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Visas

The Office of Academic Personnel (OAP) and UW Human Resources (UWHR) are collaborating on visa sponsorship for staff positions. For more information, click here.

Overview

The University of Washington hosts hundreds of faculty and other academic personnel from around the world each year. These individuals are collectively referred to as “international scholars.”

International scholars engage in a variety of teaching and research activities but are not enrolled as students at the UW or abroad. They hold a UW appointment and generally require a temporary, non-immigrant visa to enter the U.S.

International Scholars Operations (ISO) processes requests for visa sponsorship, provides training and guidance to UW academic units, and supports international scholars in compliance with their visas.

For questions about visas, including relevant academic appointments, contact the ISO team.

Campus departments that sponsor international scholars for visas undertake several obligations. These include, but are not limited to:

  • Assigning the international scholar a UW appointment title that is appropriate for the intended activity
  • Documenting that the scholar is fully qualified to participate in the proposed activity
  • Completing visa sponsorship paperwork (UW J and UW H Visa Request Forms)
  • Advising the scholar, before and after arrival in Seattle, of the services and facilities (e.g., housing, insurance, office or lab space) available
  • Emailing acadvisa@uw.edu in advance of changes in the scholar’s start or end date, financial support, appointment title, percent of FTE, worksite location and the like

 

 

Visa-related news and announcements


  • Staff visa sponsorship program becomes part of regular operations

    July 19, 2024

    We are pleased to provide an update on the pilot program developed by the Office of Academic Personnel (OAP) and UW Human Resources (UWHR) to allow units to sponsor staff for H-1B, E-3 and TN visas. OAP and UWHR have worked closely over the last 12 months to make this program a success and we…

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  • USCIS Fee Change Announcement

    March 13, 2024

    UPDATE to USCIS Fee Change Announcement (03/21/2024) U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has clarified its new filing fee structure to confirm that UW and other state higher education institutions are subject to the lower fees for non-profits. This means that filing fees for UW H-1B petitions will not change as of April 1, 2024.…

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  • November 3 visa request tool update

    November 2, 2023

    On Friday, November 3rd from 5-10pm there will be a scheduled outage while OAP updates our visa request tool. During this time the visa request forms, including landing pages and drafts, will be inaccessible.

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