Overview
Do you have plans for your employees to travel to the US for meetings or offsites? International employees traveling to the US for business may need a valid visa. Our visa team encourages employees to apply for visas as early as possible since wait times for visa appointments can be quite long; it could take up to a year in some countries.
As soon as you're aware of any upcoming business travel, please inform us so we can assist with the visa process.
Available options
There are two routes we can take for US business travel, and it primarily depends on the employee's nationality and where they are traveling from.
Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA)
The ESTA allows citizens/nationals of participating countries to travel to the US for business purposes. The application is very easy to complete and can be completed directly by the employee.
Business Visa (B-1)
For all non-participating countries, a B-1 business visa would be required to enter the US for business purposes (assuming they don’t already have one).
Process for B-1 visa application
We will contact the employee to collect all the required documents and file an online non-immigrant visa application. Once the application is submitted, we will schedule an interview at the local US Embassy in the home country.
Required documents are as follows:
Copy of passport, must be valid for at least 6 months and at least 2 blank pages.
In the case of dependents, a copy of their passports with the same above requirements
Copy of current/past US visas (if any).
Up-to-date CV/Resume, including the highest level of education.
Copy of job description.
Timeline
Once we contact the candidate, it should take approximately 1-2 weeks to gather all the documents and submit the application. The appointment however will depend solely on the Embassy's availability. This can vary from a few weeks to many months.
Fees
For more information about fees, please reach out to our Support team through Plane's in-app chat or email at support@plane.com. When reaching out, you can share the employee’s name and expected travel dates, and we’ll be happy to assist you further.