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The process of starting a new company can be intriguing - especially when you are not a permanent resident of the country. Visa issues take it’s toll but for those enterprising entrepreneurs that are still on say an H1-B visa in the US, it is still possible to start a company legally.

Here’s how.

Many visas are based on intent. You should not intend to stay here forever. Many of them like the popular H1-B and L1 visas are based on employment which restricts you from having interests or time dedicated to other tasks outside of your employer that sponsored you.

Method #1: Treat your business as an investment

If you treat your business as an investment and take a passive role, receiving profits from the business and spending time on the business outside of your regular work duties and hours without running the day-to-day management of the company, you will be fine. Hire someone else to run the business on a day-to-day basis.

Method #2: Partner up with other visa holders

There are ways in which a group of visa holders can partner up with one another thereby spreading the work to a small and manageable extent such that neither of you manage it fully but you all contribute. As long as you can show that you are still dedicated to your original employer, this method should work fine.

Method #3: Set up a company here in the US as a subsidiary to a foreign corporation and get an H1-B or L1 through it

This may be the riskiest but most effective method if you’d like to use all your time for your business because the other 2 methods do not provide you that luxury.

Set up a subsidiary of a foreign entity here in the US. You can incorporate it or not but you need to get a tax ID for the entity here. Then have that entity sponsor your H1B or L1 visa. Rules do not prohibit this person from being a founder or holding a majority stake in the entity. However, to get by with this method your entity must demonstrate viability to support this person’s employment. See a qualified accountant and attorney for this one for sure.

It’s all doable, don’t let a visa stop you!