How to Immigrate to the USA - 6 Legal Ways to Get a Green Card

There are six main legal ways to immigrate to the USA - through family, work, talent, investment, study or the Green Card lottery. Each one has its own cost of entry, its own timeline and its own kind of applicant it works for. Below is a walkthrough of all six, with requirements, realistic timelines, links to official sources and what currently limits entry for nationals of specific countries. A comparison table at the end helps you pick your path.

Where to Start - Visa, Status and Green Card

People planning a move constantly mix up three different things.

• Visa - a stamp in your passport, permission to ask for entry. How long a visa is valid has nothing to do with how long you can stay once you are in.
• Status - the basis you are in the country on right now (student, worker, visitor). Each status has its own rules and its own time limit.
• Green card - permanent resident status. This is the US equivalent of a residence permit. It lets you live and work without a time limit, and after a few years you can apply for citizenship.

Moving "for good" means getting a green card. Some paths lead there directly (family, EB-5 investment, EB-1A, the lottery). Others give you a temporary status first, and getting from there to a green card takes an extra step (work visas, O-1, E-2, studying). The official list of green card categories is on the USCIS website.

You cannot just show up and stay. A tourist visa does not give you the right to work or relocate, and entering as a tourist with a plan to stay already in mind tends to catch up with people later in the form of denials.

Way 1. Family - Marriage, Parents, Children, Siblings

Family-based immigration is the most common route. Everything depends on who your relative is, a US citizen or a green card holder.

Parents, spouses and unmarried children under 21 of US citizens count as immediate relatives. There is no annual quota for them. The only wait is for USCIS to process the paperwork. Everyone else falls into the F1-F4 categories, and there the wait runs into years. You can track the queue on the Visa Bulletin, which shows which petitions are currently being processed by filing date. Figures for September 2026, for most countries:

For siblings that is roughly 15 years of waiting. The bulletin comes out every month, and the dates move, sometimes backward.

Starting September 18, 2026, a new public charge rule is in effect. Consular officers and USCIS now weigh more heavily whether a person can live in the US without relying on government assistance, so a sponsor's financial documents carry more weight than before.

Marrying a US citizen is its own path. If the wedding has not happened yet and you plan to marry in the US, that is the K-1 fiance visa. If you are already married, that is the CR-1 or IR-1 spouse visa. A green card holder cannot sponsor parents or siblings. Only a citizen can.

All family immigration options are covered on our family-based immigration page, and the official rules are on travel.state.gov.

Way 2. Employer-Sponsored Work Visas

Getting sponsored by an employer sounds like the most obvious route, but the US company has to be willing to spend the time and money on you. The main options:

• H-1B - a work visa for specialists with a bachelor's degree. The employer enters you in the annual lottery, and there is no guarantee you get picked. Starting with fiscal year 2027, the lottery favors candidates at higher wage levels. A $100,000 fee for new hires from abroad, introduced in September 2025, is not being collected right now under a court order, but the case is still open.
• L-1 - transferring an employee from a company's foreign office to its US office, available if you have worked there for one of the last three years. More detail in our article on L-1 and L-2 visas.
• EB-3 and EB-2 through PERM - a green card, no intermediate visa. The employer goes through labor certification with the Department of Labor, proves it could not find a qualified American for the role, then files the petition. The process is slow, and there is a quota queue.

We covered how this works in IT specifically in Relocating to the USA for IT Professionals.

Way 3. Talent and National Interest - O-1, EB-1A, EB-2 NIW

For people with a strong professional track record, there are paths where an employer is not required, or plays only a minimal role.

• O-1 - a work visa for people with extraordinary ability. A US employer or agent files the petition, valid for up to 3 years with extensions.
• EB-1A - a green card for extraordinary ability, and you can file the petition on your own behalf. You need to meet 3 of 10 recognition criteria.
• EB-2 NIW - a green card for people with an advanced degree or exceptional ability whose work matters to the national interest of the US. Also no employer needed.

Criteria, evidence and the difference between O-1 and EB-1A are in our article on the US talent visa, and NIW specifically is on the EB-2 NIW page.

These paths get underrated. People assume they are for Nobel laureates only. In practice, developers, doctors, entrepreneurs, designers and athletes use them, as long as the recognition holds up on paper.

Way 4. Investment and Business - E-2 and EB-5

• E-2 - an investor visa for nationals of countries that have a trade and investment treaty with the US. You put a substantial amount into your own US business and run it yourself. The law sets no fixed minimum. The amount just has to be enough for a real, working business. E-2 does not lead to a green card by itself, but it renews as long as the business keeps running. Dozens of countries across Europe, Asia and Latin America have a treaty. Check yours on the official country list. More detail in our article on the E-2 visa.
• EB-5 - a green card for investment that creates at least 10 jobs for American workers. The minimum amount is $1,050,000, or $800,000 for projects in high-unemployment and rural areas. These figures apply to petitions filed through the end of 2026, and they get indexed upward starting January 1, 2027. More detail in our article on the EB-5 green card.

There is also a Gold Card running right now, a fast track inside the EB-1 and EB-2 categories for people who contribute $1 million toward the US (a company sponsoring an employee pays $2 million). It goes through Form I-140G, with a $15,000 fee per person. Gold Card is not a separate visa. The background checks, country-based limits and Visa Bulletin queue apply to it the same way.

Across every investment program, on top of the amount itself, officers check where the money legitimately came from. That is often the longest part of preparing a case. All business paths are on our business and investor immigration page.

Way 5. Study - What a Student Visa Does and Does Not Do

The F-1 student visa is not immigration. It is for people who plan to study and then leave, and that intent gets checked at the interview. You get admitted to an accredited college or university, receive Form I-20, pay the SEVIS fee, and go to the interview.

Student status depends on staying enrolled. Get expelled or stop attending classes and the status ends. You either leave the country or scramble to change your basis for staying.

Even so, studying often becomes the first step. After graduation you can work in your field under OPT, and STEM graduates get an extension. OPT runs 12 months, plus up to 24 more for STEM fields. Starting September 15, 2026, students are no longer admitted for the full length of their program by default. Admission is now capped at the program length, up to 4 years, and anything past that needs a USCIS extension. Many people use this window to find an employer who then files for H-1B or a green card. Studying does not guarantee either outcome. It is only a shot at one.

Way 6. The Green Card Lottery

The Diversity Visa lottery gives out up to 55,000 green cards a year to nationals of countries with low rates of immigration to the US. You can enter if you have a complete high school education (12 years of schooling) or 2 years of experience within the last 5 years in an occupation that requires training. Since September 2025, registration costs $1. Starting April 2026 it also requires a passport scan, and winners pay $330 per person for the visa. As of mid-September 2026, the State Department has not announced registration dates or the list of eligible countries for the next lottery.

Winning is not a green card. It is the right to apply for one. There are more winners than visas available, so you need to file quickly, and check well before the interview that you meet every requirement. The step-by-step process is in our article on how the Green Card lottery works.

Humanitarian Programs and Paths That Backfire

Asylum in the US protects people who are persecuted at home over race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. It is not a way to move for someone who simply finds life hard at home. If a court or USCIS finds a claim to be filed in bad faith, that person permanently loses eligibility for US immigration benefits. Since 2025 an asylum application also carries a fee, $100 up front plus an annual fee while the case is pending.

Some paths make legal status harder to reach afterward than before you took them.

• Crossing the border through Mexico. Illegal entry, detention, removal, and a re-entry ban lasting years. Very few people find a way out of this into legal status.
• Entering as a tourist with a plan to stay. If soon after entry someone does something that contradicts tourist status (working, marrying with the intent to stay, enrolling in school), a consular officer can treat that as concealing the real purpose of the trip.
• Overstaying your status. More than 180 days of unlawful presence after turning 18 brings a 3-year re-entry ban after you leave the country. More than a year brings a 10-year ban.

Where the Interview Happens and What Restrictions Apply Now

The interview for an immigrant visa takes place at the US embassy or consulate in the country where you live, or, if you request it, in your country of citizenship. The current list of posts is on travel.state.gov.

From January 21 to August 21, 2026, the State Department paused issuing immigrant visas to nationals of 75 countries. There were no exceptions, not for spouses of US citizens, not for Green Card lottery winners. On August 21 a court vacated the pause, and the State Department treats it as no longer in effect. But the government has appealed and is asking to put the ruling on hold, and interviews for immigrant visas scheduled through the end of September have been pushed back for many applicants. Check the State Department page before you apply.

Separately, an expanded entry ban under Presidential Proclamation 10998 has applied to nationals of 39 countries since January 1, 2026, and marriage to a US citizen is not an exemption from it. Details are in the Federal Register notice.

How to Choose Your Path - Comparison

There is also the separate question of money for the move itself, housing and your first few months. We broke those costs down in a dedicated article on how much money you need to move to the USA.

Moving to the US starts with one honest question. What is your basis - family, work, achievement, capital, study or lottery luck? Write down what you already have and what you can back up with documents, then compare it with the table above. If more than one path fits, or your basis is not obvious, let's work through it together. All our US immigration content is on the immigration to the USA page.