Your Employee Keeps Asking for U.S. Visa Updates. Here Is What HR Needs First

Your UK business has already established a U.S. presence. But in order to take advantage of new opportunities there, it is important to expedite the transfer of a specialist to spearhead a new initiative. An employee has been chosen, and now, not only has that individual been asking for confirmation of the timing, but your U.S. team members are also on Slack asking for transfer details.

While you feel pressured to provide answers, reality is you are not yet in a position to promise that the transfer can actually happen. Until you know the assumed timeline is actually achievable, you cannot make any credible promises to your U.S. team, to Human Resources or to the employee.

There are things you need to confirm before you can credibly promise a U.S. start date. No mere legal trivia, these are facts about your business and your employee that determine whether any visa route is open, how long the process is realistically likely to take, and what it will cost. In short, you need to know what you can promise, and what you should not.

At a glance: Before you give your U.S. team a transfer date, confirm these five things: first, whether there is a qualifying corporate relationship between the UK or Irish entity and the U.S. entity. Second, whether the employee has the required qualifying employment history with your group. Third, whether the employee’s nationality opens or closes treaty-based routes such as E-1 or E-2. Fourth, what the realistic timeline is once USCIS processing, possible RFEs, and a U.S. consular interview are considered. Fifth, what the transfer will actually cost, including government fees, legal fees, premium processing where available, and any supplemental payments that may apply to certain H-1B petitions. These answers determine what you can credibly promise before anyone commits to a U.S. start date.

Why this conversation cannot wait

The cost of giving a date that does not hold is more than a delayed start: your credibility is on the line. Not only will there be an unsettled employee, your U.S. team, realising their head office is operating on mere assumptions, will lose confidence. Will the transfer end up involving a different person? A different role? Shelved altogether?

Three important considerations

1. Avoid the “default mistake” offering a soft date (“end of Q2”, “by the start of the financial year”, “in a few months”) based on what feels reasonable, rather than on what a specialist has confirmed is achievable. “Soft dates” tend to “harden” internally, with your U.S. team, the employee, and the employee’s family all planning around it. By the time that date is tested against actual visa timelines, costs become much higher.
2. The visa route you’ll end up with is not always the one you assumed. Any one of several factors: nationality, corporate structure, the employee’s employment history, the specific role being created, can rule out the most obvious options before anyone files anything.
3. In 2026, the cost of being wrong about an immigration route becomes materially higher than in former years. The Presidential Proclamation issued on 19 September 2025 introduced a $100,000 supplemental payment applying to certain new H-1B petitions filed on or after 21 September 2025 for beneficiaries outside the United States. That single change has rewritten the cost-benefit calculation for many UK-to-U.S. transfers. That salient change has yet to catch up to most internal HR conversations.

None of these considerations constitutes a reason to panic. They are pointers to preserve internal credibility, planning continuity, and cost discipline, simply reasons to do the work in the right order: confirm, then commit.

Five things to sort out before giving a date

1. The corporate relationship between the UK/Irish entity and the U.S. entity

What the question actually is:

Is there a qualifying corporate relationship between your UK or Irish company and your U.S. company? Specifically, is the U.S. entity a parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate of the UK/Irish entity? Are both entities actually doing business?

Why it matters:

• The L-1 Intracompany Transferee visa, which is the most common route for transferring a senior or specialised employee from the UK or Ireland to a US office, requires a qualifying corporate relationship between the sending entity and the receiving entity. The qualifying relationship categories are parent, branch, subsidiary, or affiliate, collectively referred to by USCIS as “qualifying organisations”. A loose commercial agreement, a joint venture without common ownership, or a U.S. distributor that happens to use your brand will not meet the test.
• Common ownership or control between the two entities is part of what USCIS examines. Ownership documentation, organisational charts, and evidence of how the entities are linked all become part of the petition.
• Both entities must be actively doing business, defined by USCIS as the regular, systematic, and continuous provision of goods or services. A U.S. entity that exists on paper but has no commercial activity will not satisfy the test, and recently incorporated US entities are scrutinised closely. If your U.S. presence is a recently registered shell rather than an operating business, the route narrows to the L-1 “new office” rules, which carry a one-year initial approval period and tighter evidentiary requirements at extension.

What the CEO should do:

Confirm in writing – with a director, a corporate lawyer, or a company secretary – exactly how the UK/Irish entity and the U.S. entity are related, who owns each, and what each is actually doing commercially. “I think it’s a subsidiary” is not enough. The lawyer will ask for ownership documents, financials, and evidence of operations. Knowing the answers before the first call is what turns a 90-minute consultation into 30 minutes of useful advice.

2. The employee’s qualifying employment history with your group

What the question actually is:

Has your employee worked for the UK/Irish entity (or another qualifying organisation in your group) for at least one continuous year out of the three years immediately before the L-1 petition is filed, in a managerial, executive, or specialised knowledge capacity?

Why it matters:

• This is the L-1 “one in three” rule, and it is the single most common reason a transfer that everyone assumed would work turns out not to. A senior hire who joined your UK business eight months ago and is now needed in the US does not yet meet the requirement. An employee who took a six-month sabbatical or moved to a non-qualifying entity inside that three-year window may have broken continuity.
• The qualifying year must have been in a role USCIS recognises as managerial, executive, or, for the L-1B, specialised knowledge. An employee who was an individual contributor abroad and is being transferred into a U.S. managerial role does not satisfy the requirement on the strength of the future role alone. The prior role itself has to qualify.
• If the company is opening a new U.S. office and sending someone to set it up, additional rules apply: the L-1A “new office” route caps the initial stay at one year, and the company must show at extension that the office is operational and that the transferred executive or manager is actually performing in that capacity rather than doing hands-on operational work.
• If the L-1 is not available because the one-year requirement is not met, alternative routes, including the E-2 Treaty Investor visa where the nationality and ownership tests are met, may exist, but they require their own analysis. They are not interchangeable with the L-1.

What the CEO should do:

Pull the employee’s start date with the qualifying organisation, their role history for the past three years, and any gaps or moves between group entities. A specialist will ask for this within the first ten minutes of a serious consultation. If the answer is anywhere close to the one-year line, or if the prior role is not obviously managerial, executive, or specialised, assume it is a real question and prepare to discuss alternatives.

3. The employee’s nationality, and whether it opens or closes treaty routes

What the question actually is:

What is the employee’s nationality, and does it qualify them for any of the treaty-based US visa categories, particularly the E-1 Treaty Trader and E-2 Treaty Investor visas, that may be alternatives or complements to the L-1?

Why it matters:

• The L-1 visa has no nationality requirement. The employee can be of any nationality, provided the corporate relationship and employment history tests are met. This is one of the L-1’s structural advantages.
• The E-1 and E-2 visas, by contrast, are nationality-restricted. They are available only to nationals of countries that have a qualifying treaty of commerce and navigation, or a bilateral investment treaty, with the United States. Ireland, for example, has had a qualifying E-1 and E-2 treaty relationship with the U.S., which makes Irish nationals, including dual nationals, eligible to consider these routes. The United Kingdom has an E-1 and E-2 treaty relationship as well, but UK treaty eligibility has specific nationality and domicile limitations. That should be checked carefully, especially where dual nationality or Commonwealth nationality is involved.
• The UK E-2 carries one important nuance not shared by the Ireland E-2: under the terms of the 1815 treaty on which it rests, UK nationals must be resident in the United Kingdom at the time of the E-2 application. For a dual UK-Irish national living outside the UK, this often makes the Irish treaty the cleaner route provided the company’s ownership structure satisfies the Irish nationality test.
• For the E-1 and E-2 visas, the nationality test applies both to the individual employee and to the ownership of the company sponsoring them. Generally, the company must be majority-owned by nationals of the same treaty country as the employee. This is a structural test, not a procedural one; if the ownership does not match the nationality, the route is closed regardless of how strong the rest of the case is.
• Knowing the nationality answer early matters because it changes the strategic options, not just the form-filling. An employee who qualifies for both an L-1 and an E-2 may have a stronger long-term position than an employee who only has the L-1 available, particularly for executives who are likely to remain in the US beyond the L-1A’s seven-year maximum.

What the CEO should do:

Confirm the employee’s nationality (or nationalities as many UK and Irish executives hold more than one passport), and confirm the nationality of the controlling owners of the UK/Irish entity. Bring both to the consultation. If the employee is a dual national or holds a passport from a country with a qualifying treaty, that fact may open routes that the L-1 alone would not.

4. The realistic timeline, and why it almost never matches the internal one

What the question actually is:

Once a viable visa route is identified, how long will the full process take from petition filing to the employee actually starting work in the U.S., including USCIS adjudication, any Request for Evidence, and a U.S. consular interview at the London Embassy?

Why it matters:

• USCIS standard adjudication times for L-1 petitions vary by service centre and current volume, and they shift with little notice. Premium processing is available for the L-1 category and guarantees an initial USCIS response within 15 business days of receipt of the premium processing request, for an additional government fee. An “initial response” is not the same as an approval; it can be an approval, a denial, or a Request for Evidence (RFE) that restarts the clock until the RFE response is adjudicated.
• After USCIS approval, the employee, if outside the United States, must attend a visa interview at a U.S. consulate to obtain the visa stamp in their passport before travelling. For UK-based employees this typically means the U.S. Embassy in London. Wait times for non-immigrant visa interviews at London for work categories such as L, H, O, and E are typically several weeks and can extend longer during peak periods. For Ireland-based employees, the interview will normally be at the U.S. Embassy in Dublin, which has its own wait time profile.
• After the interview, the consular officer may issue the visa, refuse it, or refuse it under INA 221(g) while additional documents or administrative processing are required. Administrative processing can add time after the interview, and there is no guaranteed resolution date.
• For cap-subject H-1Bs, the employer generally must first register during USCIS’s annual H-1B registration period. Only selected registrations can move to petition filing, and the employment start date is tied to the relevant fiscal year. That makes H-1B a poor fit for most urgent transfers.

What the CEO should do:

Do not give a U.S. start date internally until a specialist has confirmed that at least one viable route can realistically meet it. If the date is already promised, say so on the first call. There may be ways to compress the timeline (premium processing, careful petition strategy, expedited consular appointment requests where genuinely available), but only if the lawyer knows the constraint from the beginning.

5. The actual cost, including the changes that have happened since 2024

What the question actually is:

What will this transfer cost the company in government fees, legal fees, and any supplemental payments, and how does that total change depending on the route?

Why it matters:

• The most consequential cost change for UK and Irish employers in recent years is the Presidential Proclamation “Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers”, issued on 19 September 2025 and effective from 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time on 21 September 2025. The Proclamation requires a $100,000 payment to accompany certain new H-1B petitions submitted after 12:01 a.m. Eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025. Current government guidance states that it does not apply to H-1B petitions submitted before that time, previously issued H-1B visas, H-1B renewals, or travel by current H-1B visa holders. USCIS guidance issued on 20 October 2025 clarified the scope: the payment generally does not apply to extensions, amendments, or change-of-status petitions for individuals already in the United States and granted such requests. The The Proclamation has been challenged in federal court. As of this writing, a district court has upheld it, but an appeal has been filed. Companies should therefore treat the $100,000 payment as the current operating rule, while understanding that the legal position may continue to move.
• For a UK or Irish company that had been planning an H-1B route for a transfer of a beneficiary outside the US, that single change can shift the total cost of the route into six figures of supplemental payment alone before legal fees, government filing fees, and premium processing. For a great many UK-to-U.S. transfers, the L-1 (where the corporate relationship and employment history support it) or the E-2 (where nationality and ownership support it) are now meaningfully more cost-effective routes.
• The L-1 itself carries government filing fees, an additional fraud detection and prevention fee, and (for some employers) the Public Law 114-113 fee that applies to L-1 and H-1B petitioners with 50 or more U.S. employees where more than 50% of U.S.-based employees hold L-1 or H-1B status. Premium processing is available for eligible L-1 petitions and is optional. For L-1A and L-1B Form I-129 petitions, the premium processing fee increased from $2,805 to $2,965 for requests postmarked on or after March 1, 2026. Premium processing can speed up the USCIS response, but it does not guarantee approval. Legal fees vary by firm and by complexity. The point is that any cost estimate that does not reflect both route and current government fees is unreliable.
• Cost predictability is one of the things UK and Irish corporate clients consistently say they value most. The lawyer who quotes a number without first confirming the route is not giving cost predictability; they are giving a guess.

What the CEO should do:

Do not commit to a budget for the transfer until the route is confirmed. Ask the lawyer for a written cost estimate that breaks down government fees, the supplemental payment if applicable, legal fees, and any optional acceleration costs. If the firm cannot give that breakdown clearly, that is a useful signal.

How to run this internally before the first lawyer call

• Before the call: gather the four facts that determine which routes are even viable, the employee’s nationality (and any second nationality), the ownership structure of your UK/Irish and US entities, the employee’s continuous employment history with the qualifying organisation for the past three years and the role they held during that time, and what the employee will actually do in the U.S.
• Treat this as a CEO-level conversation, not an HR-level one, at least for the first call. The HR director or head of people is essential and will run the process, but the route decision interacts with commercial strategy (how long do you want this person in the U.S., do you want them to stay permanently, does the role need to evolve), and that is a CEO conversation.
• Do not announce the US start date internally until a specialist has confirmed that at least one viable route can meet it. If you have already announced a date, say so honestly on the first call. A good lawyer would much rather know about an internal commitment up front than discover it three weeks in.
• Bring the harder questions to the table early. “Can the employee’s family come?” For L and E categories, dependent spouses are work-authorised incident to status, with an I-94 annotation (L-2S, E-1S, E-2S) serving as evidence of work authorisation. “What happens after the L-1A’s seven-year maximum?” The EB-1C immigrant category for multinational managers and executives is the natural pathway, but it has its own tests. These are legitimate, common questions; they are not edge cases.

Why this is sharper in 2026

• The H-1B Presidential Proclamation of 19 September 2025 is the single most consequential change to U.S. business immigration cost for UK and Irish employers in the past decade. CEOs who have not refreshed their assumptions since 2023 or 2024 are operating with out-of-date cost expectations.
• USCIS adjudication timelines remain unpredictable and have been moving under significant policy and operational pressure. What was a reasonably stable L-1 timeline two years ago may not behave the same way today. The right answer is not panic; it is to plan with current data and to use premium processing strategically where the timing matters.
• The Proclamation is in place for 12 months from its effective date and is the subject of pending federal litigation. The facts may move. CEOs who treat US visa strategy as a static, once-a-year exercise are absorbing more risk than they realise. Specialist counsel that monitors the changes is no longer optional for companies moving people regularly.
• The good news for UK and Ireland-based businesses is that the structural advantages remain. The L-1 has no annual cap and no nationality requirement. The E-2 is open to UK and Irish nationals where the ownership structure supports it. Treaty-based and intracompany routes are exactly the kind of routes that benefit from being well-prepared and well-evidenced, which is what specialist counsel adds.

A note for the CEO doing this for the first time

• If this is the first U.S. transfer your business has had to manage, the things you do not yet know are not failings. They are simply the things that experienced corporate counsel exists to translate. The CEOs who get this right are not the ones who become amateur immigration experts, they are the ones who know what to ask and who to ask.
• The fact that you are reading this before answering your U.S. team is the right instinct. Most CEOs reply first and check the facts second. That is the order that creates the problems this article is designed to prevent.
• Specialist counsel will tell you what is realistic and what is not. The lawyer worth working with is the one who tells you the answer you need to hear, not the answer you walked in hoping for.

What to do next

The questions your U.S. team is asking deserve real answers, not hopeful estimates. The five facts (the corporate relationship, the employee’s employment history, nationality, timeline, and cost) will determine the answer.

Confirm the facts before you commit, and the rest of the process becomes manageable. Get them wrong, and the cost lands on the business, the employee, and your own credibility.

This post is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice. If you require further assistance or advice relating to the above, please contact janice@flynnhodkinson.com.