Can anyone share how they handled the company’s registered business address when applying for an O-1 visa as a freelancer? A coworking space in Brooklyn costs $2,700 per month, and virtual addresses aren’t acceptable. My business is fully online and I won’t be showing up at an office in person. Is there any way to cheaply sublease from someone already renting a space — just so there’s a real address for the petitioner?
Our O-1 lawyers also said you need a real, not virtual, office — that officers immediately spot Regus addresses and other virtual-office providers. The business is online, the team is distributed, everyone works from home, and nobody actually shows up at the office. I went with a sublease from a small company — paid about $300/month for a workspace, just to have a proper lease agreement. The address from a Wyoming registrar was immediately rejected by the lawyer; he said it wasn’t acceptable.
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Subletting a workspace for 300 a month sounds like just what I need. How was the contract handled — directly with the company renting it or through their landlord? And was the legal address an actual office, or did you register your petitioner at that same address?
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Coworking at a research institute is the cleanest option if available. I had an Innovation Center at the university in Buffalo, a direct contract with the institute, no sublandlord in the middle. The petitioner was registered at the same address — I looked at stories of approved O-1s and often that exact format appears: a real place with other companies nearby, the officer sees a living business hub rather than a PO box.
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Directly with the company — they had a sublease for a single workstation, without a landlord in between. The petitioner was registered at the same address; that’s why they took it. The lawyer explained that the officer looks at who is registered at that address — if it’s a real company with an established history nearby, it’s much cleaner than an empty office used solely for our petition.
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When I consulted several lawyers about the O-1, the petitioner’s address came up as a separate issue almost immediately. A lawyer at a New York firm said outright that Regus and similar providers are in their database — officers know those addresses. According to him, at minimum it should be a sublease from a bona fide, active company with a contract; moreover, it’s preferable that there be other legal entities with a track record at the same address, not just your petitioner.
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A sublet for 300 takes care of the address, but salary matters too — I found out during the process from a lawyer that if you file the petition through your own company you have to pay yourself a salary and pay taxes on it until you find a real employer. They don’t really tell you that in advance, even though it’s a separate expense.
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One detail about the sublease they didn’t mention here — the petitioner’s address actually has to appear in the state’s database as the registered address of the legal entity. My lawyer specifically checked this on the Secretary of State website before filing — if the address in the sublease agreement doesn’t match what’s in the state database, the officer will spot the discrepancy right away. So first the sublease, then register the company at that address, then file.
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There’s a separate issue with Google Maps — I’ve seen in RFE write‑ups that officers literally Google the petitioner’s address on Maps. If it looks like a residential house, they explicitly write in the RFE: “the petitioner’s address is a residential house, we Googled it on the map — how are you going to work there?”. So it’s not enough for the address to be in the state database — what matters is that Street View shows an actual business, not an apartment.
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Paying yourself a salary is totally unexpected — I’ve never seen that explicitly stated when it’s a petition through your own LLC. So, if there’s no regular employer yet, do you have to pay yourself a salary every month and pay taxes on it? That adds a significant expense on top of the office address and attorney fees.
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registered agent is also needed for registration — it’s cheap in Delaware, but when you add the sublease address, payroll and taxes it adds up. I was planning on less; the lawyer talked about each requirement separately rather than giving an overall figure.
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