- The O-1 visa can be an alternative to the H-1B for highly accomplished workers, especially entrepreneurs, because it avoids a lottery system.
- The application process for O-1 is still complex and evidence-heavy, requiring documentation of major achievements like awards, grants and published work to prove “extraordinary ability.”
- Legal and processing costs for the O-1 can be high, and applicants often face significant scrutiny. This will persist under the Trump administration, lawyers explained. Requests for extra evidence are common and expected to carry on or even increase.
- Despite these issues, approvals for O-1 visas continue, with some recipients later pursuing green cards through the EB-1 pathway.
Soundarya Balasubramani didn’t nab the “extraordinary ability” O-1 visa the first time she applied. So she wrote a book about it.
The author of “Unshackled,” a guide to different immigration pathways in the US, distinctly remembers the date she got her passport stamped and approved after applying a second time — Oct. 17, 2023. This visa, used by many entrepreneurs, is for people with high achievements in the sciences, education, arts or business looking to work in the US.
Balasubramani, who now lives in San Francisco and hails from a town north of Chennai in India, is the author of two other books; a founder of a startup (also named Unshackled) helping connect immigrants to visas; and a former product manager at Salesforce. She wanted “Unshackled” to spur conversations about pathways different workers could take to move to the US — and the potential personal costs of doing so.
“There is something about this topic that’s deeply painful for people that was unexplored from an immigrant standpoint,” Balasubramani told Technical.ly. “There are books by lawyers, and of course, there’re academic textbooks out there. But no one has written about this with a human element in mind.”
Balasubramani credits her securing the O-1 visa to having more achievements to show the second time around. She accrued a lot of press, earned a grant from California’s Emergent Ventures and grew a multi-million social media following. Plus, the book she wrote about immigration alongside her lawyer.
“I guess in a way, you could say my own denial led me to working on a book on legal immigration,” she said.
O-1 visa 101
This employer-sponsored visa, administered by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), has spiked since the Covid-19 pandemic, rising from about 7,000 to 19,000 issued visas between 2021 and 2022.
The most popular visa for workers remains the H-1B, per Leonard J. D’Arrigo, a partner and leader of the law firm Harris Beach Murtha’s immigration practice in New York. But because H-1B visas mostly rely on a lottery with limited spots, the O-1 visa is usually the next pathway immigrants try, he said.
Its downside is the hundreds of pages documenting the applicant being a high achiever. He’s seen clients not fully understand how much prowess needs to be proven.
“It’s deceptively misleading,” D’Arrigo told Technical.ly, “in that it really looks like a lot more people qualify than do.”
Multiple classes of O-1 visas exist. The O-1A often applies to people in science or business, while the O-1B is for artists. The visa lasts three years, and can be renewed indefinitely in one-year increments.
Applicants must show they won a prestigious award — that needs to be Nobel Prize-level, D’Arrigo said. Most people do not fit that, so he helps clients collect three forms of evidence in different criteria. That includes winning grants, having patents or trademarks, being a member of a notable organization or getting published in an academic journal, to name a few. Reference letters are also necessary.
“It’s all about the evidence,” D’Arrigo explained.
This document-gathering is the longest part of the application process, D’Arrigo said. Once he receives everything, he puts together the application with a 30- to 40-page support letter detailing what the person will be doing. It’s essentially an argument for the person to get the visa, he said.
Sophie Alcorn, founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley, finds this step especially important under presidential administrations that exercise more control over visa applications.
“It’s very important to connect the dots of,” Alcorn explained to Technical.ly, “not just this person has done these things, but these are why these things qualify under the legal framework as meeting the really high standard for O-1.”
After the application is submitted, processing can take six to eight months, D’Arrigo said. Premium processing takes 15 business days, but is more expensive at almost $3,000. Legal costs can range from $5,000 to $10,000, he said, not including government filing fees. A lawyer is worth the money because the application is so complicated, he said.
Trump era could mean more scrutiny and requests for evidence
USCIS frequently sends applicants a “request for evidence” notice, or RFE. Author Balasubramani received one for her first application that was denied, she said.
Digvijay Singh, the cofounder of health technology company Drizzle Health in Baltimore, received the same notice when he applied in 2023. Singh comes from a small town near New Delhi in India, and submitted a very similar application to his cofounder, who is South African.
But after fulfilling that request, his application was approved for the O-1 visa.
“It was a very anxious time,” Singh told Technical.ly. “In general, if you’re building a company in the US, [as a] foreign national, the visa stuff is just an additional thing over all of the business stuff.”
Applicants should expect a higher level of scrutiny with the O-1 and a continuation of these requests, immigration lawyer D’Arrigo noted.
“We’re all hearing about ‘illegal immigration,’” he said, “but there’s also a huge impact on legal immigration and the visa options that we have, and how immigration officers interpret the law and apply the regulations to each application.”
Typically, deference is given to returning applicants for the visa, per D’Arrigo, but he’s seeing that decrease under President Donald Trump. The president nixed that protocol during his first term, but it was restored under former President Joe Biden.
He’s still seeing O-1 approvals go through under Trump, he said. Silicon Valley lawyer Alcorn agreed and noted she still sees confirmations “all the time” despite the higher scrutiny.
Why founders prefer the O-1
Alcorn has also observed more visa-seekers, especially founders, showing interest in the O-1 visa.
This could be because the International Entrepreneur Parole Program, ignited under the Obama administration, is not reliable: It was struck down under Trump and brought back under the Biden administration in 2021. It’s also not technically a visa.
She’s also seen tech companies promoting the O-1. Lawyers are not allowed to tell people to apply for visas, but she’s witnessed the employers reach out to candidates across LinkedIn, recommending the O-1 as a pathway to work in the US.
Founders seeking the O-1 can also avoid the lottery with the H-1B visa and can apply any time of year, per Alcorn. There’s also no prevailing wage requirement like the H-1B’s (which requires a minimum salary based on the location, occupation and skill level).
Drizzle Health’s Singh first tried to get an H-1B visa via the startup but was not selected. After graduating from Johns Hopkins University in 2020, he stayed in the country through the Optional Practical Training program — a way for students to supplement learning with work that can be voluntary and unpaid.
Now, he’s going through the process of getting an EB-1, a visa that can lead to a green card — which, if he gets that, can open up opportunities to compete for federal funding. Alcorn said it’s a common pathway for visa holders to transition from the O-1 to the EB-1 because the requirements are similar.
Singh sees each of these steps as necessary for solidifying Drizzle Health in Baltimore. For instance, getting a green card could allow the startup to apply for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funds, which only go to small businesses that are at least 51% owned by US citizens and/or permanent residents.
Nabbing the O-1 and being able to stay and build his business in the US has been an unbeatable opportunity, he said.
“I’ve had the privilege to follow my ideas and dreams about the research and the startup in America,” Singh said. “That is not lost on me, and the fact that a mechanism like O-1 exists is actually amazing, to put it in perspective.”
This story, and all of Technical.ly's immigration reporting, is made possible by the WES Mariam Assefa Fund.
The WES Mariam Assefa Fund supports catalytic efforts to create more inclusive economies for immigrants and refugees in the US and Canada. It works closely with organizations and leaders focused on ensuring more equitable access to opportunity and wealth.
