The B nonimmigrant visa category covers alien visitors for business (B-1) and pleasure (B-2). Most aliens who enter the United States each year do so as nonimmigrant visitors in the B visa category. Stays in the United States in this category are usually brief, and involve activities like travel and tourism, visiting family members, obtaining medical care, or conducting business on behalf of an overseas employer. The trips cannot involve employment in the United States or the undertaking of an academic study program.

Duration of Stay

A business visitor (B-1) will be granted only a period of entry necessary to conduct his or her business. Most such visits are approved for less than three months.

Tourists in the B-2 category are automatically given a period of entry of six months, even if the visitor intends to remain only for a short period. A longer period than six months can be granted unusual circumstances, while a border agent can give less than six months only "for good cause," and only when approved by a higher level official.

B-1 Business Visitors 

The State Department has enumerated a number of legitimate activities for business visitors to the United States. This enumeration appears in the State Department's internal instructions to consular officers, the Foreign Affairs Manual. The basic rules governing the B-1 visa determination are as follows:

• With few exceptions, the B-1 visa holder cannot engage in productive employment in the U.S. Productive employment includes both salaried work for an employer and services for hire on an independent basis (independent contractors or freelancers).
  
• The B-1 business activity should be associated with international trade or commerce.
  
• The principal benefit of the activity accrues to the business person or corporate entity abroad. This includes the payment of the B-1 visa holder from a source outside the U.S.

If the prospective B-1 visa holder is to be paid a salary from a U.S. source, there is  little chance that he or she qualifies for a B-1 visa. The same is true when the prospective visa holder is an independent contractor or business entrepreneur in a service field and will receive payment under contract or otherwise from a U.S. source.,  the B-1 visa is inappropriate, although this case is less clear with a salary situation.

B-2 Visitor for Pleasure

The B-2 category includes tourists, persons on shopping trips, and persons visiting friends or relatives in the United States. It also includes persons coming to the U.S. to seek medical attention and person coming to conferences or conventions not relating to business. It also covers family members of aliens who are crewmen or belong to the armed services.

This category can also be used for dependents of nonimmigrant in other categories who do not themselves qualify for derivative status in that category, e.g., the elder parent of an H-1B nonimmigrant. Persons in this last group will normally be admitted for the maximum period permissible up to the limit of the principal nonimmigrant's period of stay. Therefore, if the principal is an H-1 nonimmigrant admitted for a three-year period, the elderly parent dependent will be admitted in the B-2 category for one-year period that can be extended as long as the principal nonimmigrant remains legally in the United States.

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