Visa information

The 2026 guide treats the United States as a work-led destination: an H-1B specialty-occupation visa allocated by annual lottery, L-1 and O-1 routes, and an EB-5 investor green card alongside family-, employment- and diversity-based green cards. It is blunt about the gaps — there is no retirement visa and no nomad visa — and it scores the country just 30/100 for visa and bureaucracy, the lowest dimension in its profile.

The routes the guide names

H-1B specialty-occupation visa — obtained via an employer and allocated by annual lottery.

L-1 intra-company transfer and O-1 extraordinary-ability visas — listed together as the transfer and talent routes.

EB-5 investor green card, plus family-, employment- and diversity-based green cards.

For short stays the guide is explicit: ESTA or B-2 is for visits only. The schemes list repeats the work-led picture — the EB-5, O-1 and NIW routes for talent, and the H-1B lottery for the employer-sponsored.

Thresholds — what the sources do not quantify

The guide prints no income threshold, salary floor, investment minimum or eligibility points for any route. It does not state an EB-5 investment amount, an H-1B salary level, or the criteria behind the O-1's “extraordinary ability” label, so this page invents none of them — those figures are exactly what an immigration lawyer has to confirm for your case.

Two negatives are stated plainly and are worth planning around: there is no nomad visa, and remote work on a visitor visa or ESTA is not permitted. There is also no retirement visa (see the Retirement page).

What the paperwork costs — plan budgets, not government fees

The guide does not list individual government visa fees separately. What it gives is a bundled “Visa, permits & translations” budget line in each move plan — described as government fees, apostilles and translations, with the Luxury tier adding an immigration lawyer — and those lines are the only sourced cost figures for the application itself:

• $1,200 — Affordable plan (you file yourself)
• $1,700 — Mid-range and Retirement plans
• $4,050 — Luxury plan (the plan notes the luxury tier adds an immigration lawyer)

The Retirement plan carries one further, separate line: $3,100 for “Retirement visa, lawyer & pension certification”, covering an immigration lawyer, apostilled pension letters, medicals and translations. Read the label carefully: the guide's own country text says no retirement visa exists, so this is the shared plan template's lawyer-and-certification budget, not evidence of a retirement route.

Application steps and timelines, by tier

The guide builds the application into each plan's timeline rather than printing a single step list. The common sequence across the plans and checklists is:

• Choose the route first and print its requirements; the Affordable checklist starts with “Visa route chosen and requirements printed.”
• Gather and legalise documents — apostilles and translations are named in every tier; the Retirement paperwork stage adds pension or income letters certified and apostilled, a police certificate, a medical, and birth and marriage certificates translated.
• Check your passport — the Affordable checklist requires a passport valid 18+ months.
• Arrange health insurance before you file (see the Hospitals page for the guide's first-year insurance budgets).
• File — yourself on the Affordable tier, or with a lawyer or agent on the Mid-range, Luxury and Retirement tiers. The Luxury timeline adds that the lawyer confirms the best visa route, including investor and talent options.

Paperwork-stage durations in the guide: ~10 weeks filing yourself (Affordable), ~8 weeks with a lawyer or agent filing (Mid-range), ~6 weeks with a lawyer filing everything (Luxury), and ~14 weeks for the Retirement paperwork stage. After the move, the settle stage includes registering your address and opening a bank account.

Renewals and the path to residency — the honest limit of the guide

The guide names green cards — EB-5 investor, and family-, employment- and diversity-based — as routes in their own right, but neither the guide nor the site data gives renewal intervals, validity periods, lottery odds or timelines to any status, so this page states none. Treat the route names as confirmed and every timetable as a lawyer question. The one duration the guide does state belongs to visits: ESTA or B-2 is for visits only, and remote work on either is not permitted.

Frequently asked questions