For Munim and Janika · 30 August 2026
No lawyer has seen any of this. It was produced by eight separate artificial-intelligence researchers, each reading the actual laws and government sources, each working from the facts alone with no steer on what answer to reach. Three of them found errors in their own first conclusions when challenged. Treat it as a well-researched starting point for a conversation with a real lawyer, not as advice.
This is a point of view, not a verdict. Some of it rests on rules that changed six weeks ago and have no track record yet. Push back on anything here, and particularly on the numbers, which are estimates rather than measurements. It was written to be challenged, and the parts most likely to be wrong are named at the bottom rather than hidden.
Three things, and you can have any two of them. Both of you working. Both of you in the same country. That country being America.
That is the whole problem in one line, and everything below is detail underneath it. Today you have the first alone.
Each of these could move the answer more than any decision you make. None of them takes long, and nobody has done any of them.
If that employer was a Skanska company, then the transfer route into a Skanska office in America is available now, not in May 2027. It needs one year with the group in the last three, and those years would already count. It arrives with the right to work from day one, it can be pushed through in fifteen working days, and it would also give Munim the right to work through her, which outlasts his own permit in June 2028. It was called the best route on the board. It turns on a fact only Janika holds.
The two researchers who looked at her own extraordinary-ability visa disagreed sharply, one saying roughly one in ten and the other roughly one in four. Both were reasoning from a file that records no competitions, prizes, published work, jury seats or press. Architecture is a field unusually full of all four. If that file is simply incomplete, this becomes the strongest route available, because it has no annual quota and can be pushed through quickly. A week of honest stock-taking settles it.
There is a category of American employer, universities and affiliated non-profits, that is exempt from the annual visa quota entirely. They can file at any time of year, there is no lottery, and it can be fast-tracked. Universities have estates departments and employ architects. Nobody has looked.
Ranked on the only test that matters here: she is in the country and lawfully allowed to work. Being there without that does not count. The chances below are estimates, not measurements.
| Route | Chance | Can she work? | The honest problem |
|---|---|---|---|
| Britain Both of you already have the right |
Certain | Yes, both of you | Not America. That is the entire objection, and it is a real one. But it is the only option with no application, no fee, no waiting and no chance of refusal. |
| Transfer within Skanska | 12% | Yes, on arrival | Needs a year with the group and needs them to want her in America. The chance is low only because nobody has asked. See item 1 above. |
| A quota-exempt American employer University or non-profit |
10% | Yes | No lottery, files year round, and roughly three or four months between a job offer and her arrival. It needs an actual job offer, which nobody has sought. |
| Her own extraordinary ability visa | 8 to 30% | Yes | The two researchers genuinely disagree, and the disagreement is about her record rather than about the law. See item 2 above. |
| Spouse of a student Joining Munim on his status |
3% | No, for 13 months | She would be in Cleveland by February and unable to work until about February 2028. The work permit is running at twelve and a half months and cannot be fast-tracked at any price. It also dies with Munim's status. |
| Treaty investor, through Eulia | 3% | In theory | The reason it fails is the same fact as your requirement, seen from the other side: it is refused because the company cannot pay her a living. Moving shares around does not touch that. |
| Ordinary skilled worker visa | 1% | Yes | This year's quota is gone and the next one cannot start work until 1 October 2027, which misses your window by about a month. |
Combined: about one in three that Janika is in America and lawfully working by the end of next August.
Because Janika holds settled status in Britain, the referral scheme that can stretch the wait to seventy days does not apply to her, and she needs no marriage visitor visa. The actual England timetable is seven days living in the district, then twenty eight clear days of notice, given in person by both of you. That is about five weeks in total, not the two weeks an earlier version of this page said. A December wedding still works, with notice given by about 20 November, but it needs Munim in England for part of it.
Ohio has no waiting period at all for a resident, so marrying during Janika's visit between 2 and 13 October is genuinely available. The recommendation is to do it regardless of everything else on this page, for one reason: it protects a route that otherwise shuts permanently, and it commits you to nothing.
A spouse acquired before approval comes too. A spouse acquired afterwards does not, ever, on that application. The queue is currently wide open for British applicants, so an application could move faster than you expect. The rule is simple: marry first, or do not file the last stage until you have. Once she is named, there is no deadline for her to follow.
America is ending open-ended student status. A student who is following every condition of their status on that day keeps it automatically until their work permit ends, plus sixty days. For Munim that is 14 August 2028, with nothing to file.
There is no form. There is a condition, and three things currently fail it.
These sat on a list as tidying up. They are the condition attached to twenty one months of security.
A green card application posted by 17 September is judged under today's rule, which counts only cash welfare and long term institutional care. From 18 September a new rule gives officials broad discretion and requires them to weigh income and assets. A $12,000 salary is below the American poverty line for one person. Under the new rule that is something they are told to consider.
But the two things pull against each other, and this is the real tension on the page. Filing by 17 September means filing the case as it stands today, at roughly 30 to 40 per cent. Waiting four to six months to build it properly takes it to 45 to 60 per cent, but then it is judged under the harsher rule. There is no version where you get both, and which one wins is a question for the lawyer rather than for this page.
The queue is not the obstacle. This month's official bulletin was read directly: for British applicants the relevant categories are open, so the petition and the application can be filed on the same day.
| Route | Now | With work | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| National interest waiver Arguing his work matters enough to America to waive the need for an employer |
30 to 40% | 45 to 60% | The main route. Four to six months of preparation moves it most. |
| Extraordinary ability green card | 12 to 22% | - | More are refused than approved this year. The complete absence of press coverage hurts most, and his medical college memberships do not count, because they are earned by examination. |
| Extraordinary ability work visa Temporary, but his strongest card |
35 to 50% | Higher with press | A full application was written and paid for last year and never sent. Eulia is allowed to sponsor him. |
A green card by June 2028? About 15 to 25 per cent. But that is the wrong question. The chance he is still lawfully in America and working past that date, by some route, is around 85 per cent.
Treat that 85 per cent with some suspicion. It adds together three routes that largely fail for the same three reasons: no press coverage, a company with no revenue, and a $12,000 salary. If one route fails on those, the others probably fail too, so the true figure is lower than simple addition suggests. This is a specific question worth putting to the lawyer: what is the chance all three fail together?
Once a green card application is pending, leaving America without a separate travel document can be treated as abandoning it, and that document currently takes a long time to issue. This page recommends filing quickly and also contemplates a wedding in England. Those two may not be compatible. Nothing should be posted until a lawyer has confirmed he could still fly to his own wedding.
Munim's Australian permanent residence was granted on 3 March 2023 with no conditions. Its travel rights end on 3 March 2028, and the Act itself was read rather than the government's summary of it:
The cheap move, and the strongest Australian recommendation: one short trip before 3 March 2028, on the rights he already holds. Be careful what this buys, because an earlier version of this page overstated it. The trip does not extend the March 2028 date and does not restore his freedom to travel. What it does is keep alive a route back: it stops a five-year continuous-absence clock and preserves his status as someone who last left Australia as a permanent resident, which is what the good return-visa route depends on. Walking back through that door, whenever he chooses to, still means an application, a fee, and an official agreeing he has strong enough ties to Australia. That is a discretionary judgement, not an entitlement, and on today's file his chances were put at roughly three in ten, rising to seven or eight in ten with a signed Australian job offer in hand.
Two things not to do. Do not apply for a return visa now, which would swap eighteen months of unlimited travel for twelve, at about A$1,475. And after March 2028 he must not enter as an ordinary tourist and then leave, which destroys the best route back.
Which makes the medical registration worth more than it looks. It is currently his strongest live Australian tie, and it is the sort of thing that discretionary ties test is looking for. Letting it lapse and then asking to come back are in tension.
Could he run a business there instead of working as a doctor? Yes, without qualification. The entire conditions clause for his visa was read and it is empty, because it was granted while he was in Australia. He can run a company, be self employed, be a director, and never see a patient again. Letting his medical registration lapse would not affect the visa, though it is his strongest current Australian tie, so it is worth keeping.
Nothing here is urgent. There is no sale, no offer and no timetable. Two findings are worth knowing anyway, because they are about avoiding an accident rather than planning for one.
A rule charges a flat thirty per cent on the whole gain for someone in exactly that position: not yet an American taxpayer, but physically there for most of the year. Both tax researchers found it separately. One thought there might be an argument against it, went back to the full text, and found that Congress had explicitly switched off the relief that would otherwise help. On a ten million dollar gain that is three million dollars, avoided at no cost by not selling in the wrong year.
The risk runs to the end of 2027, and that date is worth pinning because a year either way is three million dollars. It rests on Munim having first arrived as a student in 2023, which his own records state twice, independently, including the separate date on which American social security tax starts applying to him. A note elsewhere describing 2026 as his third year counts something different, years of status rather than calendar years, and the two were reconciled in his file last week.
Eulia was deliberately described as consumer wellness rather than anything medical, partly to qualify for an American relief that can wipe out tax on the first fifteen million dollars each. It is real, and the shares qualify from 27 July 2029, reaching full value on 27 July 2031.
It only helps someone who owes American tax on the gain in the first place. Step outside the American tax net and it disappears, and Britain and Finland cannot see it, so they tax the gain in full. The decision about where you live and the decision about how the company is described are the same decision, currently being taken five years apart.
Roughly, per person, on a ten million dollar gain each, after tax:
| Where you live when you sell | You keep | Why |
|---|---|---|
| America, having held five years | $10,000,000 | The relief covers it entirely. Ohio follows the federal rule, which not every state does. |
| Switzerland | $10,000,000 | Does not tax private capital gains at all. |
| Britain | $7,679,000 | Twenty four per cent, with no credit for anything. |
| America, before July 2029 | $7,620,000 | The relief has not matured yet. |
| Australia | $7,340,000 | About twenty three and a half per cent. It beats America if the relief ever fails. |
| Finland | $7,281,000 | About twenty seven per cent. |
| America, on a student visa, present most of the year | $7,000,000 | The accident above. The worst available outcome. |
Modelled on stated assumptions. Illustrative, not advice. They exclude state and local taxes outside Ohio, which in some states would change the order.
Since 2021 Finland claims a foreign company as its own if it is genuinely run from Finland, and the Finnish tax office says in its own guidance that directors joining board meetings by video from Finland is a strong indicator. Janika is a director, in Espoo. If it bites, America taxes Eulia at twenty one per cent and Finland at twenty per cent on the same income, and the treaty gives relief in neither direction, because there is no automatic tiebreaker and the two governments would simply have to agree. Both tax researchers, working separately on different countries, found the same hole. The fix is about where board decisions are made, and Finland will give a binding answer in advance if asked. This was called the best value item in the whole review.
A separate reviewer, which had not seen any of the research and did not write a word of this page, was asked to find everything wrong with it. Nine of its points are below, unedited. Four of them were corrections rather than opinions and have already been fixed above, which is why some of the numbers here changed since it read the page.
Nothing here has been checked by anyone who can be held responsible for it, and the one route that lets Janika work without depending on Munim cannot open before about May 2027 whatever is decided this week. So very little genuinely has to happen now. The pay rate and the two overdue forms are Munim's alone and are worth fixing whether or not the rest of this is right. Everything else, the country, the wedding, the filing, the sale, is a large decision resting on rules that are weeks old, on a lawyer nobody has hired, and on a page that gives no price for anything it recommends. Buy the hour of legal time first and settle nothing else until after it.