Securing your EB1A Green Card: How to Meet the High Salary Criteria
Learn more about salary criteria + bonus excerpts from a winning case!
Securing an EB1A green card involves meeting various criteria, with ‘High Salary’ being one of the more objective and relatively easier to establish. Over the years, I’ve offered advice to individuals seeking their EB1A green card, many of whom have successfully met this criterion without receiving a Request for Evidence (RFE). In this article, I will summarize what I have learned from my own case and advising individuals on this topic. Let’s start with the basics and understand the language of this criterion first.
What is High Salary criterion for EB1A?
As per USCIS, the applicant needs to provide evidence that you command a high salary or other significantly high remuneration in relation to others in the field of your expertise. The plain English interpretation of this sentence is that one has to show evidence of 1) your high salary or other high remuneration and 2) provide comparative evidence of how your salary is high compared to others in the field.
As an example, a software engineer will have to claim that they earn a high salary compared to other software engineers. Now if you are like me, your first reaction is that I am not earning my true potential and there are several individuals who are earning a lot more than me. That’s very normal. Most of us have this feeling but the EB1A petition is not about comparing your salary that one friend who makes much more but it is about using comparative data which helps your compensation stand out as the best.
How do you claim and win this criterion for your EB1A application?
To meet this EB1A criterion, you need to provide:
evidence of your salary via documentation such as W2, Paystubs etcs and
evidence of comparative salary data from sources like Glassdoor, salary.com, levels.fyi. (Just follow along this is explained with a real case example below)
What are various sources that I can use as comparative evidence?
I have seen salary insights following sources in some of the winning cases in for EB1A.
Glassdoor
Linkedin
Salary.com
Payscale.com
Levels.fyi
Department of Labor OLFC(Office of Foreign Labor Certification) datacenter
I always recommend folks use OLFC as one of the comparative evidence because it compares your compensation to a database maintained by Government so it's harder for USCIS to dispute it. I plan to publish a separate article on how to how to use OLFC datacenter. Follow me to Medium to get a notification when the article is ready.
Your geographic location is very important for this criterion.
If you are a product manager based in Mountain View, CA you need to compare your salary with product managers in Mountain View, CA. If you are a product manager based in Detroit, MI you need to compare your salary with product managers in Detriot, MI. If you are a product Manager based in Bangalore, India(yes, international locations work) you need to compare your salary with other product managers in Bangalore, India.
I am intentionally being repetitive above because your location is a very important component of comparative evidence. Spend time filtering data in your source by location and pick the data that makes your compensation stand out.
Use your job title to your advantage
As an immigrant on an H1B visa, your job title is mapped to SOC(specialty occupation code). for instance, many of product managers in tech are mapped to SOC code 11–2021 with SOC title of Marketing Managers. Each SOC job title is then segmented into four levels based on compensation offered to folks at various levels in the specialty occupation. The OLFC datacenter publishes this data and here is an example of SOC code marketing managers :
Now let’s say, you are a VP or Sr. Director of Product Management, you would typically be with compared to Level-4 wage in this case but if you are a mid-level PM, you might want to get into 90th percentile or above for Level-2,3 wages. You will be in a very good position if you are a Sr. Product Manager and already earning past Level-4 wages. I have come across several folks with Sr. Product Manager/ Principal title with W2s well past Level-4 wage. If you are in such a situation, you are already one step close to your green card.
Finally, the following is an excerpt of the salary criteria section from a winning case.
The name, job title and location changed to protect the privacy of the applicant.
Evidence that John Dutton Commands A High Salary
Mr. Dutton has a long and sustained pattern of being able to command a higher salary than other professionals in his field.
— Mr. Dutton received a higher-than-average salary at Ystone inc.
Mr.Dutton worked as Marketing Manager at YStone, Inc. in Billings, Montana. His salary of $XX was significantly higher than Marketing Manager Salaries in the Billings area, which was $78, 314 according to payscale.com.
Mr. Dutton not only earned a higher than average salary at Ystone, his total remuneration was also higher than the reported average. In support of this we are submitting following additional documents:
· Report from Payscale shows that average salary of Marketing Manager in Billings,MT is $78,314 and highest salary is $106,578. At $xxx,xxx Mr. Dutton salary was $xxx,xxx higher than average and $ xxx,xxx higher than highest reported salary.
· Report from Glassdoor shows that average salary of Marketing Manager in Billings,MT is $75,342 and highest salary is $112,958. At $xxx,xxx Mr. Dutton’s salary was $xxx,xxx higher than average and $xxx,xxx higher than highest reported salary.
· LinkedIn research shows that median base salary for marketing managers nationally is $70,000. Median Total compensation is $73,500. Mr. Dutton’s total compensation/remuneration was $xxx,xxx
<Similar evidence from Salary.com>
— Pay stubs from Ystone, Inc.
· Pay Date 07/29/2019
· Pay Date 07/15/2019
· Pay Date 06/17/2019
· Pay Date 06/03/2019
— — W-2s of year 2018 and 2019
· 2019 showing gross pay of $xxx,xxx
· 2019 showing pay from January 1st –August 15th
Based on the evidence presented above, which is objective and thoroughly documented, we believe it is more likely than not that Mr. Dutton has satisfied the requirement of 8 C.F. R. § 204.5 (h)(3)(ix).
— —
To sum up, to meet the high salary criterion for your EB1A green card, you need to methodically gather and present the right evidence. By doing so, you will take one step closer to obtaining your green card under the EB1A category.
Disclaimer. The content published in this article does not constitute legal advice. The information is based on publicly available sources, my personal experience, and insights from those I have advised. These articles aim to provide relevant information for pursuing an EB1A petition, whether independently or with an immigration attorney.