My spouse had her interview in Guangzhou China. The original I-864 that we submitted to NVC listed only assets with no US based income as we were both working in China at the time, making RMB. Our assets showed roughly $260K, mostly cash and mostly all in USD.
At my spouses interview, this I-864 was immediately denied since the interviewer wanted to see US income. Since we thought this would happen, we had a back up I-864 to provide with a joint sponsor with retirement income, well above the guideline - Which was proved by their benefits papers from the government. The interviewer also denied the joint sponsor’s I-864 because the tax return showed a negative number for total income.
luckily, we had a third I-864(just mine, no joint sponsor) that showed Chinese real estate in my spouse’s name - all totaling assets over 500k and this was ultimately accepted. (Joint sponsor’s wasn’t taken)
hard to believe all of this, I know. But I thought I would share my story to help out a bit. Thanks guys.