Attending interview from Third country.

[USVisaholder 0]

Hi.

I am Canadian citizen, working in Canada and applying for H1B visa. Due to non-availability of slots in Canada, can i book a H1B appointment in third country?

Will they be any limitations or restrictions? Any issues I will face?

 

Please suggest.

[Coco8 1,042]

You can do it in a third country if you are a resident of that country or are living/working/studying in that country. Usually you cannot even get an appointment if you don't have a reason to be there.

 

That said, one thing you can try is to ask the company doing the H1B for you if they can arrange something for you in another country. My sister did an H1B through AOS (from F1) in the US. Her company has HQ in Europe. Our citizenship is not from an European country and it would have taken way too long for her to travel to our country, get a stamp, and then be able to travel to Europe for a meeting. So because the company has strong ties to the European country, they managed to get her an appointment in the European country consulate and they did her H1B without problems while she was attending meetings and traveling there.

 

So if your company has an office in a country where it'd be easy to get a stamp, then maybe they can invite you to that country in some way? To attend meetings, you wouldn't need a visa for the third country. Also, the lawyers doing the H1B paperwork should know where you can go for the visa because they are dealing with these issues, so they should be consulted.

 

I guess what I'm saying is, don't make the decision unilaterally. Your company might decide you can work from home in Canada for X months and they would rather wait for you to get an appointment there. Or they might have a way to get you an "emergency" appointment in Canada saying you will be loosing money if you don't get to the US ASAP (that's usually a way to expedite things). 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Coco8