USCIS will Reject H1B Without Employer Primary US Office Address
USCIS will reject H1B applications without employer's primary US address. Third party client work location address is wrong in Part 1, Form I-129. Be careful.
USCIS will start rejecting H1B and other employment applications if your primary employer does not include their own address on the application starting Aug 5, 2019.
H1B petitioner’s or applicant’s name and primary U.S. office address in Part 1 of Form I-129 is mandatory now.
USCIS currently rejects Form I-129 for these reasons as and has added the primary employer address as new criteria:
- lack of signature,
- incorrect fees,
- or unauthorized third party signing on behalf of the petitioner.
Rejection here has a different meaning than denial and you should not be worried. H1B Rejection on the basis can be fixed by filing a new application after taking care of missing information and refilling the I-129 form.
Client Address on Form I-129
The primary U.S. office address in Part 1 of Form I-129 must not be the address of the third party clients or attorney.
This is important for people who work on third party client sites and may be using the client work location address on H1B or L1 visa application. Do not make a mistake while filling form I-129 and give USCIS another chance to reject your application.
Looks like third party IT consulting are looking forward to another level of scrutiny after the LCA change required end client name last year and now strictly enforcing the employer address on I-129.
It services companies like Cognizant, TCS and others already have very high rate of H1B and L visa denials.
The Instructions for Form I-129 state:
Petitioner Information
Complete the “Legal Name of Petitioner” field (if the petitioner is an individual person or a company or organization). For mailing address, list the address of the petitioner’s primary office within the United States.
In many instances, the petitioner’s or applicant’s primary U.S. office address will determine the filing jurisdiction.
Refile H1B after Rejection?
You can refile your H1B application including other L visa on Form I-129 that have been rejected by USCIS due to missing information.
USCIS refunds the filing fees if the application is rejected due to missing information.
Note that the new filing should be done according to rules and there are no grace period if your i94 has already expired.
Similarly, if your H1B lottery application is rejected due to wrong information, you stand a chance to lose your spot after USCIS has received a sufficient number of petitions projected as needed. Your application will not be accepted if USCIS has closed the lottery.
Source: USCIS News Release
