Things to be done for H1B Visa Stamping in Nepal (Going from US To Nepal):
1. Fill up the form DS 160 form online:
Below are some of the points where I was confused while filing the form and might be helpful in future.
A. TAB: Personal, Address, Phone and Passport Informatio
i. You can use Nepal's Citizenship Number for the field 'National Identification Number'
ii. Fill the US SSN.
iii. U.S TaxPayer ID Number: DOES NOT APPLY
iv. Passport Book Number: DOES NOT APPLY
B. TAB: Travel information:
i. Purpose of Trip to US: Temporary Worker(H)
ii. Specify: SPECIALTY OCCUPATION (H1B)
iii. Application Receipt/Petition Number: Use the 13 alphanumeric number of your h1b case number.
iv. Have you made specific travel plans: NO
v. Intended Date of Arrival: Think wisely and mention a random likely date on which you will be flying to US.
vi. Intended Length of Stay in the US: Calculate how much time is remaining for your h1 to expire. I wrote 2 years based on mine.
vii. Other Persons Traveling with You: NO
viii. Are you applying the same type of visa? NO (assuming F1 --> H1)
ix. Have you been ten-printed?: YES (this means the biometrics, fingerprints that we did when we went to our F1 interview). Select YES if you remember doing it, otherwise NO. Also, regardless of Yes/No, they will again ask for your fingerprints at the time of the interview.
x. Has anyone ever filed an immigrant petition on your behalf with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services?: Select 'YES' if your company/attorney has filed an I-140 form for you (the 2nd step of GreenCard after Labor Certification).
C. U.S Contact Information
--You can use any. I used my company's HR.
Relationship to You: Employer
D. Work/ Education/ Training Information
i. Make sure the Present Employer Name matches whatever is in your I-797A approval Notice.
ii. Briefly describe your duties: I wrote 6 strong points here. Make sure you can defend whatever you write here.
iii. Start Date: I used my CPT Date as the Start Date for this. Please check with the attorney regarding this. Please ask them what was the date when they filed the H1B. Mine was CPT, so I used CPT. It could be OPT start date as well...depends on case by case.
iv. Were you previously employed?
-->If you worked before on a different company, please specify all the details.
-->Even if you had worked as a GA/TA/RA or whatever in your university, please specify it. I mentioned my GA here.
v. Schooling information:
Please mention everything. SLC, +2, Bachelors, Masters
vi. Have you travelled to any countries/regions within the last five years? YES (since you are going from US to Nepal for stamping)
E. You will be required to upload one photo for your application. The size and dimension of the photo is mentioned in the website. Please take your selfie accordingly.
F. Review everything twice/thrice.
--> I had initially submitted the application with a slight spelling mistake in the Company Name. So I had to edit my application again. Editing was not a painful task, though you will be getting a new Confirmation Number after you Edit it. So always review.
G. Print your DS 160 Confirmation (like you did for your F1)
2. Scheduling an appointment:
http://www.ustraveldocs.com/…/np-niv-appointmentschedule.asp
i. Register an account with your email.
ii. Fill up all your personal details. Make sure these details are consistent everywhere, like: DS 160 form, your passport.
iii. On the Petitioner Section, mention the Petitiioner's Name as whatever is mentioned in the I-797A Approval Notice doc. Also, the Start Date and Expiration Date refers to the H1B
's start/expiry date.
iv. For the MRV Payment of this appointment/interview ($190), there will be some link as you go on filing tab by tab. It will generate a deposit Slip. You have to print and take this Slip to the NIBL bank in Nepal. Since you're in US, you can ask your friend to pay it and save the receipt. In the bank, you have to fill up a form, you can ask Bank employee to do it. They will use CGI Reference Number, Visa Tier and such info from your deposit slip and give you the receipt of the payment (of course lol).
v. After few hours, login to the appointment website that i mentioned above and check. A popup might appear mentioning message like (Use Existing Receipts? You have 1 receipt(s) that can be used for this transaction. Click on Use Existing Receipt) Or if you don't see such message, On the payment window, you can use the receipt number that the bank gave you.
vi. Passport Pickup Place would be NIBL, Durbar Marg (assuming Kathmandu)
vii. Submit the application and you will get the Confirmation of your Appointment. Print this confirmation.
viii. Now, you can choose date whenever you feel like. You can also change your date.
Please browse through the website, it's easy.
3. Nepal:
Files that I carried at the time of the interview:
a. DS 160 Confirmation letter. (REQUIRED)
b. Appointment Confirmation letter. (REQUIRED)
c. MRV Appointment Payment Receipt. (REQUIRED)
d. I-797A Approval Notice (REQUIRED AND MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENT)
e. LCA (Labor Condition Application for Nonimmigrant workers) Document (Optional, but might be required at the port of entry, please carry)
f. Employment Letter (Required/Optional) mentioning your salary and when you joined/number of hours you work.
g. Offer Letter when you joined (Optional)
h. Last 3 months Paystub (Optional, but carry to be on the safe side)
i. Last 3 months of your Bank Statements (same as above)
j. All your W2 forms and tax returns (same as above)
k. All your F1 documents (Optional)
l. All your Academic Transkripts.
m. One passport sized photo (REQUIRED)
My interview lasted few mins:
ME: Good afternoon, how are you?
VO: Good. Please pass me your passport and the h1b document (I-797A).
VO: So what is your role in the company and what kind of duties do you normally do?
ME: xxx (make sure this is kind of consistent with whatever you had written on the DS 160 form)
VO: How did you find about this company?
ME: XXX referred me.
VO: Your relation to XXX.
ME: XXX
VO: When did XXX join the company?
ME: XXX date.
VO: Please read the pamphlet about knowing your h1b rights. We will review your case and email you if anything comes up.(This pamphlet is given by the Nepalese employee initially
while doing the biometrics.)
ME: Out of curiosity, so I suppose, I will be getting the passport in couple of days?
VO: We have some procedures to follow. But do not buy the return tickets yet.
After the interview is done, you can check your application status on the USCIS website. I forgot the link. But you can google.
You can check your application status by either mentioning DS 160 Application Number or login to the website where you took your Appointment and check for the Passport Info.
i. When i checked mine, I got a message 'Administrative Processing' with message like it could take days to weeks to months for processing that. It got me anxious. So I kept
checking every few hours.
ii. The next day, some afternoon, I saw the message changed to 'Issued' from the above message. Once you will see this message, you will also notice the Passport section on the
Appointment website will be changed to 'Ready for Pickup'.
iii. Lastly, you will get an email from them saying, your passport is ready for pickup.
iv. Go to NIBL Bank and get the passport. Carry an ID (Nepali Citizenship) plus Appointment confirmation letter to the bank, they will need that for verification.
Shram Swikriti:
Once you get a new H1B stamped Visa (Passport) from NIBL, you have to get permission from the Department of Foreign Employment (baideshik rojgar karyalaya). Their office is located near Soltee Hotel at Tahachal. We have to do this, otherwise, TIA won't allow us to fly from Nepal to US. This is the most frustrating/irritating part of this entire process.
While getting the passport stamped with h1b from the US Consulate is the main thing to be worried, this process of "Shram Swikriti" will make you mad at some phase. lol
Things to do:
a. Please ask your HR to send the employment letter attached in an email to below addresses:
i. dofe_qatar@dofe.gov.np (qatar might sound funny, but trust me the other emails cannot be trusted.)
ii. dofe_kath@dofe.gov.np
iii. info@dofe.gov.np
Important: The employment letter must include these:
i. Annual Salary/Monthly Salary (they prefer Monthly)
ii. Number of hours you work per day and per week.
iii. Number of Holidays you get
iv. When did you join
v. Role
If you don't have the above points clearly mentioned, you might have to ask your HR again to modify the letter. I had to do it which sucked since it was weekend at US.
b. Take Passport, two passport sized photos, the employment letter and go to the Shram Bibhag at Tahachal.
c. Now you will need to fill some form which can be found online. Along with that, you will need to have 2-3 years of life insurance and also need to pay some Revenue.
-->I was lazy and I asked a store owner nearby (there will be plenty of such dai/didis)
--> Form fill cost: 300
--> Insurance: 4000
--> Revenue (Rajaswa): 1500
They will do all the above for you.
d. If your company that you work for is found in the System's Database, then you don't need to register the company. But if not found, you will have to go to 13 number counter and
register two things:
i. Company Name as specified on the passport.
ii. Role in the company, as specified on the employment letter
Once it's registered, go back to the store. They will give you a final form with sticker attached and you have to now go to the counter 14.
e. At counter 14, he/she will check the email that your HR had sent to the above emails.
f. After above, go to counter 15, he will give you hardtime if you have minute mistakes somewhere, for example my employment letter didn't have all those info and i had to come
back again the next day. Once he approves it, he will stamp the DOFE sign on the Employment letter photocopies. Don't lose it.
g. Go to counter 16, some fingerprintings and go to the backside of the building.
h. The final step where you will be called with the Sticker on your passport mentioning Aprroved by the DOFE.
Now, I am still in Nepal, but at TIA while returning, We would need two things:
a. The stamped employment letter and
b. Shram Swikrit bhako passport.
I think this is it.
Hope this will be helpful in future.
Thanks
