We were recently lucky enough to achieve our dream of moving from the UK to the USA. During the process, I found it difficult to find the information I was looking for, so decided to document our journey in the hope of helping others.
Since meeting my husband over 20 years ago, living in the US has been our dream. Fast-forward through 17 years of marriage, three kids, and many holidays to Orlando, and that dream has just grown and grown.
We’d visit Florida every one to two years; a place that truly had our hearts from the very first visit. We spent a glorious week in New York back in 2019, and also fell in love with that city, right before the world changed forever. The USA felt like somewhere that we belonged and were meant to be, as corny as that may sound.
Many an hour was spent researching possible ways of moving there. Sadly, you can’t just decide to move to the US, pack a bag, catch a flight over and stay forever. Oh no, Mr Immigration officer won’t allow that. Unless you want to risk being deported and permanently banned, you need a proper work visa, not just a tourist visa, or an ESTA. But getting said visa isn’t exactly easy.
How to move to the US on a work visa
There are various work visa types, the most common being the E2, H1B, and L1. For most employment visas you must be performing work for which qualified workers are not available in the United States, as they don’t want you to be taking work away from US citizens. The rules for each visa can get quite complicated, so I’m just going to provide a brief description below. If you’re interested in finding out more about each visa, and whether you’d qualify, I’d strongly suggest contacting a good immigration lawyer.
E2 Visa
This is the visa that my husband now has. It’s normally a visa that people get by starting or investing in a US business. Many Brits move over to Florida on the E2 visa by purchasing a business there. It’s a non-permanent visa, with no clear path to getting a green card. We got over on the E2 visa as my husband’s new employer are a British based business who entered the US market on an E2 visa, and they are then allowed to bring specialist workers over on E2 visas.
H1B Visa
The H1B visa is a temporary work permit (doesn’t have a clear path to a Green Card), that allows foreigners to work for a US employer, within specialty occupations. The worker must be highly skilled in their job, and most applicants tend to hold university degrees. Although many years of job experience in that particular field can override the need for a degree.
L1 Visa
These are intra-company transfer visas. For example, a British based company my have offices in the US, and would transfer an employee from the UK to work in their US office on an L1 visa. The L1 visa category can also be used if you want to expand your business into the US.
O1 Visa
This is the Extraordinary Abilities visa, for those people who possess extraordinary skills in arts, sciences, business, education, or athletics. It’s also the visa that TV and movie stars would use if they wanted to live in the US.
EB Visas
The EB category of visas are the holy grail as they get you a Green Card, which means you can reside permanently in the US, without having to renew your visa every few years, or leave once your visa has expired.
Learn more about different types of work visas here and here.
Even though I own my own business, it’s too small of a business to qualify for one of the small business/entrepreneur visas. The E2 visa was enticing, but required a hefty sum of £100,000+ to purchase an E2 qualifying business. My husband’s company only had offices in the UK, so an intra-company transfer wasn’t an option. So, we resigned ourselves to residing in the UK for the foreseeable.
Our journey to getting a US work visa
Our journey began last August. Completely out of the blue, my husband received a message on LinkedIn from a British company that has a large presence in the US, asking if he’d be interested in working in the US. Erm, let’s think about that for a nanosecond…YES! A few days later he received another message on LinkedIn. This time from someone he worked with a few years ago, but who was now working for this very same company in the US, but in a different State. He also wanted to know if he’d consider working in the US.
What followed was months of to-ing and fro-ing, video interviews, messages back and forth (long story…) But then, at the end of November 2023 he received a formal offer for this company to work in their Seattle office, along with a very attractive salary and benefits package.
Now none of us had ever been to Seattle, or even over to the West coast, so we began to do some research. OK, so it’s at completely the opposite corner of the States to Florida, the weather didn’t look too great, cost of living and property looked very high. It would also mean leaving family and friends (including my elderly parents) behind. But it was a chance for us to begin living our dream.
I’m a very strong believer in living life to the fullest and grabbing every chance that you get. At the age of 20 I was diagnosed with the auto-immune condition Lupus. Over the following years I lost various friends to the disease. Then, a few years ago, my high school best friend lost her life to sepsis, leaving two beautiful little girls behind. Life really is too short, and if an opportunity like this is offered to you, you need to go for it, or you may end up regretting not taking that chance, especially when it’s something you’ve dreamed of for so long.
Getting the US work visa
He accepted the offer of employment, but we had to wait until mid-January for a visa interview at the US Embassy in London. All that time, we kept it quiet, and only told close family.
This was the scary bit, the rest of our lives depended upon this one morning in London! We all travelled down on the train and stayed overnight, getting up very early for our 8am appointment. Our hotel was just the other side of the Thames to the Embassy, and with me not being a fan of the Underground, we took an Uber over there.
There was a long line when we arrived at around 7:30am, but as we had a child with us we got bumped up to the front of the line. After going through airport style security we were sent up in the elevator and given a ticket with our number on. Lots of booths (think Post Office/Bank-style counters with “privacy” dividers at each side, ran along one side, and around the corner. We took a seat and listened out for our number to be called. After about 10 minutes I decided to get a cup of tea (we’d had no breakfast at this point) from the little cafe stand in the middle. While she was pouring my tea I looked at the screen and saw our number, but hadn’t heard it being announced, even though I’d been listening out for it. I grabbed the cup from her and went quicky back round to where my family were sitting. My husband was just rushing round to get me. They hadn’t heard it being announced either, so I’m pretty sure the system wasn’t working (more on that later). By the time we got to or booth (literally about 1 minute from seeing the number on the screen) the woman had called the next person up, and made us feel like naughty schoolchildren who’d turned up late. She sent us back to sit down and wait, until after that person had been seen, before being called up again.
I can only liken the manner of this woman to Roz from Monsters Inc., with a bit of Miss Trunchbull thrown in for good measure. She found every opportunity to tell us off and belittle us. Her job was basically just to check through all of the paperwork, passport photos, etc. Maybe she’d gotten out of bed the wrong side that morning? Whatever her excuse, you shouldn’t treat people the way she treated us that day.
Anyway, after that ordeal, we were ordered to go back and wait to see the immigration officer. This time we didn’t take our eyes off the screen. Within a few minutes our number popped up to go to one of the little side rooms. It wasn’t announced over the speakers though. When we tried to enter the room we discovered someone else was already using it. We hung around outside of the room, but no one was around to help or advise what to do, and we were already traumatized by “Roz” and didn’t want to make anymore mistakes. After a few minutes our number disappeared from the screen, then the immigration officer called us over to a booth. He muttered something about the system not working – noooo, you don’t say?! Maybe that’s why we missed our first call up, d’ya think?!!
Now, a few days before we left for London we’d had a video call appointment with the immigration lawyer that my husband’s new company were using to get us over there. I’d say he massively over-prepared us for the interview, and my husband had spent a long time practicing interview questions. In the end, this immigration officer asked him one question related to the job, shuffled the papers around a bit, and we only just heard him muttering that we’d got the visa as he walked off! Leaving us standing there, looking at each other, wondering if we’d heard him correctly. He came back over and said we could go, our passports would be sent in the mail around 10 days later, once the visa has been added.
This was it, our dreams were finally coming true!
Our passports were actually delivered back to us within a few days. The visas are just a piece of paper stuck to one of the passport pages. With an E2 visa, my husband is the main visa holder. I’m an E2S (S for spouse), which means I’m eligible to work in the US. But the kids are not allowed to work, but can attend school/college. Although the visa is valid for 5 years, and can be renewed at the 5 year mark, when you enter the US, they will likely only admit you for up to 2 years. You then have to leave the country (back to visit the UK, or another country on holiday/vacation), and re-enter. At which point they’ll admit you for another 2 years (sometimes less, especially if you don’t re-enter with the main E2 visa holder themselves). This all seems a bit daft when the visa is for 5 years, but those are the rules!
Preparing to move to the US
Once we had the approval, it was full speed ahead. My husband’s company were paying for the flights, a month’s accommodation, rental car for a month, and money towards moving costs.
They booked the flights for us, but we were able to say which airports/flights/airline. We’d already booked a holiday to California for April this year, just before this all started to happen. I managed to cancel those flights, and used the refund money to upgrade us all to Premium Economy, so we’d have 2 checked bags each. This would be a massive help with moving our clothes over.
After MUCH research and hours spent online reading reviews and comparing prices, we eventually settled on Pickfords removals. We decided not to take any furniture over just personal possessions. It was too expensive as we’d need a full shipping container, which would take around 10-14 weeks to arrive anyway. It was difficult to work out exactly how many boxes we’d need before we actually started packing, but Pickfords allowed us to over-estimate, and we didn’t have to pay for the empty boxes, just what was actually shipped at the end of it. So I ordered more boxes than I thought I’d need.
The next few weeks were spent frantically packing. None of the boxes could be over 30kg in weight, so I had to weigh each item individually before packing, and make sure each box didn’t exceed the limit. Each item also had to be listed on a manifest for each box, both for insurance and customs purposes. The value of each item also had to be listed. In the end, we had 10 boxes going by air freight, and 9 boxes going by sea freight. It was cheaper to do it this way, rather than send it all by air. Plus, certain things couldn’t be sent by air freight – candles, knives, scissors, etc.
The air freight boxes arrived about 9-10 days after being collected from our UK address. One box had bust open, even though I was sure I’d taped it up well enough. Quite a few fragile items had gotten broken, all from the same box. Although I’d paid for insurance, the guy at Pickfords had said to undervalue everything so as not to attract the attention of customs. I’d stupidly listened to him, so when it came to claiming back, once the £50 excess had been taken off, I got just £17 back, The items were probably worth more like £200+. I guess they do that to protect themselves against having to pay out, rather it having anything to do with customs. I regret listening to him, and not putting down the actual value of the items, but you live and learn!
As I write this, we’re still awaiting the sea freight stuff. The port company have been in touch to say the stuff arrived at the Port of Los Angeles, but there are big delays, so it won’t arrive within the 10-14 weeks specified. [edit: it arrived around 18 weeks after first being picked up, and we also had to pay various customs inspection fees that were never mentioned originally.]
As for all of our furniture and stuff we couldn’t manage to bring with us… we tried selling as much as possible via Ebay and local Facebook sales groups. It’s amazing how much junk a family of five can accumulate over the years. We had an open house sale, and although not many people came, those that did bought a lot. I’d also arranged a couple of charity collections and almost filled their van both times. We gave stuff away to friends and family, and also did numerous trips to charity shops. It was all done in such a rush, looking back I regret giving stuff away for pennies, or for nothing in some cases. I wish we’d paid to have a couple more boxes shipped over. We also have several boxes of stuff stored in my parent’s loft to sort at a future date.
When shipping things over, regardless of the method – sea or air freight – you’re not allowed to send any type of liquids, or food items of any kind (because they attract pests). You’re also not allowed to ship candles. We had hoped to ship over some of our favorite food items, so were now limited to what we could squeeze into our luggage, which wasn’t very much!
Regarding our UK house, we’d decided to take a risk and put it on the market just after Christmas, before we even knew for definite if we’d be going or not. We knew the housing market wasn’t great, so wanted to get a head start. Despite having quite a few viewers, many turned out to be time wasters, or weren’t in a position to buy yet. Because we needed a quick sale – we didn’t want to leave the house empty/unsold, and also needed the money to buy a property in Seattle – we dropped the asking price several times over the coming weeks. It came down to the wire, and we accepted an offer just a week before we were due to leave. As an incentive for people to buy, we were offering to leave large electrical items and furniture as part of the sale. This also saved us the hassle of selling TVs and beds last minute, and from being left with not having anything to sit or sleep on.
I did research into taking electronics over with us, and soon discovered it wasn’t worth the hassle. The US uses a lower voltage than the UK, which is why, if you’ve ever been on holiday to the US and taken straighteners or a hairdryer, you’ll know how poorly they function. For TVs it is apparently possible to buy transformers and whatnot, but TVs are ridiculously cheap over here. For what you’d sell your old TV for in the UK, you could buy a brand new one here ($300+ for a 65″ TV).
From having the interview in London to actually leaving was just over 4 weeks. Time passed in a blur of packing, and saying very tearful and sad goodbyes to family and friends.
Transporting a pet from the UK to the US
I forgot to mention, we were taking our little Cavachon, Arya, with us. Again, after much internet research, I’d decided on a company called PetsAbroad. They were very patient answering all of my questions, and I had faith that they’d look after Arya well. She had to be up to date with all of her vaccines, but would have to have a rabies vaccination before being allowed into Washington. I believe vaccination requirements vary by state, but none require quarantine when coming from the UK. We decided to have her flown out the day after us, as we’d have to be there soon after she landed, and we didn’t want to risk it if our flight was later than hers. As they would be making a custom crate to fit her, I had to provide accurate measurements of her length and height to them beforehand.
Time to go!
Because we had so much luggage, and had to drop Arya off near Heathrow airport, we decided to hire a minivan and drive down to Heathrow, rather than fly. This proved to be a good decision, and we made it down there in time to drop Arya off in time for final vet checks.
The previous night had been a late one, manically trying to fit everything into 11 suitcases – yes, 11 suitcases. We’d ended up buying an extra one, along with replacing many of our smaller ones with the biggest size allowed. Tried and failed, and so several plastic bags of items were stuffed into the minivan as well.
Once we’d arrived at the hotel and unloaded all 11 cases, several bags and five humans, we walked over to the Virgin Atlantic ticketing desk at the terminal. We were hoping to be able to upgrade to Upper Class for the sake of the higher luggage weight allowances, as a few of our cases were on the heavy side. Now, we fly a lot with VA, and had racked up quite a few Flying Club points. I’d previously been told by someone at VA that you could usually upgrade for less points at the airport. Sadly, they informed me this wasn’t the case, and we were short of the points needed to upgrade to Upper Class.
There was no more room in any of our cases, well, at least not without tipping them even more over the weight allowance than they already were. So the only option left was to buy another case. Only one luggage store was to be found in the airport terminal, with eye-watering prices. I swear I heard our credit card scream out as it was put through the machine! But at least we had another case to fill, even though that now put our luggage count at two over the allowed number.
After a quick breakfast the following morning, we headed over to check-in. I suffer badly with anxiety, and airports seem to send it off the chart. So I was a wreck by the time we got to check-in, even more so than normal, from worrying about the excess luggage charges we’d likely have to pay. I explained the situation to the nice check-in lady, and she sent me across to ticketing to see if the upgrade option had magically changed overnight. It hadn’t.
I cringed each time one of our cases was placed on the scales and was over the allowed 23kg. I have multiple health conditions, and take a lot of medication. I’d built up a bit of a stockpile to take over with us, and had already spoke to VA special assistance, who had very kindly increased one suitcase allowance to 30kg. But even this case tipped the scales at over 30kg. This was apparently too-too heavy, so I had to switch a few things around. We were at check-in for 45 minutes in total. I think all but two of our 12 cases had ended up with “heavy” stickers on them. At the end of it all, the incredibly nice check-in lady smiled and said she’d put them all through as medical, and there was nothing extra to pay. I could have kissed her!
So off we went, through security, and into the departures hall to await our flight to a new life…