Each year, U.S. companies extend thousands of offers to individuals from abroad to receive on-the-job training. The purpose of the training is to enhance your career in your home country, and productive work cannot be the principal objective of the training program.

We assist companies, workers, and their dependent family members in obtaining the H-3 visa. We prepare the extensive paperwork, guide them through the ever-changing rules, regulations and definitions, coordinate matters between employer and trainee, and represent the parties before the INS as well as the consulate of the employee’s home country. We guide the parties through decisions regarding the eligibility of the training program under the rigid INS regulations applicable to the H-3 visa, financial requirements, travel issues, extensions of stay, and the eventual change from an H-3 to another visa, as appropriate.

The H-3 Visa Is Outlined Below.
H-3 Visas are available for trainees who come to the U.S. to enroll in on-the-job programs with industrial establishments, individuals, organizations, firms or other trainer who gives instruction “in any field of endeavor, such as agriculture, commerce, communications, finance, government, transportation or the professions.” Graduate medical education and training is excluded from this category. Typical instances in which H-3 visas are issued include: 1) companies with branches or subsidiaries in foreign countries who train foreign employees for work overseas; and 2) companies who wish to foster strategic alliances or other business relationships with foreign entities.

H-3 Visa Privileges:

• You can participate in a bona fide U.S. company training program and work legally for the company in the U.S..
• Visas can be issued quickly.
• You may travel freely in and out of the U.S. for the term of the visa.
• H-4 visas may be issued to accompanying relatives, who are authorized to study, but not work.

H-3 Visa Prerequisites and Restrictions:

• The proposed training cannot be available in your home country.
• You cannot fill a position which is within the normal operation of the business, in which U.S. citizens and residents are regularly employed.
• Your primary activity in the U.S. must be to receive training. Productive work can only be incidental to the training program.
• The training must be of benefit to you in pursuing employment outside the U.S..
• You must work for the employer who acted as your H-3 sponsor. If you wish to change training programs, you must apply for a new H-3 visa.
• H-3 status can be held for the time necessary to complete the training program. Extensions of one year at a time are permitted, with a two year maximum, but only for the purpose of completing the original training program.
• Approval of a Labor Certification or the filing of an immigrant preference petition by the same employer will ordinarily result in the denial of an application for extension of the H-3 visa.
• Once you have held the H-3 visa for the maximum term of two years, you must return to your home country, and wait at least 6 months before becoming the beneficiary of a new H or L visa, unless you are eligible to change to another status. (This rule does not apply if you did not reside continually in the U.S. and your employment in the U.S. was seasonal or intermittent or was for an aggregate of six months or less per year.)

CONTACT US: jgagel@jgagel.com