I’ve heard about an agent arrangement for the O-1 visa for freelancers without a company, but I don’t understand why such complications are necessary. Why not form an LLC or C-corp in your own name, obtain the same letters from companies expressing interest in collaborating, and file for an O-1 through your own company? What’s the catch with that option?
Detailed analysis of the topic: O-1 Visa: petitioner, agent, agent scheme
You can’t fire yourself - so USCIS doesn’t recognize this as a genuine employment relationship
Thanks, that’s clearer now. So even if I open my own LLC, USCIS will still consider that there’s no real employer–employee relationship, since I’m my own boss?
Technically you can do it through your own LLC as well — but you’d need a board of directors, an actual corporate structure, and a lot of paperwork. The agency arrangement exists as a simplification: the agent can be a friend or a partner, and it’s not a scheme in a bad sense — everything is transparent and legal. Just fewer headaches at the start.
For an O‑1 the petitioner must be in the position of a real employer — able to hire and fire. A personally owned LLC without a board of directors doesn’t establish that: you need a board, a lot of paperwork, and this requirement applies even to O‑1s, not just to H‑1Bs. An agent arrangement isn’t some shady workaround; the agent simply serves as the petitioner with formal authority, and the owner–employee conflict disappears. I read on AILA that this conflict is what most often triggers RFEs on self‑sponsored O‑1 cases.
Many lawyers say you can do it through their LLC — just pay us a little) and then it turns out you need a board of directors, a real corporate structure, lots of paperwork, and it’s not H-1B but an O-1 requirement as well. The agent scheme emerged precisely as a simplification — the agent acts as the petitioner with formal authority, and the owner-employee conflict disappears.
look, this went to court — Defensor v. Meissner expressly held that with 100% ownership and no board control there is no employer–employee relationship. Put bluntly, USCIS looks not at the LLC’s paperwork but at who actually has the authority to hire and fire. An agency arrangement is precisely tailored to that standard.
A single-member LLC without a board doesn’t cut it — in Delaware we added one person to the board on paper with the right to hire and fire, and that was enough to avoid an RFE on that point. USCIS looks specifically at the authority to fire, not at the ownership share.