bussiness, can I?

I'm an H1 visa and I want to open my own business, can I do that? I read somewhere that I can have my own business but I can't receive an extra income besides the one that I have with my actual employer(?), how is that? how does it work and what do I need to do, (paperwork and everything)?

I'm an H1 visa and I want to open my own business, can I do that? I read somewhere that I can have my own business but I can't receive an extra income besides the one that I have with my actual employer(?), how is that? how does it work and what do I need to do, (paperwork and everything)?

No, you are not allowed to do business as this requires another form of visa.Remember any movement or change of job,career while still on a non-immigrant status requires INS prior approval as this has repurcussion on your future immigration life.

thank you for your answer, to get my green card and become an USC is more important to me, I'm soor I misspelled business in the subject

I am not sure, but maybe you can try to get a greencard while on a H-1 visa and then open your own business.

You can start your business while on an H1.There are a lot of people that do that legally here in the US.SOme restrictions are that you do not start the company just for the purpose of sponsoring your own immigration needs,for example the company or business u start cannot sponsor ur H1 visa,but if you show enough money flow and resources you can sponsor H1s for others.And maybe in time with enough annual turnover you could sponsor ur H1. All that the labour/ins wants to know is that its a legitimate business "started for the purpose of increasing the profits of its shareholders" (which would be you in this case).

Belkin, thank you so much for your information, I hope don't bother you, but do you know where can I get information about the process that I need to follow and the paperwork that I need to fill, etc., in order to open my business? do I need to hire a Lawyer for that? thanks

Hi Addy
at this stage you would not need a laywer,an easier route would be taking the services of a company that sets you up and takes care of the paper work for a fee.About 2 years back I helped a friend with the initial ground work to start his company.I do not remember the name of the agency we used but we actually found them on the web.For a fee of around $400 they registered/incorporated our name,got us our tax id number and took care of all the initial paper work that had to be filed with the state/county.I'll contact my friend and try to get you more details or the name of the agency we used.

Belkin, I will really appreciate if you can get the information about the agency that you used. Thank you.

Addy go to

http://www.usvisanews.com/imvisa.html

and read this as well

http://www.start-a-business.com/bus-...ation-law.html

Guest, thank you so much, those sites are very informative.

Nowhere in the sites that were posted shows that INS allow one with H1B to do business.i just hope you should not misled people to some sites even if they are of refutable firm that one can do business on while on H1B, you know how some lawyers sometimes try to persuade others to hire their services.
i just hope you go by the immigration rules and regulations so as to avoid problems and avoid circumventing the laws.

Bugsy, I appreciate your concern, I'm not intended to do something wrong, I'm going to gather all the information that I need and find out if I can do it legally,if not, that's Ok, I can wait until I get my GC.
I came to this Country legally and I'm pretending to stay in the same way, thank you so much and be sure I'm going to be very carefull.

[E.]

you can invest and have shares of any company, i guess.
You can't be employed and get compensation without proper authorisation from BCIS