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Show income for one year or several?

Key answer

You show income for the same period you benchmark against - usually the last year or the last few years in matching slices. The community notes you should compare against statistically high salaries, not just the average, and that summing several average incomes from different jobs is a weak strategy.

Community answers

The answers below are translated from the original Russian - the language of the community chats.

  • Use the same period for which you show your income. And compare not only to the average but also to statistically high income: the criterion is vaguely defined, and in RFE, they wanted to see a comparison with the upper market segment.

  • In my opinion, a high salary is when you are paid well because you are a rare and valuable specialist, not just the total income from three jobs where each pays you the market average.

  • Show income for the same period during which you compare it with the market. And compare not only to the average but also to statistically high income: based on chat experience, RFE wants to see that your income is at the top, not just above average.

The answers are anonymized community experience from the public chats, not legal advice. Officers may decide similar cases differently.

Why "High remuneration" gets refused

Accepted in 14% of challenged petitions (23 of 160); not an approval rate.

The comparison source is not accepted: it needs occupation- and location-matched data, not general market surveys.

All refusal grounds and the sample

Sources

All questions on: Salary and income

Related on this site

Similar questions

A reference page built from community experience, not legal advice. Requirements and practice change - verify on uscis.gov.

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