A green card petition you can file for yourself, when waiving the job offer is in the national interest.
An EB-2 national interest waiver — NIW — is a green card petition in the employment-based second preference in which USCIS sets aside the usual requirement that a U.S. employer seek your services. Waiving the job offer waives the Department of Labor labor certification with it, so you can file the petition yourself, without an employer, if you show the waiver is in the national interest. 8 U.S.C. section 1153(b)(2)(B)(i).
The waiver does not lower the EB-2 bar; it removes a step. You still have to qualify for the classification itself — as a member of the professions holding an advanced degree, or as a person of exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business — and then show separately that the waiver is in the national interest. Without EB-2 qualification, the waiver question never gets reached.
In practice the route is used by researchers, engineers and software professionals, physicians, and founders — people whose work belongs to a field rather than to one employer. Neither the statute nor the regulations define "national interest"; the working test comes from Matter of Dhanasar, 26 I&N Dec. 884 (AAO 2016), and it asks three questions.
The first question is about the work itself: is the endeavor you propose both worth doing and important beyond the walls of one employer? Merit is broad — business, entrepreneurship, science, technology, culture, health, and education all count, and no economic payoff is required. National importance turns on prospective impact rather than geography, so a regionally focused venture is not disqualified. What sinks petitions here is vagueness: engineer is an occupation, not an endeavor.
Read the full guide →The second question is about you. USCIS weighs your education, skills, knowledge, and record of success in related efforts; a plan you developed for the work ahead; the progress you have made toward it; and the interest your work has drawn from customers, users, investors, and others. You do not have to prove the endeavor will ultimately succeed — but an unsubstantiated claim proves nothing.
Read the full guide →The third question weighs the waiver against what labor certification protects — the job opportunities, wages, and working conditions of U.S. workers. Officers consider whether a labor certification would be impractical given your qualifications or endeavor, whether the country would benefit from your contributions even if qualified U.S. workers were available, and whether the national interest is urgent enough to forgo the process. A labor shortage in your occupation, by itself, does not satisfy it.
Read the full guide →The waiver sits on top of an EB-2 classification, and USCIS decides that threshold question first. Both routes below are thresholds rather than scores: clearing one gets you to the three questions above, not through them.
A member of the professions holding an advanced degree
A U.S. master's degree or higher or a foreign equivalent — or a bachelor's degree plus at least five years of progressive post-degree experience in the specialty. Where a doctorate is customarily required by the specialty, the doctorate is required. The occupation must itself be a profession: one for which a bachelor's degree is the minimum entry requirement.
Or a person of exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business
Expertise significantly above what is ordinarily encountered in the field. You submit at least three of six kinds of evidence — academic record, ten years of full-time experience, a license, salary, memberships, recognition — and USCIS then weighs the record as a whole. Three criteria is the entry point, not the finding.
Either way, the qualification has to connect to the work you propose
For advanced-degree professionals relying on experience, the five years must be in the specialty. For exceptional ability, the claimed area of ability must be directly related to the proposed endeavor.
An EB-2 NIW is argued, not assembled. There is no checklist to clear — no number of publications, citations, or years of experience that carries a petition across the line. Each question is decided on the record in front of one officer, case by case, and even a petition that answers all three is granted as a matter of discretion. So we would rather tell you early that the endeavor as framed is the weak part of the case than have you learn it from a Request for Evidence.
We quote a flat fee for the petition before the work starts, so what you pay does not move with the hours the case takes. If USCIS issues a Request for Evidence, responding is a separate flat fee, quoted after we have read the notice — we would rather price that work knowing what it asks for than guess in advance.
The EB-2 threshold and the three-part waiver test — one page per question.
ExploreHow physicians, engineers, researchers, founders, and others build an EB-2 NIW case.
ExploreThe two physician waivers — the three-prong test and the statutory five-year shortage-area route — plus the J-1 layer.
ExploreProcessing time, premium processing, priority dates, cost, RFEs, and what happens after approval.
ExploreReal situations: an RFE on a self-filed petition, a denial, a pending PERM, a later EB-1A.
ExploreEB-2 NIW measured against EB-1A, employer-sponsored EB-2, EB-1B, and the O-1A.
ExploreReady to discuss whether an EB-2 NIW fits your situation? Schedule a consultation with our team.
Immigration counsel to Fortune 500 employers at a national firm · Adjudicated 12,000+ visas at the U.S. Consulate, Mexico · Working in U.S. immigration since 2008
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