EB-1B green card

EB-1B trades a self-petition for a lower bar, and the trade is usually worth checking.

EB-1B is the first-preference green card for an outstanding professor or researcher. The university or the research employer files it, there is no labor certification, and the standard is international recognition as outstanding in a specific academic area rather than a place at the very top of a field. The bar is lower than EB-1A, and the price of that is an employer. This page walks through the requirements with the citations, so you can check every sentence.

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Who you would be working with, and how the work runs

The employment-based categories on this site are all handled here, and they are handled by the same attorney. A company with an H-1B question, a labor certification and a green card to plan does not need three firms, three intakes and three explanations of its own org chart.

There is one attorney at this firm. The person who reads your documents is the person who writes the petition and signs the filing, and two paralegals work the file alongside me. That is not a service promise, it is the shape of the firm, and it is the reason there is nobody for a question to get handed to.

Every matter carries a written checklist: what I need from you, what I am working on now, and what comes next. The filing is built from your own documents, because the facts that decide these cases are specific to one company and one role and no template holds them. The person the case is filed for gets a portal account of their own for documents and status, which keeps their personal papers out of a shared inbox. Fees are flat per matter and staged, quoted in three separate lines: the attorney fee, government filing fees, and other costs.

EB-1B at a glance

An employer files it

A university, a research institution, or the research unit of a private employer. No labor certification.
Three years, teaching or research

At least three years of experience in the academic area before the petition.
A permanent offer

Tenure, tenure-track, or a research position with no fixed end. Grant-funded can qualify when the expectation of continued funding is documented.
Two of six, then the whole record

At least two kinds of evidence from the regulation's list, and then the officer weighs the record as a whole.

Is this your situation?

If one of these is close, the category is worth checking properly.

A department wants to keep a postdoc or a research scientist permanently.: This is the ordinary EB-1B. What the institution has to offer is a permanent position: tenured or tenure-track teaching, or a research position with no fixed termination date. A three-year renewable appointment can qualify if the expectation of continued funding is real and documented, and that documentation is the part institutions underestimate.
You were told EB-1A and your record is strong but not top-of-field.: The two categories read the same kind of evidence against different bars. EB-1B asks for international recognition as outstanding in an academic area and two of six kinds of evidence. EB-1A asks for sustained acclaim and a place among the small percentage at the very top, and it needs no employer. If a qualifying employer exists and is willing, EB-1B is the cheaper question to answer first.
The employer is a company, not a university.: That is allowed, on conditions. It is the department, division or institute offering the job that has to employ at least three people full time in research and have documented accomplishments in an academic field, not the company as a whole. Industry research groups often clear that and assume they do not.

“A file built to satisfy two criteria and nothing more tends to read that way at the second step, which is where the harder judgment happens.”

The test

What the law actually requires

All of it is checkable. The category is INA 203(b)(1)(B) and the working regulation is 8 CFR 204.5(i).

The six criteria: any two

8 CFR 204.5(i)(3)(i) lists the evidence of international recognition as outstanding. At least two are required, and comparable evidence is allowed under 8 CFR 204.5(i)(3)(ii) where a listed category does not readily apply.

Any2of the6

major prizes or awards for outstanding achievement
membership in associations that require outstanding achievements of their members
published material in professional publications, written by others, about the person's work
judging the work of others in the same or an allied field, alone or on a panel
original scientific or scholarly research contributions to the field
authorship of scholarly books or articles in journals with international circulation

Meeting two criteria is where the review starts, not where it ends. The officer then weighs the record as a whole.

Three years, in the same area, teaching or research

8 CFR 204.5(i)(3)(iii) requires at least three years of experience in teaching or research in the academic area, and 8 CFR 204.5(i)(2) defines academic field as a body of specialized knowledge offered for study at an accredited institution. Experience gained while working on an advanced degree counts only on conditions: the person must have acquired the degree, and the teaching must have been full responsibility for a class or the research must have been recognized within the field as outstanding. That is a documentation problem more often than a qualification problem.

The offer has to be permanent, and the employer has to qualify

Under 8 CFR 204.5(i)(3)(iv) the petition needs an offer from a prospective U.S. employer: a tenured or tenure-track teaching position, a comparable research position at a university or institution of higher education, or a comparable research position with a department, division or institute of a private employer, where that unit employs at least three persons full time in research and has documented accomplishments in an academic field. Comparable and permanent are the words that get litigated. An appointment with no fixed termination date, or one renewed indefinitely on continued funding, can satisfy them when the record shows the expectation rather than asserting it.

Meeting two criteria is where the review starts, not where it ends

The agency does not stop at counting. Under the USCIS Policy Manual, once two of the listed criteria are satisfied the officer weighs the record as a whole to decide whether it establishes that the person is recognized internationally as outstanding in the academic area. A file built to satisfy two criteria and nothing more tends to read that way at the second step, which is where the harder judgment happens. An approved I-140 then gives the person a priority date, their place in the immigrant-visa line, published monthly in the Visa Bulletin by category and country of birth. The employer also has to show the ability to pay the proffered wage from the priority date onward under 8 CFR 204.5(g)(2), which for a university is straightforward and not therefore automatic.

The honest part

What is hard about it

Two things an institution and a researcher should know before they budget.

Permanent is a legal word, not an HR word

Grant-funded appointments are the normal shape of research employment and they are not automatically disqualifying. What decides it is whether the record shows an expectation of continued employment: the funding history, the institution's own practice with comparable appointments, and a letter that says so in terms an officer can rely on rather than in terms a department would use internally.

Peer review is a criterion and it is often left on the table

Serving as a manuscript reviewer, a grant panelist or a conference programme committee member is squarely within the judging criterion, and it is easy to leave undocumented, because at the time it feels like a favour to a journal rather than a credential. The evidence is the invitation and the record of the service, and both are usually still recoverable.

The clock

Where the calendar comes from

Every clock in an EB-1B belongs to an agency, and every agency publishes its own current numbers. Check those rather than a figure typed onto a law firm page.

USCIS publishes I-140 processing times

The processing-times tool at egov.uscis.gov reports, by form and by office, what is currently being decided. Read the form and the office together, and read the result as a description of finished cases rather than a date for one that has not been filed.

Premium processing is a clock, not a different decision

Form I-907 buys a commitment from USCIS to act inside a fixed number of days, published on the USCIS I-907 page, and acting includes a request for evidence as much as an approval. It earns its cost when an appointment date or an expiring status turns on knowing sooner.

The Visa Bulletin is the queue, published monthly

The Department of State publishes the Visa Bulletin at travel.state.gov, showing which priority dates are current in each category for each country of birth. First preference has historically moved differently from the rest, which is part of why the EB-1B and EB-1A question is worth answering early.

Each of those pages belongs to the agency that decides the case and carries the date it was last updated.

The sequence

Where the time actually goes

Here is the order of a case in this category: who acts at each step, and whose clock is running. Two of those clocks are different animals, and telling them apart is most of what people are really asking. A period fixed by regulation is the same this year and next. A backlog is a fact about a queue on one particular day, so this page does not print one. It hands you the agency page where the current figure lives.

You
You and your attorney build the record: the evidence, the letters, the exhibits, the petition itself.
No published figure
This is the one stretch on the list that no agency measures. It moves with what already exists and what still has to be created.
USCIS
USCIS decides the immigrant petition.
Set by the backlogForm I-140
Same tool, same caution: what USCIS publishes describes cases it has already finished, and it is posted per form, per classification and per office.
Premium processing
Premium processing is a paid USCIS service available on this form. For I-140 in this classification, USCIS states a period of 15 business days.
That period stops and starts over from the beginning if USCIS issues a request for evidence, so it buys a faster look at the file rather than a shorter case.
Eligibility is set per form and per classification, and USCIS can change it.
USCIS processing timesCheck the current figure at egov.uscis.gov
Department of State
A visa number has to become available for your preference category and your country of birth.
Set by the backlog
Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens are not in a preference category, so this step does not apply to them. Where it does apply, nobody can shorten it, and for some countries it is the longest step by a distance. The Department of State publishes a bulletin every month.
The visa bulletinCheck the current figure at travel.state.gov
USCIS
The last step happens in one of two places: adjustment of status with USCIS inside the United States, or an immigrant visa interview at a consulate abroad.
Set by the backlogForm I-485
Which one applies depends on where you are and what status you hold, not on preference.
USCIS processing timesCheck the current figure at egov.uscis.gov

Sources and definitions

No published figure: No agency publishes a time for this step. Anyone quoting you one is guessing.
Set by the backlog: How long this step takes depends on the agency's queue that month. The current figure is on the agency's own page, which is why it is not repeated here.

USCIS processing times: Pick the form, the classification and the office. What USCIS posts there is how long it took to finish eight in ten decided cases over the previous six months, refreshed monthly.
The visa bulletin: Published monthly by the Department of State. It tells you whether a visa number is available this month for your category and country of birth.
USCIS premium processing: Which forms and classifications are eligible, what it costs, and the period USCIS states for each of them.

USCIS is U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that decides petitions.
The Department of State runs the consulates and publishes the monthly visa bulletin.

Every stage, form number and period below comes from the agency that owns that step. None of it is this firm's estimate, and none of it is a prediction about your case.

Sources last checked August 16, 2026.

The links go to live government pages, so what you find there will be newer than that.

The employer page, for the whole track

How employer-sponsored work is structured at this firm, the categories that sit beside EB-1B, and where the calendar for each one comes from. Written for the department or the HR office doing the sponsoring.

Read the employer page
EB-1A, the same evidence without an employer

The self-petitioned first preference. No job offer, no employer, and a higher bar: sustained acclaim and a place among the small percentage at the very top of the field. Most researchers should read both pages before choosing.

Read the EB-1A page
EB-2 NIW, when there is no employer and no top-of-field claim

The national interest waiver asks a different question entirely: whether a specific proposed endeavor has substantial merit and national importance, and whether you are positioned to advance it. Publications help there. They are not the price of admission.

Read the NIW page
What it costs

Fees here are always quoted in three separate lines: the attorney fee, government filing fees, and other costs. The published numbers live on one page.

See the full fee breakdown

Bring the CV and the appointment letter. Both decide this one.

A consultation on an EB-1B is mostly a reading: the record against the six criteria, and the position against the word permanent. I will tell you how I read both, including if the honest answer is EB-1A instead, or the waiver route, or that the appointment needs to change shape first.

Two ways to start, and who you sit with

The first is a free intake with my team. The second is the paid consultation, and that one is with me.

Intake

15 minutes · Free

My paralegal team, not me

A short conversation to hear what is going on and get it written down properly. My paralegals ask about your status, your dates, your employer if there is one, and what you have already tried. By the end of it you know what a consultation with me would cover and whether it is worth booking one yet.

This step is intake and scheduling. My paralegals do not give legal advice, do not tell you whether you qualify for anything, and do not recommend a visa category. That part is mine, and it happens in the attorney consultation.
Attorney consultation

60 minutes · $150

If you go on to retain the firm for the matter the consultation covered, the fee is credited toward your fee for that case. The credit does not expire.

Joe Kwon, the attorney who would handle the case

This is where the legal discussion happens. You tell me what you have and what you are trying to do, and I tell you what I think, including when I think the answer is no. Some of these end with me not taking the case. That is a real result of the call, not a failure of it. I read what you send before we sit down, so the whole session goes to your question. The consultation runs as a video call, from wherever you are.

Book a consultation See the full fee breakdown

Booking does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Immigration benefits are decided by government officers who apply the law to the record in front of them, and many of them are discretionary. No attorney can promise you an approval, and anyone who does is telling you what you want to hear. What good lawyering controls is whether your case is complete, specific, and internally consistent, so that approving it is the officer's easiest path.