Business visitor

Conditions you must meet

• Be participating in business activities of a commercial or professional natureThe page introduces this as an open list — 'including, but not limited to' — so the activities named are examples of qualifying business, not a closed set. Transit and deadheading are listed here by the authority itself, which is why the transit route registers this same page.

  You may be eligible for a B-1 visa if you will be participating in business activities of a commercial or professional nature in the United States, including, but not limited to: Consulting with business associates Traveling for a scientific, educational, professional or business convention, or a conference on specific dates Settling an estate Negotiating a contract Participating in short-term training

• The purpose of your trip is business of a legitimate nature

  The purpose of your trip is to enter the United States for business of a legitimate nature

• You plan to remain for a specific limited period of time

  You plan to remain for a specific limited period of time

• You have sufficient funds to cover the trip and your stayNo amount is stated. USCIS sets the test without publishing a figure, and the figure is not supplied from anywhere else.

  You have sufficient funds to cover the expenses of the trip and your stay in the United States

• You have a residence abroad you do not intend to abandon, and binding ties that will ensure your return

  You have a residence outside the United States that you have no intention of abandoning, as well as other binding ties that will ensure your return abroad at the end of the visit

• You are otherwise admissible to the United StatesA separate and load-bearing test: satisfying every B-1 criterion does not by itself make a person admissible, and inadmissibility is decided under grounds this page does not enumerate.

  You are otherwise admissible to the United States

• Initial stay of 1 to 6 months, extendable by up to 6 months, generally capped at 1 year per tripQuoted from the page's own period-of-stay table. The two numbers are different limits: 6 months is the maximum initial admission, 1 year the maximum total time in B-1 status on one trip.

  Initial Period of Stay Extension of Stay 1 to 6 months; 6 months is the maximum Up to 6 months; maximum total amount of time permitted in B-1 status on any one trip is generally 1 year.

• Your spouse and children get no dependent visa — each must apply separately for a B-2Stated as a fact about the classification rather than as a condition on the applicant, and recorded because its absence is what a reader would otherwise assume: almost every other work or business classification in this registry carries a derivative status for a spouse.

  Your spouse and children are not eligible for a dependent visa. Each of your dependents who will be accompanying or following to join you must apply separately for a B-2 visa and must follow the regulations for that visa.

• Working for another US employer, or overstaying the authorised period, violates B-1 status

  if such persons engage in activities outside their B-1 nonimmigrant status, such as working for another employer in the United States, they will be found to have violated their B-1 nonimmigrant status. They also may not remain in the United States for longer than the authorized period of stay in B-1 nonimmigrant status.

Official forms

• File Form I-539 to stay beyond the date on your Form I-94 (I-539)Applies only to those extending without leaving the United States. The controlling date is the one on the Form I-94, which is issued at admission — not the expiry printed on the visa.

  If you who wish to stay beyond the time indicated on the Form I-94 without departing from the United States, you must file Form I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status, and submit any required supporting documents to USCIS.

  Official form

Steps in the process

• An immigration official must authorise your admission at the port of entryHolding the visa is not admission. The length of stay is set on arrival, not by the visa, and the page states a one-year ceiling on the initial admission.

  At the port of entry, an immigration official must authorize your admission to the United States, and, if you are eligible for admission, you may be admitted initially for the period necessary to carry out your business activities, up to a maximum period of 1 year.

Also stated by the authority

Not requirements in themselves. These are alternatives, exemptions, rights and warnings the authority publishes alongside the requirements — quoted here because they can change what applies to you.

• If you are already in the US in another valid nonimmigrant status, you may change to B-1 instead of applying abroadAn alternative route into B-1 status, not a requirement of it. Recorded because it is the only path this page describes that does not depend on the consular host we cannot read.

  If you are in the United States in another valid nonimmigrant status, you may be eligible to change to B-1 status. To change to B-1 status, file a Form I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status

• Certain domestic servants and foreign airline employees may hold B-1 status without an Employment Authorization DocumentA narrow sub-class the page states in full. Recorded with officially_required false because it applies to specific people rather than to every B-1 applicant, and dropping it would hide the one case where B-1 activity connected to foreign employment is not treated as prohibited local employment.

  Certain personal or domestic servants accompanying or following to join individuals in a B, E, F, H, I, J, L, or TN nonimmigrant classification, personal or domestic servants of U.S. citizens who have a permanent home or are stationed in a foreign country, as well as certain employees of foreign airlines, may be eligible for B-1 nonimmigrant status if their activities in the United States are in connection with their foreign employment.