26+ years in education · Years specialising in EB-1 · Powered by AI

You've Built an Extraordinary Career. Now Build the Evidence
to Prove It.

Your career holds more evidence than you may realise.

The strongest EB-1 portfolios don't just list achievements — they uncover the impact, recognition and significance behind them. EB-1 Portfolio Builder uses intelligent, guided questioning to dig deeper into your professional story, review the evidence you upload, identify what may be missing, and help you develop a clearer, stronger account of your career.

Built on more than 26 years of experience in education and guided learning, the platform keeps asking the questions that matter — helping you turn years of professional achievement into a structured, evidence-led portfolio ready for your attorney to review.

You've already built the career. Now build the portfolio that shows its true value.

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Free. No credit card.

EB-1A · EXTRAORDINARY ABILITY

Try EB-1 Today

Turn your achievements
into your American dream.

Watch our short video (2 min)
EB-1 Portfolio Builder client
Gain clarity
and confidence
Follow a proven
strategy
Get expert-guided
support
Track real progress
toward your goals

Built for on the go: your portfolio, your next step, and every resource — right here on your phone.

Questions,
not folders

AI that reads
your evidence

Encrypted. Never used
to train AI.

Who We Serve

Leaders. Innovators. Impact Makers.

We work with accomplished professionals who often underestimate the value of what they've achieved. The engineer who led a breakthrough product. The researcher trusted to peer review leading work. The founder who built a successful team and business. The achievements are already there. EB-1 Portfolio Builder helps uncover the details, evidence and impact that turn professional success into a powerful, attorney-ready portfolio.

  • Entrepreneurs & Founders
  • Engineers & Tech Specialists
  • Researchers & Academics
  • Executives & Managers
  • Doctors & Healthcare Experts
  • Authors, Creators & Thought Leaders

View All Industries

Technology
& Engineering
Healthcare
& Life Sciences
Academia
& Research
Business
& Leadership
Arts, Media
& Entertainment
Emerging & Niche
Disciplines

Our Approach

How the EB-1 Portfolio Builder works

Four stages, one method: we ask, you answer, the platform reads your evidence and ALICE guides what comes next.

1

Profile Assessment

We start by learning your career. The free questionnaire produces your evaluation and shows which EB-1 criteria your history already touches.

2

Evidence Strategy

Each criterion opens its own guided interview, with simple questions mapped against what that criterion calls for.

3

Visibility Building

Where a criterion is thin, we show you what would strengthen it and how to develop publications, speaking, awards, and judging evidence.

4

Documentation Support

Your answers and evidence become a structured portfolio where significant statements trace back to supporting documents, with weak points marked rather than buried.

Ready to Build Your EB-1 Profile?

Get expert guidance and a personalized plan — designed around your achievements.

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The Problem We Solve

Extraordinary careers. Invisible cases.

Every year, thousands of genuinely exceptional professionals — researchers, engineers, doctors, founders — approach the EB-1 extraordinary ability visa with a career full of proof and no idea how to present it. The achievements are real. The awards are real. The publications are real. But USCIS does not assess your career; it assesses your evidence — organized, criterion by criterion, in the structure adjudicators expect.

That gap is where strong candidates lose. Documents scattered across old laptops and inboxes. No idea which of the ten EB-1 criteria their work actually satisfies. Hours of expensive attorney time spent not on legal strategy, but on sorting a box of papers.

The EPB Way

Walk in with a portfolio, not a pile.

Two people can bring the same career to an attorney. One brings hundreds of files and pays professional rates for archaeology. The other arrives with evidence categorized, gaps identified, and documents connected to the facts they support. Your attorney stops asking “What do we have?” and starts asking “How do I make this stronger?” That is where your legal spend should be going.

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What You Receive

More than organised evidence. A clearer case for your attorney to review.

EPB guides you through the journey with intelligent follow-up questions. AI makes this depth of analysis affordable without pretending to replace professional legal advice.

A criterion-by-criterion evidence map

See which facts and documents may support each criterion, what is strong, and what still requires corroboration.

A Professional Evidence Analysis

Each evaluated criterion receives a clear, evidence-grounded analysis that distinguishes supported facts from gaps and unresolved points.

A thesis for attorney review

Your evidence is connected into a coherent criterion thesis, giving your attorney organised material on which to focus legal strategy and petition quality.

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Educational and organisational software. Not legal advice. No immigration outcome is guaranteed.

Meet ALICE™

Your intelligent guide through the EB-1 journey.

ALICE™ — Adaptive Learning Intelligence Control Engine — understands where you are in the platform, explains what matters in simple words and guides you towards one useful next step.

She remembers your progress, helps identify potential gaps and can read her guidance aloud. Work from your phone, tablet or computer, at your own pace, 24 hours a day.

See how ALICE works

ALICE guiding a client through the EB-1 Portfolio Builder on a phone

See EPB in Action

A serious evidence-building workspace, designed for your phone.

See your portfolio strength, understand your next best action and turn career achievements into organised material for attorney review—wherever you choose to work.

Guided by ALICE™

Your next step is never hidden.

ALICE understands your location and progress, explains why each task matters and guides you towards the next useful action. Guidance can also be spoken aloud.

Explore the live demonstration

Demonstration screens use fictional client data. Interface details may evolve as EPB improves.

It starts with one question about your career.

Personalized StrategyExpert GuidanceNo Obligation
A team collaborating around a laptop
Personalized Evidence Strategy
Attorney-Ready Documentation
Global Expertise, Local Understanding
End-to-End Support
Confidential & Secure Process

About Us

We're not immigration lawyers. We're educators who worked out why good cases go unproven.

The EB-1 Portfolio Builder combines more than 26 years in education and guided learning, years working in the immigration world and specialising in EB-1, and AI technology. It exists because exceptional professionals can fail to show what they have actually done—not because the achievement is absent, but because nobody asked the right questions.

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Three EPB professionals standing together in a modern office with the city skyline behind them

Why We Built It

Why an educator built an immigration evidence platform

Twenty-six years in education is twenty-six years of one specific problem: a person in front of you knows something, and cannot yet explain it.

You learn to hear when an answer is too short, to break an intimidating subject into simple questions, and to draw out what a person knows but struggles to articulate. EB-1 evidence presents the same problem in a different room. These are not people with weak careers. They are people nobody has asked the right question.

  • 26+ years in education
  • A method, not a filing cabinet
  • AI that reads your evidence
  • You build it yourself, guided

Our Belief

The strongest petitions start with a prepared professional. Preparation should begin the moment you decide you are extraordinary enough to try — not in the attorney's office.

Start Free Evaluation

The Story

The realization that became the product

Most immigration software treats evidence gathering as a storage problem: give the user folders, give them a checklist, and let them upload. But if the real bottleneck is that people cannot articulate their own achievements, storage solves nothing. You can build the world's best filing cabinet and it will still contain an incomplete account of someone's career.

The bottleneck is not where the documents go. It is the questions nobody asked before the documents were gathered. That is a teaching problem, and teaching is what we know how to do.

We built the platform around one principle: the quality of the answer is determined by the quality of the question. Then we embedded that questioning method into AI so it can work for every user, in every category, at any hour, with a memory of what they have already said.

That is the product: not AI that invents or decorates your story, but AI that asks until the truthful story becomes visible and connects each significant fact to its evidence.

Straight Answers

What we are. And what we are not.

What we are: a software platform that turns your career into a structured, evidence-grounded portfolio by asking focused questions, then reading your evidence and asking what it raises.

What we are not: attorneys. We do not give legal advice, represent anyone before USCIS, or decide eligibility. That legal judgment belongs to a licensed immigration attorney.

What we will never do: invent an achievement, create a responsibility you did not have, exaggerate impact, turn an assumption into fact, or hide a weakness because it makes the narrative read better.

Our Promise

Three commitments, kept on every screen

Start with the free evaluation

  • You will always know your next step — ALICE™ never leaves you at a dead end.
  • Your evidence stays yours — encrypted, exportable, never used to train AI.
  • We prepare you for the attorney, honestly — no false hope, no fine-print surprises.

It starts with one question about your career.

Personalized StrategyExpert GuidanceNo Obligation
A team collaborating around a laptop
Personalized Evidence Strategy
Attorney-Ready Documentation
Global Expertise, Local Understanding
End-to-End Support
Confidential & Secure Process

Meet ALICE™

Your Intelligent Guide Through the EB-1 Journey.

ALICE™ stands for Adaptive Learning Intelligence Control Engine. She is the intelligent guidance engine built into the EB-1 Portfolio Builder to help you understand where you are, what you are doing, why it matters and what comes next.

Two professionals using the EPB Leading or Critical Role evidence workflow together

Guidance Built Around You

ALICE isn't simply a chatbot.

Wherever you are in the platform, ALICE can guide you step by step, explain what you need to do, help you understand what information or evidence may be required, and direct you towards your next action. If you would rather listen than read, ALICE can speak her guidance aloud.

1

Understands your journey

ALICE uses your place in the platform and your progress to make her guidance relevant to what you are doing now.

2

Explains things clearly

She uses simple language to explain what may be needed, why it matters and how each step supports your developing portfolio.

3

Guides your next action

ALICE helps identify potential gaps, asks useful follow-up questions and directs you towards one clear next step.

Why We Use AI

Premium guidance without the premium price tag.

The value of AI isn't simply that it is technology. It is what that technology makes possible.

Providing continuous, personalised guidance through traditional one-to-one human support could cost tens of thousands of dollars and would still be limited by appointments, availability and office hours. The EB-1 Portfolio Builder changes that.

Through ALICE and the wider intelligence built into the platform, you can receive guidance whenever you are ready to work. The technology can help analyse the information you provide, ask follow-up questions, identify potential gaps, explain what may be missing and guide you through developing a stronger, better-organised portfolio.

AI isn't the service. It is what makes this level of service possible. Always available. Always guiding. Built around your journey.

Inside the Platform

Everything an extraordinary case needs. In one place.

Personal strategy plan

Your questionnaire generates a plan built around your career: your strongest EB-1 criteria, your evidence gaps, and your route from here to a complete portfolio.

Criteria mapping

Every document lands against a real USCIS criterion — awards, published material, judging, original contributions, leading role and more — with live progress per criterion.

Audio tutorials

Each step explained aloud by people who understand the process — learn on the commute, in the lab, or on the sofa at 9pm.

Templates & real examples

Stop guessing what "good" looks like. Professional templates and anonymized examples show the exact standard before you upload your own.

Guided uploads

As you upload, EPB checks you're adding the right document to the right criterion — so nothing lands in the wrong place and nothing gets forgotten.

Progress you can see

A live portfolio dashboard shows overall progress and per-criterion strength, so you always know how far you've come — and exactly what's left.

The Honest Comparison

What EPB replaces.

It replaces guesswork. No more piecing together the EB-1 criteria from forum threads, outdated blog posts and second-hand advice. The platform encodes years working in the immigration world and specialising in EB-1 into every step.

It replaces wasted attorney hours. Great lawyers are worth every penny — for legal judgment. They are an expensive way to sort documents. EPB does the structuring, so your legal budget buys strategy, not admin.

It replaces the fear of the blank page. The single biggest reason strong candidates delay for years isn't weakness of evidence — it's not knowing where to start. In EPB, "where do I start?" is answered the moment you finish the questionnaire, and "what now?" is answered at every step after that.

Built to Feel Effortless

User-friendly. Intuitive. Interactive. Supported.

Powerful doesn't have to mean complicated. EPB's interface is designed so you always know where you are, what's next, and how far you've come — every screen guides, every tap responds, every step is interactive rather than a wall of text. And if anything technical ever gets in your way, our full support team is there to fix it, so the only thing you spend energy on is your case.

Start discovering what your career may already support.

Personalized StrategyExpert GuidanceNo Obligation
A team collaborating around a laptop
Personalized Evidence Strategy
Evidence Organised for Attorney Review
Global Expertise, Local Understanding
End-to-End Support
Confidential & Secure Process

Pricing

Simple Pricing. A Fraction of an Attorney.

An EB-1A attorney typically charges $8,000–$25,000. EB-1 Portfolio Builder gives you the guidance, structure and resources to build your own evidence portfolio for a small fraction of that — and your questionnaire and evaluation are free. But the real difference is ALICE™: your intelligent evidence-building agent, beside you at every step. Whether you work early in the morning, late at night or at the weekend, AI Assist is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week—helping you understand what comes next, examine what you provide and keep your portfolio moving forward.

A professional using Ask ALICE and its Read aloud guidance on a mobile phone

Accurate · Flexible · Transparent

Three Ways to Build — Pick What Suits You

Choose the billing option that fits your needs. Upgrade, downgrade or cancel anytime.

Monthly Plan

Flexible & no commitment

$179/month

Pay as you go. Pause or cancel anytime. Best if you plan to move fast or want to try the platform first.

  • Full platform access
  • Cancel or pause anytime
  • Ideal for short-term or trial use
Get Started
★ Most Popular

3-Month Build Pass

Best value & most flexible

$469total

About $156/month, paid once. A fixed total with no running meter. Save $68.

  • Same full access as Monthly
  • Save $68 vs. monthly payments
  • Three months with one payment
Choose 3-Month Plan

Secure & transparent billing

Complete Build

One-time payment

$1,848one-time payment

Up to 12 months of full access. Ideal for a complex case or a slower build. Save $300.

  • Up to 12 months access
  • Best for long-term or complex builds
  • One payment. No surprises.
Go All-In
Cancel Anytime
No lock-in contracts
Secure Payments
Your data is protected
Transparent Billing
No hidden fees
Expert Support
We're here to help

Everything in One Place — On Every Plan

Your personal strategy plan, step-by-step evidence guidance, audio tutorials, professional templates, anonymised examples, guided uploads, a live portfolio dashboard, and ALICE™ throughout.

Try It Before You Spend Anything

Downloading, registering and the EB-1 questionnaire are free. You only pay when you decide to build.

Start with the free evaluation

Want a Lawyer's Eyes on It? (Optional)

EPB prepares you for an attorney. Optional independent legal review is separate from your EPB plan. EPB is software, not a law firm.

Pricing, Answered Straight

Is there a contract or lock-in?
No. Monthly can be paused or cancelled anytime; the other plans are one-time payments.
What do I get for free?
Registration, questionnaire and evaluation.
Which plan should I choose?
Monthly for speed, Build Pass for typical best value, Complete Build for maximum time.
What if I finish early or need longer?
Cancel monthly when done or continue if needed; Complete Build allows up to a year.
Does the price include government fees?
No. USCIS fees are paid separately to the government.
Do I still need an attorney?
We recommend attorney review; EPB lets their time focus on legal strategy.

See Where You Stand — Free

No payment to startHonest evaluationCancel anytime
Personalized Evidence Strategy
Evidence Organised for Attorney Review
Global Expertise, Local Understanding
End-to-End Support
Confidential & Secure Process

EB-1 Evidence

Your Achievements May Support More Than You Realise.Explore the 10 EB-1A Evidence Categories.

Understand each category in plain English, discover evidence you may already have and see how EPB and Alice help organise what is documented, what needs context and what to explore next.

Explore the 10 Criteria
Clear ExplanationsEach criterion in plain English.
Evidence ExamplesSee what can be used and how to present it.
Practical GuidanceBuild stronger evidence with confidence.

The Criteria

Start with one category. Build across every category relevant to you.

EPB maps your answers and reviewed evidence across the ten categories so you can see what is documented, what needs context and what may require stronger independent corroboration. The platform supports exploration and preparation; it does not make a legal eligibility decision.

  • Awards & prizes
  • Distinguished memberships
  • Published material about you
  • Judging the work of others
  • Original contributions
  • Scholarly articles
  • Leading or critical role
  • High remuneration & more

Portfolio Strength Score

Your live score reflects reviewed evidence progress inside EPB. Alice helps explain gaps and next actions; the score does not predict eligibility or approval.

Start Free Evaluation

Ten evidence categories

Understand the category. Then build the evidence intelligently.

Choose View summary for a short review of a category, or View full guide for complete evidence-gathering guidance. Each guide explains what records may matter, where overlooked proof can be found, why EPB asks particular questions, and how your material is organised for independent attorney review.

EPB's role: EPB gathers, organises and critically evaluates evidence. It does not decide legal eligibility, provide legal advice or predict an immigration outcome.

Evidence by profession

Evidence gathering is an art.

Not because evidence should ever be embellished, but because important achievements are often hidden across documents, emails, data, memories and third-party records. The difference comes from asking the right questions, recovering the missing context and showing why each record matters.

Engineers & technology professionals

Product records, patents, deployment data, architecture decisions, adoption evidence and independent technical recognition.

Explore your evidence

Researchers & academics

Publications, citations, peer review, grants, invited activity, research adoption and records showing individual contribution.

Explore your evidence

Doctors & healthcare professionals

Clinical leadership, protocols, research, teaching, professional review and measurable improvements documented without exposing patient data.

Explore your evidence

Founders & entrepreneurs

Company records, product adoption, investment, revenue, market impact, leadership decisions and independent recognition.

Explore your evidence

Executives & business leaders

Decision authority, organisational dependence, transformation outcomes, board records and reputation evidence beyond job title.

Explore your evidence

Artists, media professionals & creators

Credits, curated showcases, critical coverage, audience and commercial records, commissions and independent selection evidence.

Explore your evidence
See the output

A demonstration strategy, built from fictional data.

See how answers, evidence gaps and priorities can become a structured plan. It is a product demonstration, not a customer result or legal opinion.

View the strategy demonstration

Your American Dream Deserves an Evidence Portfolio You Understand.
Start With One Category or Build the Complete Relevant Picture.

Personalised StrategyAlice-Guided Next ActionsNo Obligation
A team collaborating around a laptop
Personalized Evidence Strategy
Evidence Organised for Attorney Review
Global Expertise, Local Understanding
End-to-End Support
Confidential & Secure Process

Case Studies

What a Guided Portfolio Looks Like.

Every EB-1 journey is different, but the pattern is the same: a clear strategy plan, evidence mapped to the right criteria, and a professional walking into the attorney meeting prepared. Real anonymized case studies from EPB users are published here as they are approved for sharing.

Two professionals using the EPB Published Material Resource Pack and podcast tools on a tablet

The Pattern of Success

Three journeys the platform is built for.

Illustrative journeys showing how the platform guides different professions — real anonymized case studies will appear here with users' permission.

The Researcher

Questionnaire highlights publications and judging. The strategy plan targets scholarly criteria; templates shape the citation evidence; guided uploads keep every document in the right place.

The Engineer

Strategy plan centres on original contributions and critical role. Audio tutorials explain each criterion on the commute; examples show exactly what strong contribution evidence looks like.

The Founder

The plan maps leadership, remuneration and media coverage. The founder builds evidence between meetings — on the phone, on the go — and arrives at the attorney review ahead of schedule.

Three Journeys, In Full

How the platform carries different careers.

These illustrative journeys show how EPB adapts to different professions. Real anonymized case studies from EPB users will be published here as they are approved for sharing — we will never invent client stories.

The researcher who couldn't see her own strength

A machine-learning researcher with strong citations assumes she has "one criterion at best." Her questionnaire says otherwise: her peer reviews satisfy judging, her papers satisfy scholarly articles, her cited method is the backbone of an original contributions claim, and press coverage of her work supports published material about you. Her strategy plan sequences all four; the templates shape her citation evidence; guided uploads keep two hundred documents in perfect order. She arrives at the attorney meeting with a portfolio — and the attorney starts at strategy, not sorting.

The engineer with evidence scattered across a decade

A senior engineer's proof lives in old inboxes, expired links and three former laptops: patents, internal awards, conference talks, a critical role on a flagship product. His plan centres on original contributions and leading or critical role. Audio tutorials on the commute teach him what each criterion needs; the examples show him what a persuasive role letter looks like; the dashboard's rising percentages turn a two-year "someday" into a finished portfolio built in evening sessions.

The founder who had impact but no paper trail

A startup founder has undeniable impact — funding rounds, press, industry firsts — but nothing organized. Her plan maps leading role, high remuneration and published material; EPB's checklists convert company milestones into evidence, and guided uploads flag the gaps (a missing comparison benchmark for remuneration, an org chart for the role claim) months before an attorney would have caught them. She builds between board meetings, on her phone.

Your journey could be next.

Personalized StrategyExpert GuidanceNo Obligation
A team collaborating around a laptop
Personalized Evidence Strategy
Evidence Organised for Attorney Review
Global Expertise, Local Understanding
End-to-End Support
Confidential & Secure Process

EB-1A Extraordinary Ability · Free Masterclass

You Did the Extraordinary Work.
Now Let's Prove It to USCIS.

In this free Masterclass, you'll see how EB-1 Portfolio Builder combines intelligent guided questioning, years specialising in EB-1 and AI-assisted evidence analysis to turn scattered professional achievements into a structured portfolio for attorney review.

  • Which EB-1A criteria your career may support — and where stronger documentation may be needed
  • How to turn years of work into structured evidence — organised for attorney review
  • The mistakes that trigger an RFE or denial — and how to avoid them before you ever file
  • How the free evaluation works — and what it can and cannot tell you
26+ yrseducation and guided learning
$0to attend & get evaluated
Self-pacedbuild it on your schedule

Presented by the EB-1 Portfolio Builder team — years specialising in EB-1

Accomplished professionals organising their EB-1A evidence with EB-1 Portfolio Builder

Reserve your free seat

Pick a session — it starts at your chosen time.

Encrypted & confidential · Never sold · No card required

Seats for each session are limited

Built at your pace. We give you the tools to reach your dream.

There's no clock and no pressure. EB1 Portfolio Builder hands you the templates, the step-by-step guidance and the structure — you build the case that changes your life, one step at a time, whenever life allows.

Go at your speed — pause and resume anytime

Every tool included — templates, examples, guidance

Your progress is saved — it never expires

Who this is for

If You've Led, Built, Researched or Created — This Is For You.

Professionals often hold more relevant evidence than they initially realise. The Masterclass shows how guided questioning can help bring that evidence into view.

EB-1A for technology and engineering professionals
Technology & Engineering
EB-1A for healthcare and life sciences professionals
Healthcare & Life Sciences
EB-1A for researchers and academics
Academia & Research
EB-1A for executives, founders and business leaders
Business & Leadership
EB-1A for artists, creators and media professionals
Arts, Media & Entertainment
EB-1A for emerging and niche disciplines
Emerging & Niche Fields

What you'll walk away with

Walk in with a portfolio, not a pile.

You'll move from “I don't know where to start” to understanding the next step in organising your evidence.

1

The evidence gap that sinks strong cases

USCIS doesn't assess your career — it assesses your evidence. See exactly how to close that gap before it costs you.

2

Which of the 10 criteria you already meet

The framework that maps your real achievements to the criteria — so you stop guessing and start proving.

3

How to build visibility that counts

Turn publications, awards, judging and media into criterion-by-criterion proof that stands up to scrutiny.

4

How to save thousands in attorney time

Hand your lawyer a criterion-mapped portfolio so their hours buy legal strategy — not document sorting.

Reserve your free seat above. Watch the walkthrough, learn how the evidence-building method works, and start your free evaluation when you are ready.

Help us improve every session

Tell us what was useful — and what we should explain better.

EPB is a new platform, so we only publish feedback that has genuinely been submitted by attendees and approved for public use. At the end of the webinar, you can leave a comment about the session, the platform or the next step it helped you understand.

Verified attendee comments will appear here as they are received. We will not invent ratings or present sample comments as customer testimonials.

The Professional Development Center

Not Ready Yet? Let's Build the Evidence Together.

If you have the potential for an EB-1 but do not yet have all the credentials or evidence you need, your journey does not have to stop. With the EB-1 Portfolio Builder, it can be where your journey begins.

A professional at home listening to an EPB audio tutorial on collecting evidence for a leading or critical role

A Structured Path Forward

Turn missing evidence into a development plan.

The Professional Development Center helps you understand and work towards areas of your professional profile that may still need development. Instead of simply telling you, “You don't have this evidence,” we help you answer the more important question: “What can I start doing about it?”

1

Understand

Learn what the relevant criteria mean and which areas of your profile may need strengthening.

2

Discover

Explore appropriate opportunities involving judging, awards, memberships, speaking, publications and recognition.

3

Develop

Prepare for genuine opportunities, track your progress and document what you achieve.

4

Integrate

Organise genuine achievements and add the resulting evidence to your developing portfolio.

ALICE™ + Professional Development

Guidance and action, working together.

ALICE helps you understand the journey. The Professional Development Center helps you take action. Together, they help you understand what you have, identify what may be missing and create a pathway for what comes next.

Your American dream doesn't have to start with a perfect portfolio. You may already have an exceptional career and significant achievements, or you may discover areas of your professional profile that still need development. The platform is designed to support both starting points.

This is about genuine professional development. It is not about manufacturing credentials or guaranteeing that an activity will satisfy an EB-1 criterion. It is about helping accomplished professionals strategically develop, document and understand their genuine achievements.

You are building your EB-1 story. Your achievements. Your evidence. Your development. Your journey. One intelligent step at a time.

EB-1A Frequently Asked Questions

General information only — not legal advice. Rules can change; check USCIS and rely on your attorney for your specific case.

What is the EB-1A extraordinary ability green card?
The employment-based, first-preference US green card for people among the small percentage at the top of their field.
Do I need an employer or job offer for EB-1A?
No. EB-1A is self-petitioned.
How many criteria do I need to meet?
At least three of the ten, unless you have a one-time major internationally recognised award.
How is EB-1A different from the NIW?
Both allow self-petitioning. EB-1A uses the extraordinary ability standard; NIW is an EB-2 route based on work in the US national interest.
How is EB-1A different from EB-1B and EB-1C?
EB-1B and EB-1C require employer sponsorship. EB-1A can be self-petitioned.
Can I file without a lawyer?
Legally, yes. Many people prepare their portfolio and then obtain attorney review.
Is EB-1A only for scientists and academics?
No. It covers business, arts, athletics, education and sciences.
What is a final merits determination?
The second-stage review in which USCIS weighs all evidence together.
What is an RFE?
A Request for Evidence from USCIS asking for more documentation before a decision.

EB-1A Glossary: Every Term, in Plain English

EB-1A — The employment-based, first-preference immigrant visa for individuals of extraordinary ability.

Extraordinary ability — Expertise showing you are among the small percentage at the top of your field.

Self-petition — Filing Form I-140 for yourself without an employer sponsor.

USCIS — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Form I-140 — The immigrant petition used to file an EB-1 case.

The ten criteria — The regulatory evidence types; generally at least three are required.

Comparable evidence — Alternative evidence allowed where standard criteria do not readily apply.

Final merits determination — The second-stage review weighing all evidence together.

Preponderance of the evidence — The more-likely-than-not standard of proof.

RFE (Request for Evidence) — A USCIS request for additional documentation.

Adjudicator — The USCIS officer who reviews the petition.

Priority date — The filing date that sets a place in the visa queue.

Premium processing — An optional paid service for faster I-140 processing.

Beneficiary / petitioner — In a self-petition, you are both the filer and beneficiary.

Let's Build Your EB-1 Portfolio.
Start Your Free Evaluation Today.

Personalized StrategyExpert GuidanceNo Obligation
A team collaborating around a laptop
Personalized Evidence Strategy
Evidence Organised for Attorney Review
Global Expertise, Local Understanding
End-to-End Support
Confidential & Secure Process

EB-1 Portfolio Builder · News

Important EB-1 developments, explained clearly.

Follow priority dates, evidence-policy developments and processing changes through concise briefings grounded in published government sources.

Educational information only. Always verify time-sensitive information through the linked government source or a qualified attorney.
Official sources linked Plain-English context Updated briefings
EPB news presenter in the EPB newsroom

Current briefings Current

Reviewed 24 August 2026
Act nowEB-1A

Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility takes effect on 18 September 2026.

 Act nowVisa Bulletin

EB-1 India may go unavailable before the fiscal year ends.

 Act nowUSCIS policy

Important filing, fee and processing developments.
Act now2 minute read

Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility takes effect on 18 September 2026

A current EB-1 briefing grounded in published U.S. government sources.

The framework officers apply remains important: evidence is assessed against the regulatory criteria and then considered as a whole under the final-merits determination.

EPB connects developments like this to the practical work applicants can control: understanding their record, identifying relevant evidence and preparing it clearly for attorney review.

What this means for your EB-1 journey

Turn an immigration update into a practical evidence plan

Policy changes can affect which documents deserve attention and how an applicant's overall record should be organised.

Start your free evaluation Read the permanent briefing
EB-1 Portfolio Builder provides educational and organisational information only. It does not provide legal advice or guarantee any immigration outcome.

EPB Help & Support

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EPB provides educational and organisational support. Immigration advice, filing decisions and outcome assessments must come from a qualified immigration attorney.

EB-1 Portfolio Builder provides educational and organisational information only. It does not provide legal advice or guarantee any immigration outcome.