaarora.com/page/2/ https://blog.awais.io/o1-visa/ https://www.plymouthstreet.com/resource/a-guide-to-applying-for-the-o-1-visa