The documents worth starting before you have a job offer

Most EB-3 delays that are within an applicant's control come from documents, and almost always from the same handful.

Names that do not match

Your passport, your birth certificate and your national identity card should agree with one another exactly. Spelling variants, a missing middle name, a different transliteration — each is a question to be answered later, and each is far cheaper to fix now.

If a name has legitimately changed, obtain the document that links the two names together and keep it with the file.

The slow ones

Long-form birth certificates showing both parents. Police clearance certificates from every country you have lived in for six months or more since turning 16 — note that these expire, so timing matters as much as obtaining them. Letters from previous employers on letterhead, with dates and duties.

That last one is the most commonly lost. Companies close, managers move, and a letter that would have taken a phone call in 2020 can be impossible in 2027.

Keep your own file

Every form filed on your behalf, every receipt notice, every approval. If a company stops responding, your own copies are what let another adviser pick up the case.

Our document checklist builds the list that applies to your circumstances and flags which items to begin on now.