H-3 Visa Checklist

H-3 visas are for trainees in any field of endeavor, except for physicians who come to the USA to receive graduate medical education or training.  The petitioner is the employer; the foreign visitor is the beneficiary/trainee.

The employer must show:

1. The proposed training is not available in the beneficiary’s own country.
2. The beneficiary will not be placed in a position which is in the normal operation of the business and in which citizens and resident workers are regularly employed.
3. The beneficiary will not engage in productive employment unless such employment is incidental and necessary to the training.
4. The training will benefit the beneficiary’s career outside the U.S.

The training program must:

1. Describe the type of training and supervision to be given and the structure of the training program.
2. Describe the amount of time devoted to productive employment.
3. Show the number of hours spent in classroom instruction and on-the-job training.
4. Describe the career abroad for which the training will prepare the beneficiary.
5. Describe the reasons why the beneficiary cannot be trained in his or her own country and why  he or she needs to be trained in the USA.
6. Describe the source of remuneration to be paid the trainee.
7. Describe the benefit to the petitioner for providing the training.

Training programs may not:

1. Deal in generalities with no fixed schedule, objectives or means of evaluation.
2. Be incompatible with the nature of the petitioner’s business.
3. Be on behalf of a beneficiary who already has substantial training or expertise in the field.
4. Be in a field which is unlikely to be useful outside the USA.
5. Result in productive employment which is more than incidental or necessary to the training.
6. Involve insufficient physical plant or insufficiently trained manpower to provide the training.
7. Be used to extend practical training to a foreign student.

Petitions are valid up to two years.  Admission can be 10 days earlier than the start date and departure is required within 10 days of the validity period.  An H-3 trainee who has spent 24 months in the U.S. may not seek extension, change status or be readmitted to the U.S. in H or L status unless he or she has resided outside the U.S. for the immediate prior six months, unless the person did not reside continually in the U.S., and whose employment in the U.S. was seasonal or intermittent or was for an aggregate of six months or less per year.