What is visa support?

Visa support refers to services and resources individuals, agencies, and organizations provide to help applicants obtain visas for immigration, work, or travel.

For organizations, visa support streamlines talent acquisition and global expansion by helping job applicants navigate the complexities of visa application.
These complexities include:

• Eligibility checks
• Document and evidence preparation
• Fee payments
• Immigration interviews, and
• Travel

How does visa support help my business?

Visa support grows your global talent mobility.

Visa applications, especially for work, are complex. Every country has unique labor and immigration laws that dictate how, when, and if foreign nationals can work legally within its borders. Depending on the country, job applicants may face red tape and bureaucracy regarding forms, fees, and information requests.

Immigration laws are also always changing.

Visa support facilitates the application process, increasing the chances of a job applicant getting approved for a visa. It reduces the number of mistakes they might make, especially as first-time applicants, and makes the visa application process shorter and less stressful.

Thus, visa support makes it easier for you to:

• Attract and retain global talent
• Provide employee stability and immigration security
• Onboard immigrant and nonimmigrant hires faster
• Relocate top talent to global branches
• Host remote workers on-site and hire contractors for special projects

Free resource: Expert insights from Deel’s hiring summit on going global in 2025

When would I need to offer visa support?

You may need to offer visa support to potential and current employees if:

• you want to hire specialized talent from a foreign country
• you want to relocate an employee to a foreign country
• you wish to convert a remote digital nomad or independent contractor into a full-time employee

By supporting global mobility, visa support boosts your employee value proposition (EVP) and increases talent recruitment effectiveness.

It also helps you create more inclusive and diverse teams by making you accessible to job applicants from different backgrounds.

Is visa support a function of HR?

Yes. Because your HR team handles talent recruitment, onboarding, and support, it is also responsible for your company’s visa support policies.

When hiring foreign talent, HR can help you:

• Find, interview, and recruit suitable applicants
• Conduct visa eligibility checks for successful candidates
• Help candidates prepare their documents and visa applications
• Prepare visa applicants for immigration interviews
• Liaise with immigration offices on behalf of visa applicants
• Track visa application statuses
• Onboard visa-approved employees

Once you hire an immigrant or nonimmigrant worker, HR may also:

• Store their employee visas
• Monitor immigration and labor law changes and adjust your visa support policies for compliance
• Track visa expiration dates and initiate visa renewals

What kind of visas require visa support?

Visa support is helpful in any visa application. More commonly, however, agencies and organizations offer visa support for:

Employment-based visas

Employment-based visas are permits that allow foreign nationals to enter and live in a country for work. Employers sponsor and pay for employment visas to hire foreign nationals with exceptional gifts, high qualifications, and specialized skills otherwise unavailable in their countries.

In the US, employment-based or EB visas include the:

• EB-1 Visa (EB-1A, EB-1B, EB-1C) – Extraordinary abilities
• EB-2 Visa – Advanced degree or exceptional ability
• EB-3 Visa – Skilled, professional, and unskilled workers
• EB-4 Visa – Special immigrants
• EB-5 Visa – Foreign investors

Elsewhere, popular employment visa categories include:

• Tier 2 Visa and HPI Visa (United Kingdom)
• EU Blue Card
• 457 Visa (Australia)
• ICT Visa (Canada)

Work permits

A work permit grants a foreign national the right to work in a specific country.

In most jurisdictions, work permits go hand in hand with employment-based visas as requirements for legal employment.

As an employer sponsoring a work visa for a foreign worker, you must also help them acquire a work permit so they can legally work in the host country.

See: How to get a US work visa for a foreign worker

Dependent visas

You may also extend visa support to a foreign worker's family and dependents. This service allows an employee's spouse and kids to join them in the host country and includes eligibility checks and dependent visa applications.

Residency visas

A nonimmigrant employee may decide to reside in the host country permanently. If this aligns with your company goals, you may support their application for permanent residence. This process is very similar to the initial application.

How does visa support impact employee loyalty?

Visa support gives employees job security and adds to their global mobility.

By supporting their legal stay in a host country, this service gives them the peace of mind necessary to perform their work duties without worrying about immigration officials and deportations.

Legal immigrant or nonimmigrant workers also enjoy more access to crucial services, such as:

• Healthcare
• Law enforcement and litigation
• Travel
• Housing

This access and the ability to reconnect with their families (through dependent visas) add to a foreign hire's job satisfaction and loyalty to your company.

See also: How to boost employee retention with strategic global mobility programs

Should I provide visa support for remote workers?

It depends. If the job you are hiring for is fully remote, you don't need to provide remote work visa support.

However, if it is hybrid or you need them to be on-site for some projects, provide visa support to facilitate their travel to your home country.

What does visa support entail?

The type of visa support you offer foreign employees depends on the type of visa they need, your budget, and your goals for growth.
The typical visa support process includes:
Eligibility assessment
All visa applicants must meet specific requirements to be eligible for a work, dependent, or residency visa. Common visa eligibility requirements cover:

• Age (some countries place age caps on work visas)
• Qualifications (such as degrees and professional licenses)
• Work experience
• Skill level (some work visas are specifically for unskilled workers)
• Country of origin (some countries place visa restrictions on some nationalities)
• Criminal background

To begin the process, help your candidate:

• Determine the visa they are most eligible for
• Check if they qualify for the visa
• Gather documentation and proof of their eligibility

Document preparation

Once you pick a visa type and determine eligibility, create a strong visa application. This task includes preparing necessary documentation such as:

• Identification documents
• An official job offer or contract from an eligible employer in the host country
• Financial statements
• Potential background checks

Most visas have other documentation requirements that apply to a specific visa category. Meet all these requirements to increase your chances of visa approval.

Application and tracking

After preparing all the visa application documents, submit or help your candidate submit them to the relevant immigration authorities.

In the US, that is the Department of State of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

Check the application for errors and missing information before submitting it to avoid delays and denials. You may need to pay an application fee.

Immigration advice and liaising

If the application is complete, immigration authorities may schedule an interview or meeting with the applicant to clarify details, request additional information, and address possible questions.

While you cannot attend these interviews on your candidate’s behalf, prepare them and offer advice to help the process go as smoothly as possible.

Post-approval support

If the visa is approved, continue to offer visa support to help your new employee transition into the host country and maintain their visa status.

This part of the visa support process may include offering help with:

• Visa card or credit card payments for application fees
• Finding suitable housing
• Renewing and extending work visas

Post-approval support helps your company maintain immigration compliance and retain global mobility if your employee needs to travel outside the country.

What challenges might I face offering visa support?

Immigration is a complex and legally-challenging concept. While offering visa support to workers, you may encounter the following obstacles:

High costs

Visa support can be costly, especially when handling long, complex cases or multiple hires. If you make errors in the application stage, you may need to pay for:

• Reapplication
• Legal consultation
• Employee travel
• A contractor to handle fill the open role temporarily

These costs add to your recruitment fees and may harm your bottom line.

Lengthy process

Supporting a new hire's visa bid is a longer commitment than recruiting locally. Visa approval times vary significantly across regions depending on the home and host countries, type of visa, time of year, etc.

If you need to fill an open position fast, visa support does not offer the most efficient route to hiring. The long delays and approval times may harm productivity and derail your goals, especially with key roles.

Varying and changing immigration laws

Every country has a unique set of immigration and labor laws, which vary widely, even for similar visa categories.

The discrepancies may create legal puzzles that require an expert’s understanding of local and international immigration laws to solve. Additionally, missteps may compromise your company's visa compliance status.

Hiring across different countries is even more complicated as you must navigate multiple legal frameworks and apply for different visas.

Language barriers

When hiring from non-English speaking countries or countries where English is not the national language, language barriers may compromise the visa application process. You may have a hard time:

• Translating application documents and letters of support
• Liaising with immigration officials
• Understanding requirements, instructions, and timelines

This communication breakdown may further lengthen or complicate the visa application and support process.

How can I improve my visa support process?

Despite the challenges, visa support is the fastest and most effective way to hire globally and execute international assignments.

To streamline your visa support processes:

Implement a visa support policy

Implementing a uniform visa support policy takes the guesswork out of global hiring. It streamlines your visa application processes and gives you the internal legal and structural tools to find, recruit, and onboard foreign talent.

If you don’t already have a visa support policy, begin by streamlining your remote hires with this digital nomad policy template.

Automate the visa support process

Visa support is a long and involved process. By automating some of the steps, an immigration management system like Deel Immigration helps you manage multiple visa applications at once and:

• Gather and organize eligibility documents
• Schedule immigration interviews
• Track application statuses
• Store employee work visas
• Track visa expirations and renewals

A reliable immigration support system also reduces your HR’s workload. With Deel’s comprehensive platform, you even get compliance support to ensure all your global hires comply with labor and immigration laws.

Train your HR team

Even experienced teams can find navigating visa applications challenging.

Train your HR personnel to organize and store application documents, communicate with immigration officials, execute employee relocation, and track regulatory changes.

Partner with immigration experts

Immigration experts possess the experience and technical know-how to handle complex immigration issues. They are up to date with local and international laws and can help you navigate visa applications and global recruitment.

Deel's immigration experts handle tasks such as:

• Eligibility checks
• Visa applications
• Interview preps
• Visa extensions and renewals

Streamline visa support and attract global talent with Deel Immigration

Hiring global talent and relocating employees is the fastest way to scale your global operations. With visa support, your ability to recruit internationally is in your hands.

You handle the paperwork and immigration processes and give your recruits the best chance of visa approval.

Deel’s People platform gives you even more control over global hiring.

Our immigration tools and experts handle visa applications and onboarding, delivering the right talent to your firm faster and more compliantly.

Contact us today to learn more about our visa support services or book a demo to see Deel’s People platform in action.