Visa for business

[Geraldo Ramos 0]

Hello Everyone,

I'm trying to understand as much as I can the US visa process. Here is my situation:

Current visa: B1/B2

I have 3 established companies in the USA, 2 recent established LLC and one Corporation (all related to internet/tech field).

It's 4 business partners in the companies (3 brazilians like me and 1 american citizen)

Our business are Brazil based, but we are having a great demand for our industry here (Tech, development, etc), so we are planning to spend time here in the country to help to generate more business. I'm currently in New York as a non-resident, staying with my business partner from here, who actually currently respond/run the US company. I have plans to stay here for 3-4 months for now but as soon as the business is doing great (we already hired an USA employee), We are thinking about applying for a resident visa for me and one more for the company, so will be 3 in the USA and just one in Brazil. Of course we will be always travelling.

We will still need to go to Brazil often, but our plan is that 2 of us will stay more in the US than Brazil.

What do you guys think would be our best approach?

1 - Stick with B1/B2 while in the USA? That will limit us for a lot of things, but as soon as we back to Brazil often, and we have our own business in the country, this is completely legal, right? Also, our payroll will be in Brazil in this case, so we are not having salary from the US.

2 - Try to apply to a more permanent visa, which one do you guys think will be our best option? I was looking into E-2, but looks like it's not available to Brazil. What's the best one for our case?

Thanks in advance. We plan to hire an attorney for that, but we want to discuss first and try to understand everything as much as we can. I think this Forum will be great for this.

Geraldo Ramos

[Boiler 45,918]

If the Brazil company has enough employees then the L1 would be the obvious one.

Remember you can undertake business with a B, attend meeting etc, but you can not work, whoever is paying you.

[Me&myLove 4]

The most appropriate seems to be the L1.

Read this:

Embaixada Americana no Brasil

http://brazil.usembassy.gov/intracompany.html

Also this:

"Period of Stay

Qualified employees entering the United States to establish a new office will be allowed a maximum initial stay of one year. All other qualified employees will be allowed a maximum initial stay of three years. For all L-1A employees, requests for extension of stay may be granted in increments of up to an additional two years, until the employee has reached the maximum limit of seven years."

quote: US Citizenship and Immigration Services

[Geraldo Ramos 0]

thanks everyone!