Every fiscal year (October 1st – September 30th), approximately 140,000 employment-based immigrant visas are made available to qualified applicants under the provisions of U.S. immigration law. Employment based immigrant visas are divided into five preference categories. Certain spouses and children may accompany or follow-to-join employment-based immigrants.  You can learn more about these five categories of employment-based immigrant visas on usvisas.state.gov.

To apply for an employment-based immigrant visa, follow the steps on the Immigrant Visa Process on usvisas.state.gov.  Once you have completed those steps, review the instructions given to you by the National Visa Center (NVC), along with the information presented on this website, for further guidance and instructions.

After Your Immigrant Petition Is Approved 

After your petition is approved and you have received instructions to proceed with your visa application, you must prepare and submit a packet of documents to the NVC (immigrant visa applicants).

When preparing documents for the NVC, please follow guidance provided on the following website:ImmigrantVisas.State.Gov. Note: you only need to send photocopies of documents to NVC. You will be required to present the originals at the embassy on the day of your interview.