Advice needed on international project day rate

[BlasterBates]

I agree with the above don't try and get away with it. Enquire at the US Immigration Information service in the UK.

This is a 10 minute phone call.

[BlasterBates]

It isn't worth a try. The OP isn't a permanent employee of any UK company, and their own company doesn't count.

That may be the case but it doesn't state that in the text on the US immigration web page, so a 10 minute phone call would be worth while.

[WTFH]

I had a client who agreed to fly me home, or fly my wife out, every weekend. It was exhausting and their expenses took a hammering

[redgiant]

Yeah, that'll be productive work.

Sure, you could lie. Many before you have done that, I'm sure. Again, they can easily check these things, so I would highly, highly not recommend it, assuming you plan to visit the US again afterwards. Oh, and don't say things like "non-productive"

Better to just to do it remotely if at all possible.

I concur. I travel to/from the US frequently and the USCBP have a lot of information at their disposal at the border. It is likely you will need some evidence from your client of the nature of the meetings you are attending once you have made several trips across. You will perhaps need a trip into "secondary" to speak to the head of immigration at the port of entry if they have any suspicions.

My advice to the OP is to get the client to make as much as the work as possible remote via Slack etc. and they attend face to face meetings infrequently in NYC. That way you will have a life without being jet lagged frequently and also have the advantage in the UK of starting work before NYC and being fully up to speed by the time they have even had their first morning coffee!

[jameslmorgan]

All good and useful advice.

This is a project that needs me to be in the same room collaborating with small teams, so it simply can't be done remotely unfortunately. The minimum would be Mon-Wed in NYC (every week for at least 9 weeks, but up to 21 weeks if I want to work the second phase of project) and the rest of the time in the air/UK. But as one of you said, that is exhausting.

I don't think I would risk trying to get through the border with the 'just here for more meetings' reason, would rather do things properly. However sounds like chances of H-1B visa are zero for a project starting Sept 2nd.

[jamesbrown]

That may be the case but it doesn't state that in the text on the US immigration web page, so a 10 minute phone call would be worth while.

Well, I guess the OP can decide for themselves, but it doesn't matter whether they spend 10 minutes or one thousand minutes on a phone call, it's time wasted. The route is simply not intended for overseas contractors to work in the US. These boards would be full of people trying to contract in the US otherwise. There's no easy way to contract in the US without citizenship or a GC, but there is a relatively easy route for multinationals to move their non-US employees to the US for short periods (and that's pretty much universally true, not just in the US).

[jamesbrown]

I concur. I travel to/from the US frequently and the USCBP have a lot of information at their disposal at the border. It is likely you will need some evidence from your client of the nature of the meetings you are attending once you have made several trips across. You will perhaps need a trip into "secondary" to speak to the head of immigration at the port of entry if they have any suspicions.

My advice to the OP is to get the client to make as much as the work as possible remote via Slack etc. and they attend face to face meetings infrequently in NYC. That way you will have a life without being jet lagged frequently and also have the advantage in the UK of starting work before NYC and being fully up to speed by the time they have even had their first morning coffee!

Completely agree. You're unlikely to get additional scrutiny to begin with, but once they see a pattern, that scrutiny will probably come, and they're good at what they do.

[jameslmorgan]

There's no easy way to contract in the US without citizenship or a GC, but there is a relatively easy route for multinationals to move their non-US employees to the US for short periods (and that's pretty much universally true, not just in the US).

Very interesting. How do they do that for their non-US employees? This is a large multinational and my client is an employee so is likely going that route. This is possibly why she thinks I can just use ESTA as my route to work with them in NYC.

[jamesbrown]

I don't think I would risk trying to get through the border with the 'just here for more meetings' reason, would rather do things properly. However sounds like chances of H-1B visa are zero for a project starting Sept 2nd.

Yes, but not just because of the annual cap. An H-1B is intended for US companies to *employ* specialists from overseas that cannot be sourced locally (it isn't an especially high bar, but the point is that it's for employment). If you don't mind becoming an employee of your UK client, there may be a route (see above), but you'd need to speak with your client about that.

[redgiant]

I had a client who agreed to fly me home, or fly my wife out, every weekend. It was exhausting and their expenses took a hammering

Yes frequent travel to even the East Coast US is a pain even if someone else is paying! It's around eight hours out from London and six hours back (varies +/- 1 hour due to route and the weather/jet stream winds). Another factor to consider is the delays most days to/from JFK/EWR both in landing, taxing and getting through the airports that make Global Entry (it's open to UK passport holders now too) essential. This allows you to skip the long immigration queues at these airports by paying 75 GBP for the UK checks and then $100 for the US checks. Leaving the US Global Entry gets you TSA pre-approved which allows you to queue in a shorter line (although it can be longer depending on the time of day) not have to remove things from you case and keep you coat, belt and shoes on. Another big plus is not having to do star jumps in the body scanner as you use the metal detectors as the staff/crew do!

Oh for Concord to be back in the air again where you can do the trip in three hours each way. No delays in landing or taxing that bird either as it would have run out of fuel and/or annoyed the airport's neighbors for too long breaking the law