Before I start, I must credit Ashley Lim for her extremely detailed article on the H1B-1 process that you can find here. It was super helpful throughout my move to the US, and I strongly recommend that you take a look at that before reading through this article.
Background
I turn 28 this year, and before that, I was working at Adyen, a Dutch payments company which was absolutely fantastic. However, after 3.5 years at Adyen, I decided to take the plunge and do three things for the next step of my career.
- Join an early-stage startup that helps businesses scale customer support teams in a sustainable manner
- Work in HQ, and not a satellite office
- Build and contribute to cool products from scratch
As the story goes, I decided to accept a job offer from Assembled. It’s an amazing startup that solves the support problem. It helps businesses scale their customer support teams. What came with the offer, was also interesting. I had to relocate to the United States for this job. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity.
Visa
First things first, to get a visa, you’ll need a job offer from an employer in the United States. Singapore has a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US, which allows for us to have a special visa class, the H-1B1 (or HSC). It is a derivative of the H-1B visa (the default visa for all foreign professionals with non-immigrant intent). However, the key differences are:
- You don’t have to wait in the lottery (as of typing this, there aren’t too many Singaporeans going over on an H-1B1 visa each year — which means that there’s still a ton of space on this visa)
- You have to renew your visa every year (and that means coming back to Singapore and going to the embassy for a stamp)
- It’s only valid for 1.5 years, while the H-1B visa is valid for 3 years.
- It doesn’t have an upper bound when it comes to how often you want to renew it. The H-1B visa has a limit of 3 + 3 years (i.e you can only renew it twice before you have to apply for a green card (which is what the US refers to as permanent residency)
As they are both under the H-1B visa type, you are bound to your employer on this visa. It goes to say that if you plan to change jobs, you have to restart the entire visa process all over again. One thing to note, however, is that if you do plan to apply for a green card, you need to be on an H-1B visa, and not an H-1B1 visa.
In terms of obtaining the H-1B1 visa, it’s pretty quick. I went to the US Embassy with all my documents (provided via the lawyers and all), and got approved at the booth itself — it took almost 30 minutes (from arrival). They’ll send you the passport via mail, so don’t fret. There is an option to expedite the delivery if you need to get the visa in the same week, so just inform the officer at the booth. Ashley’s article has much more on the process, and I followed it to a T, so I’m not going to go through the application process here. NOTE: Don’t bring laptops/anything else with you into the security room — there are lockers in the waiting area, so make sure you use them. Also, keep in mind that you might need to bring $10 in cash to take a photo at the instant photo machine — just in case the officer doesn’t like your passport photograph.
Arrival
When I left for the US, I brought the visa documents with me (i.e the stack of papers that your immigration attorney (assigned by your company) will provide you with) — which should contain your transcript, diploma (degree scroll), and information about your job (LCA) and your company. They do recommend bringing your original documents, but that’s up to you. I brought photocopies instead!
Also, as it was during COVID, do bring your vaccination certificate (the Notarised one, and not the HealthHub cert — because they want to see the batch number for your vaccine dose) when verifying your vaccination status.
Upon arrival, the immigration officers generally aren’t aware of what a H-1B1 visa is, so you might be sent for further screening. If they ask you what class of visa you are on, try saying H-1B1 first, and if they don’t, say HSC. That’s their local code for the H-1B1 visa. I got whisked to a secondary inspection room, but that took a total of 1 hour before I got everything sorted and out of the airport.
They also have a strict customs policy on food, but it’s mainly for fruits, and other stuff. I brought chilli and pineapple tarts and was told by the customs officer that I didn’t have to declare it as it was fine. I’d recommend checking online just before you go. It’s definitely not as strict as Australia/NZ when it comes to food.
First Week
You’ll need to do a lot in your first week, so I’ll break down each item into bullet points.
- Find a house/temporary accommodation — it’s cheaper to do a long-term Airbnb rather than moving around week by week.
- Get your SSN (social security number). This one would require some planning in advance, so once you book your Airbnb/temporary accommodation, I recommend checking for a Social Security Administration office near your place of temporary residence and calling them maybe 1 week before you fly to schedule an appointment. They’ll need you to bring your SS-5 form (Social Security application form), as well as your passport, and your latest I-94 form. For me, I made the mistake of only scheduling it as I arrived — which made me pretty much a burden when it came to applying for things. The SSN is really important in the US, so I recommend you to get it done ASAP upon arrival. They’ll ask you for a mailing address to use — I’d recommend getting it sent to your office’s mailing address if you’re only going to be in your Airbnb for 2–3 weeks.
- Get your phone number. You don’t need any verification when you get a phone number aside from an e-mail, temporary address (to ship the SIM card to), and a phone. Singapore-issued cards will work when you pay for the SIM card, so don’t worry about that. I went with the AT&T Prepaid plan, but there are many other options for you, as well as the newer, MVNO plans such as Mint Mobile and Cricket (I’ve heard stories about deprioritization, but people have said that it doesn’t really inconvenience them). Also, be prepared that the US doesn’t naturally give out personal hotspot data for free, so you’ll have to pay an extra amount if you want to be able to use your hotspot.
- Get a bank account. Chase Bank is the preferred bank for most, and it can help you get set up really quick — even without a Social Security Number. If you don’t have one yet, just get your HR to write a formal letter (with a company logo and signature) and bring your passport and that letter to the bank. You don’t have to print it out.
- Make sure that you also download a credit report from Singapore before you arrive — some landlords might ask for this in place of your credit score in the US (since you won’t have a credit score in the US when you first move there). Also, they might require a 1.5-month deposit, or a 2-month deposit since you don’t have credit — so be mentally prepared for that.
- There’s going to be two forms you’ll have to fill up on your first day. The W-4 and I-9 forms are for tax purposes. You’ll need an SSN for this, which is why step 2 is the most important to get done. There are calculators for you to decide what tax allowances you want, but how it seems to work is that you can choose from 0–5 allowances, with 0 taking the most amount of money from your monthly salary, while 5 takes the least. However, keep in mind that while 5 takes the least from your monthly salary, during tax season, you would most probably have to pay more taxes to cover the larger monthly cheques. I’d suggest going with 0 or 1 as the allowances, but this is not tax advice.
- Download some useful apps for the US, such as Yelp, OpenTable, Affirm (if you are buying new furniture and need a BNPL provider), Chase, AT&T, Venmo (the US version of PayLah!), Uber, Lyft. Do note that a lot of these apps don’t exist on global app stores, so you need to change the region of your app. For iPhone users, you can do so by going to your profile picture in the App Store -> Settings -> Change Country/Region. Referral codes are all on the links of each app.
- Keep in mind that the US takes its address verification systems (AVS) very seriously. If you’re wondering what AVS means, it basically validates that the billing address that you enter on the checkout page matches what the bank has on record. This is only for US cards, so when you get your Chase debit card, you might be wondering why it’s always declined if you keep entering your Singaporean address into your billing address fields.
With that said, that’s pretty much what you can expect from the first week! Moving to the US is daunting, but I’m sure you’ll be back on your two feet in no time!