H-1B1 visas for Chileans double after the pandemic and take hold as a professional development path

In just five years, nearly 60% of the roughly 15,200 visas issued since the program was created in 2004 under the free trade agreement were concentrated.

Until little more than a decade ago, the U.S. H-1B1 visa was a tool barely used by Chilean professionals. According to the report by Diario Financiero (Monday, July 27, 2026), written by Francisca Guerrero, until 2014 this type of visa —new or renewal— did not reach 500 per year.

The leap that came after the pandemic

The first significant jump came after the pandemic: visas went from 546 in 2020 to 1,097 in 2021, passed 2,000 in 2023 and stayed above that level through 2025, according to the Nonimmigrant Visa Statistics of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

As a result, the last five years concentrated nearly 60% of the roughly 15,200 visas issued since the program began operating in 2004, after the Chile–U.S. Free Trade Agreement entered into force.

Evolution of H-1B1 visas granted to Chileans, according to USCIS figures:

• 2004: 24 visas
• 2008: 308 visas
• 2010: 247 visas
• 2014: 609 visas
• 2018: 845 visas
• 2020: 546 visas
• 2021: 1,097 visas
• 2024: 2,133 visas
• 2025: 2,022 visas

A visa exclusively for Chileans and Singaporeans

Available exclusively to Chileans and Singaporeans, the H-1B1 allows temporary work in "specialty occupations", which require a university degree and knowledge tied to the role. To obtain it, applicants need a professional degree and a U.S. job offer related to their education and experience. As the report notes, it is granted for one year and can be renewed indefinitely in annual periods.

Chileans can apply for it directly through the consular route, without a prior employer petition before USCIS — in contrast to the traditional H-1B, which is subject to a random lottery.

According to the CEO of international mobility consultancy Visability, Pablo Navarrete, in a single year around 500,000 professionals compete for 65,000 H-1B slots. He also highlighted that the process available to Chileans lets a company onboard a worker in considerably shorter timeframes.

"When you sit down with a U.S. company and tell them 'I can bring you a qualified professional in less than two months, it has practically no cost for you as an employer and it's renewable indefinitely', they say 'that's too good to be true'. So the first barrier is the lack of awareness. Companies don't know this visa exists. Neither do Chileans," Navarrete said.

Driven by the MBAs

For the executive, the expansion recorded after the pandemic is explained precisely by wider awareness of this alternative. Added to that is the growing number of Chileans pursuing graduate studies in the U.S., which makes it easier to connect with companies and find job opportunities.

"In recent years, more than 200 Chileans have been doing an MBA over there every year and, if you go back 10 years, there were no more than 20 per year. When you build a life abroad, every door opens with major companies," Navarrete said.

Where the demand is in the United States

U.S. demand is concentrated precisely in those areas. According to USCIS, in 2025 visas for specialty occupations broke down as follows:

• Computer science and information technology: 62%
• Architecture and engineering: 10%
• Education: 6%
• Business: 5.9%
• Health: 4.8%

The median annual salary reached US$133,000, while in computer occupations it reached US$140,000.

The challenges: the job offer and the brain drain

For the executive search director at HR and headhunting consultancy Grafton Latam, Andrea Santana, the main challenge is still landing a job offer in the U.S.

"The hiring decision depends on experience, specialization, English proficiency and how competitive the candidate is against professionals from all over the world," she said.

Meanwhile, Intelligence at Corpa warned that the trend raises the risk of a greater outflow of human capital.

"It's a problem for these countries, since they manage to educate their best professionals to a high standard, often funding scholarships and studies, but in the end the local market can't absorb them," they said.

In their view, the public policy challenge is to create conditions to retain that talent, or to allow those professionals to invest back into Chile after gaining experience abroad.

How Visability supports the process

The first barrier, as the report puts it, is the lack of awareness. Visability works precisely on that, supporting professionals and companies at every stage:

• Initial H-1B1 eligibility assessment.
• Guidance on finding and validating the U.S. job offer.
• Preparation of academic and employment documentation.
• Coaching for the consular interview.

Read the full story on Diario Financiero here: H-1B1 visas for Chileans double after the pandemic