When an RFE Challenges the High Salary Criterion

“You submitted an income certificate, employment letter, salary guides, and payment records. However, the record contains no objective earnings data demonstrating that you have "commanded a high salary or other significantly high remuneration for services, in relation to others in the field as a [job title]."”

This case was approved after the RFE response。

Pay stubs prove what you earn; they do not prove the comparison. The missing piece is an independent benchmark for the same role, in the same market — and the officer is reading "the field" as your exact job title, not your industry.

“Since bonus money and stocks are fluid, you cannot use them to support your claim of high remuneration.”

This case was approved after the RFE response。

A blunt, categorical line that often surprises executives and startup employees whose compensation is mostly equity. If total comp was the basis of the claim, the base-salary-only figure may not clear the bar at all — better to know before drafting the response than after.

“The record does not suggest that you have ever been employed in the United States. The USCIS Policy Manual ... advises officers to "evaluate persons working outside of the United States based on the wage statistics or comparable evidence relevant to the applicable work location, rather than by simply converting the salary to U.S. dollars and then viewing whether that salary would be considered high in the United States." As such, the salary data information for "senior architects" in the United States as well as the currency conversion chart were given no relevant value under this criterion.”

This case was approved after the RFE response。

The single most consequential line in this whole collection for applicants who have never worked in the U.S. The default approach — convert your pay to dollars, then compare it against U.S. market data — is not merely weak here, it was given no value at all. The comparison set is people doing the same job in your own country and city. A package that looks extraordinary once converted can still fail this criterion, and one that looks modest in dollars can still pass it. Build the benchmark from local wage statistics before you draft anything.

“[The record included income documentation, individual income tax records, and public announcements of a separate company's acquisition of a minority equity stake in the beneficiary's employer at a stated purchase price.] This criterion has not been met because the evidence does not establish that the beneficiary's salary or remuneration is high relative to others working in the field ... with foreign tax documents alone. Furthermore, the Petitioner has not submitted sufficient evidence with which to compare the Petitioner's salary to others in similar fields.”

This case was denied after the RFE response。

A distinct evidentiary mistake from the other salary rejections in this collection: this filing tried to use a third party's valuation of the whole company — from an acquisition of a minority equity stake — as a stand-in for what one executive personally earns. Company valuation and personal remuneration are not the same fact, and the officer treated them as unrelated. This case was denied after the response.