A fiancé visa or marriage visa.
What's the difference?
Watch this video or learned.
Hello everybody.
Jacob Sapochnick here, Immigration Attorney based in San Diego, California.
We serve clients in all 50 states and around the world.
In this video we'll talk about the difference between a K-1 visa, a fiancé visa, and a
marriage visa.
So let's start by explaining briefly what is it K-1 fiancé visa.
So a fiancé visa is usually reserved for people that are engaged to U.S. citizens only.
You cannot be engaged to a green card holder because a fiancé visa only works with U.S.
citizens and it's reserved for people that cannot come to us with any other form… form
of visas but the K-1 visa.
And the purpose of their arrival to the U.S. would be to marry the U.S. citizen within
90 days.
If the plan is not to marry within 90 days, the K-1 visa is not going to work because
if the couple is not going to get married in three months, then the fiancé must return
to the home country.
And so it's useful sometimes for couples that are not sure yet if they want to file the
marriage case at the moment.
It's important if the fiancé wants to try life in the U.S. for a few months before they
get married.
But it's also important for people that are not able to get married abroad for many reasons.
And so, and sometimes people feel that a fiancé visa is a good way to do that because they
can come to the U.S., you know, try to live in the U.S. with the U.S. citizen for a few
months and then make a decision.
It's also important to understand that the fiancé visa can be sometimes quicker than
a marriage visa.
And marriage visa is reserved to green card holders that want to file an I-130 for their
spouses or for U.S. citizens that want immigrate their sponsor.
So it can be both for green card holders and U.S. citizens.
The difference is that if a green card holder files for the spouse, they're going to go
into a wait...into a waiting period subject by the visa bulletin because green card holders
cannot give immediate benefits to their spouse.
It may take a few years.
If it's a U.S. citizen, if the spouse is in the U.S., inside the U.S. as a tourist or
a student or any other visa, they can proceed to file for an adjustment of status and then
finish that process within six months or so.
If the…the spouse is overseas, the U.S. citizen spouse can file for an I-130, initiate
the process.
They go through a national visa center and eventually, the spouse will be in the U.S.
within a year or so.
It's slightly longer than fiancé visa, but it can be accomplished after marriage.
So again, the main difference between a fiancé, visa and marriage visa is that first of all,
for a fiancé visa, the couple, they don't have to be married.
They can start…they can initiate a process once they get engaged while the U.S. citizens
in the U.S. and the fiancé is overseas.
Therefore, he's saving some time.
That process can be quicker in many times.
The marriage visa is useful because once you finish that process, you arrive to the U.S.
with an immigrant visa and you get your green card right away.
When you come with a fiancé visa, once you're in the U.S. and you marry within 90 days,
you have to file for an adjustment of status, which adds another step of the process and
make it more expensive as well.
It really depends on the couple.
Some couples are more traditional.
They want to go through the fiancé route first.
They want to be able to come to the U.S.
They want to experience that life here.
They want to be able to test the relationship by living here together.
Sometimes, those couples, it's the first time they actually live together.
You know we have a… we have a client right now, a U.S. citizen and executive who's been
traveling to China back and forth and he met his fiancé over there and they never had
a chance to live together.
So there, for them, the fiancé visa was a perfect option because his fiancé arrived
to the U.S., we got them here, they live together for a few months and then they wanted to get
married, they got married and then we proceeded.
We get in their adjustment of status.
So, this is kind of the main difference within a fiancé visa and a marriage visa.
It really depends on the couple.
It really depends on the situation, but it's good to know that there is the option of doing
a fiancé visa before marriage and there's an option to file for a marriage visa once
you're already married and that we'll also have two options.
The spouse is overseas or if the spouse is in the U.S., the couple can proceed with adjustment
of status and finalize the green card inside the U.S.
This is a very common question that we get, so hopefully you understood the difference
between the K-1 fiancé visa and a marriage visa.
If you have any other questions, post them in the comments below or email them to me,
to jacob@h1b.biz and I'd be more than happy to answer them.
Let us know what other videos do you like to see, and I'll be happy to make them for
you and we'll see you in our next video.
Thanks for watching.