Indonesian H1-B wants to start a very small business with a US-Citizen partner

alamakan

New Member
Hi,

I'm currently on H1-B and want to build an online store business (to sell customized items). I have a US citizen partner.

My questions are:

1) Since it's a small store (with some small production site to facilitate custom orders), what are the best option? S Corp, C Corp, LLC, etc.? I don't think we'll ever have any stocks to release. I mean, it's a store after all....

2) Since we don't have a lot of capital to begin with, the only people working in the store would be just me and my partner (we will hire more employees once we have enough profit to do so). Is it okay not to invest a lot of capital to be eligible for me to run the business? If I'm not on payroll (only profit), is it okay? If not, what are the alternatives?

3) Is it better for me to drop the H1-B then change my status to get whatever type-of-visa in order to make this work? Or should I hold on into the H1-B?

4) Out all of the option available, which one is the best / most convenient to apply for green card? In terms of shortest-time, conveniency etc...

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
With H-1B you can be a passive investor who provides capital, but not an active participant in the business.

There really is no simple "whatever type of visa" that will allow you to actually work in the business. You basically have to get an EAD (which you can get if you have filed an I-485 to get a green card). In some cases the business itself could sponsor you for another H-1B, but that is rarely feasible until the business makes enough money to convince Immigration that it is a genuine business that can afford to pay you the prevailing wage. Or if you will invest at least a million dollars ($500K in certain circumstances) and hire at least 10 American employees you can qualify for an investor green card.
 
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