U.S. Visas That Don’t Require a Degree

Many U.S. visas require that you have a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree and that you are coming to work in the U.S. in the same field as what your degree is in. This is required for visas such as TN Visa, H-1b visa, or E-3. There are some exceptions for these categories where you can qualify through work experience in the relevant field as well, but generally you would need a degree. This blog post will discuss non-immigrant visa categories that don’t require a degree.

It is not required that you have a degree for an E-2 investor visa. It is helpful if you have an education in the field you are starting your E-2 company in/some sort of Business administration or management degree, but it is not required. We have had many applicants who don’t have any degree and who got their E-2 visa applications approved.

For the E-2 visa, we would generally want to point to some sort of previous work experience/education – if you have no previous education and no previous work experience, the government may argue that you will not be able to manage/run the E2 company since you have no previous expertise in any field. If you have any relevant courses/certifications, it’s always good to point to those (For example, if you are a yoga instructor and you are coming to the US to open a yoga studio, you would want to point to all of your previous teaching experience and your certifications, and if you have experience in running a yoga studio, point to that experience. If you never ran a yoga studio before, you would want to explain how you will be able to run the studio and if you will hire anyone to assist you with the financials, such as an accountant.

You can read more about theE-2 requirements here.

It is also not required that you have a degree for an E-1 treaty trader visa. Again, it is helpful if you have an Education or work experience in the field you are starting your E-2 company in, but it is not required. We have had many applicants who don’t have a degree and get their E-2 visa applications approved. Again, we would want to point to at least some relevant previous work experience in your E-1 visa petition.

You can read more about the E-1 requirements here.

It’s not necessarily required that you have a University degree for the L-1 visa. Most applicants applying for an L-1A visa will have some sort of degree but many applicants under the L-1b visa category will not have a degree. In both cases, it will be crucial to point to your previous relevant work experience though to explain how you qualify for the visa and how you will be able to manage or provide specialized knowledge to the US company.

For the L-1 visa you will need to demonstrate that you meet all the L-1 visa requirements such as showing that the US and foreign entity have qualifying relationship, both the US and foreign entity are doing business, you worked for the foreign entity for 1 continuous year in a managerial, executive, or specialized knowledge capacity, and you are coming to the US to work here in a managerial, executive, or specialized knowledge capacity.

There is no education requirement for an O-1 visa and you don’t have to have an education (some O-1 applicants do, but many applicants especially under the O1b artists category don’t). To get an O-1 petition approved though, you will need to demonstrate that you have an extraordinary ability in your particular field.

Please see our blog post on O-1 Questions & Answers blog post here .