HOW to find H1B Visa Sponsors? 6 Options, Guide (2024)

If you plan to work in America, you need a work visa. There are many nonimmigrant visa types in the US, that give work authorization. As a majority of US work visa seekers are high-skilled, H1B Visa is the most popular of all of them. The biggest challenge many faces is how to find H1B Visa sponsoring companies that can file H1B visas on their behalf.

In this article, we will look at the five best options to find H1B visa sponsoring companies. If you are looking for an end-to-end process, read How to apply for H1B Visa – Various Steps, Process

If you are new to the H1B Visa process, you may read: Basics of H1B Visa, Commonly asked questions on H1B Visa

Your current Geographic location Importance to finding H1B Sponsor

Depending on where you are located, some of the options we discuss in this article may or may not work out. For example, finding an internship may not immediately help someone, who is outside of the US, get an immediate H1B sponsorship. We will highlight the same when we talk about each of the options.

Below are the five best ways to find H1B Visa sponsors if you plan to work in the US on an H1B visa. We will look at each of them in detail.

1. Use H1B Visa Sponsors Database
2. Find an internship at an H1B sponsoring company
3. Get a job at a global consulting company (MNCs)
4. Find a role at a boutique consulting company
5. Find a job at a Univerity or non-profit research organization

The simplest way to find an H1B sponsor is to look at the website H1BGrader.com, which has H1B Visa Sponsors Database. They have taken data from USCIS H1B Data Hub and H1B LCA data published by the US Department of Labor for public disclosure and nicely put up search options to find sponsors using the below options.

• You can search for H1B sponsors by company name, state, and city.
• You can browse the H1B companies list by H1B Job Titles, City, etc.
• You can view H1B Salaries by Company
• If you know the company, you can look at the LCAs’ details to see what kind of jobs they have filed H1Bs in the last ten years.

Based on your criteria, you can find the list of H1B sponsoring companies in a city or by job title of your interest and create a list. You can even use the Grade on H1BGrader.com to do the ranking.

Apply for a Job, ask for H1B sponsorship: Once you have the list of H1B sponsoring companies, the next step is to apply for a job at that company or reach out to anyone who works in that company to plan for the next steps. Once you find a job, then ask them to sponsor for H1B Visa, when the H1B registration process starts.

Below is a screenshot of how the H1BGrader.com search looks like, you have options to choose the right tab and search by job title or city as well.

Option 2: Start with Internship, Progress to H1B visa

The option of an internship is very logical for F1 visa students who are studying in the US in a degree program and plan to graduate soon. Depending on where you are living and studying, you could fall into one of the two options below

• Studying in the USA: If you are living and studying in America on an F1 visa, you get options such as CPT, OPT, and STEM OPT to work and gain some practical experience. This is nothing but internship time. You can find an internship at a company that offers H1B sponsorship and prove your value so that they offer you a full-time job. Once they offer you a full-time job, you can ask them to sponsor you with an H1-B Visa. You can validate or verify if a company sponsors H1B by checking H1BGrader.com
• Studying outside of USA: If you are not in America and studying in your home country, then also you can try to find an internship at a company that has US Operations and employees. If they have US operations, they are likely to have international workers as well. You can check H1BGrader to find out if the company sponsors H1B visas in the US. If so, you can find an internship at that company and then do well to convert that to full-time job. Eventually, in a year or two, you can request them to sponsor an H1B visa and move you to work in the US.

You can use the above-listed Option 1 method to create a list of H1B sponsoring companies and then go after them to find internships at those companies. When you find an internship or co-op at a company that can sponsor an H1B visa, you need to make sure that the company that you pick up the internship from is willing to sponsor an H1B visa at some point for you after graduation.

Note: You do not have to confuse or scare the companies with your H1B visa requests when applying for an internship. You can give a hint at the final stages of internships, asking if they plan to sponsor H1B for anyone who becomes a full-time employee in the future after the internship.

Option 3: Find Jobs at Global Consulting Companies

Global Consulting companies like TCS, WIPRO, Infosys, Accenture, etc. have a large workforce that works on H1B visas. These are multinational companies(MNCs) that have various kinds of roles ranging from IT roles to accounting. Usually, if you are based outside of the US and plan to work in the US, working for these companies could be your best bet.

If you are outside of the US, you can apply for a job at any of these large global consulting companies like TCS, WIPRO, Infosys, etc., and make sure you negotiate about the H1B Visa sponsorship when you take the offer. Some say they can do it in one year or two years. Some may say they cannot. You need to validate and get some commitment from the manager on this before you join.

Joining outsourcing companies without a commitment from the manager is going to be difficult because, internally, there would be a very long queue of employees waiting for H1B Visa sponsorship.

Option 4: Boutique Consulting Companies in USA

Thousands of boutique consulting companies outside of the US have US operations. They hire people outside of the US and bring them to the US to work on their projects. These are not big outsourcing firms, but rather small companies with limited resources and people. Many of these companies are focused on some industry verticals or some specific areas, where large players do not operate.

You need to find some of these specific boutique IT consulting companies in your home country or in the US that can sponsor your H1B visa. You can also use H1BGrader.com to find such small Boutique Consulting companies as well and contact them.

Issues with IT Bodyshops, Chances for Fraud

When you are working with small Boutique Consulting companies, there is a chance for you to stumble upon IT Bodyshops, where there is a chance for fraud. You need to be very careful when you work with these kinds of companies.

• With the H1B Visa rules changes over the years, it has become very difficult to find small companies with a credible background to sponsor H1B visas. You would need to have personal connections in small companies to evaluate their profile and pick up a role.
• There are many small IT Bodyshop companies that take money from you and claim that they will sponsor H1B Visa. You will need to be very careful with such companies as legally you should NOT pay for your H1B visa filing fee or expenses.
• Avoid H1B fraud companies as listed by the US Dept of Labor
• One way to avoid fraud is by talking to close your network of people both in your home country and USA.
• You would see lots of people posting contact info on the blog or Facebook groups telling them they will help you with sponsors and everything, be careful! DO NOT share your information publicly. USCIS is very careful screening small-size companies, make sure the company you pick has a good background by verifying our H1B Visa Database like H1BGrader.

We at RedBus2US.com do NOT sponsor H1Bs. We are NOT associated with any large or small company. We are a community-driven blog educating students and professionals and do not do any H1B sponsorship. We are not associated with anyone who sponsors H1Bs. Be careful when someone uses our name.

Option 5: Find Jobs at US Universities, Cap Exempt H1Bs

Another great way to work in America on H1-B Visa is to find a job at a non-profit research institution or a University. Typically, most non-profit higher education institutions do not fall under H1B Visa annual cap restrictions, so they are free to sponsor anyone as long as they have a job and believe that you are the right candidate. The H1B sponsored by such Universities or non-profit research institutions is called cap-exempt H1B.

As you would be considered cap-exempt as you do not have to go through the H1B visa cap quota, which has a set limit of 85,000 H1B visas per year. It is a great option for anyone on an H4 visa or F1 Visa if you like to work at a school. You got to be careful here, if you miss the cap start date in April and join a University, then you would need to wait until next year for moving out to a regular company, so be careful!

The biggest caveat is that you cannot transfer your cap-exempt H1B to any other regular company that is subject to an annual H1B cap. Example: If you get an H1B visa sponsoredat a university under cap-exempt, you cannot transfer it to companies such as Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon, etc.

Option 6: Apply for jobs at companies that sponsored H1Bs in the past

One of the best options is to apply for jobs at companies that previously sponsored H1B Visas. You can install the Chrome Extension for H1B Sponsor Checker by H1BGrader and search for jobs on websites such as LinkedIn or Indeed. The extension will automatically show directly on the job search website if a company has sponsored for H1B or not. Also, the extension will let you see the company’s full H1B approvals history, salaries, and Green Card info as well. It looks like in the screenshot below. You can read more about the H1B Sponsor Checker Extension on H1BGrader.com

H1B Sponsor Checker Extension by H1BGrader Showing Sponsor Info

What are other ways to find H1B Visa Sponsors? Any other ideas?