A graduate dean told me international PhD founders can’t stay in the US and build a company. That’s only half true.
A graduate dean at a major research university told me recently that they weren’t really interested in the founder track content because international students can’t be founders and stay in the US due to immigration restrictions.
I run VersatilePhD, a global community of 120,000+ doctoral professionals across 130+ research universities, so this comment landed hard. This is partly because it came from someone whose job is to support international PhD researchers, but also because, frankly, I wasn’t really sure what the answer was. So I started digging.
How restrictive are visa options today for an international PhD founder trying to build a company and stay in the US? Does it matter if they are a university spin-out? What has changed since 2025? And what are the pathways available that most founders may not know about?
This is a fast-moving landscape, but there are few items to note at the outset (and which I will explain later). Leading off, the H-1B Modernization Rule has changed its criteria for founder self-sponsorship; the EB-2 NIW approval rate collapsed from 95% in 2022 to 35.7% in Q4 2025, then partially recovered; a $100,000 fee effectively threatened H-1B as a practical option for most pre-seed founders, before it was struck down in court (with litigation pending). Within this context, “extraordinary ability” O-1A has emerged as the most viable pathway for PhD founders that can prove genuine commercialization traction, but many university spinout founders are not aware of it.
The graduate dean’s message to me, that international students can’t be founders and stay in the US (and therefore PhD grads should look for “real” jobs to stay in the US) describes a common but not inevitable outcome. This issue maps out what’s actually available, what’s changed, and what foreign student founders in the US need to know.
Why does this matter?
As I wrote in America’s Brain Drain, high-skilled immigration drives university spinouts across cutting-edge technologies and is a significant contributor to US innovation. We all know the current situation: US visas issued to international students fell by roughly a third in 2025, with early 2026 data suggesting the decline has continued following the Duration of Status finalization. Research from the National Foundation for American Policy estimates a 30% decline in foreign STEM graduates entering the US labor force would shrink the high-skill STEM workforce by 6.2% overall and by 11.5% at the PhD level. The number of would-be founders that never form a start-up in the US can only be surmised from these trends.
This is important because roughly 55% of US billion-dollar startups have had at least one immigrant founder, while 64% have had a founder who was an immigrant or the child of an immigrant. Policies that reduce international student enrollment is, on its face, reducing the pipeline of immigrant founders who have historically driven a disproportionate share of US innovation.
The cost of getting this wrong is not theoretical. Kai Chen, a senior OpenAI researcher, had her green card application denied in 2025 and was forced to relocate to Vancouver, illustrating what the EB-2 NIW approval rate collapse means at the individual level. Kunal Bahl, founder of Snapdeal, which was valued at $5 billion, built his company in India after failing to secure a US visa following his Wharton graduation. This is all lost innovation to the US, for the simple reason that the technology, IP, and commercialization trajectory all follow the founder’s status.
For PhD founders specifically, the visa question can completely disrupt their commercialization sequence as part of university spin-outs, meaning that they, and their university sponsors, should treat status as core to their development model.
What are the four status situations, and what do they mean to a spinout founder”?
The table below illustrates the categories open to founders, and their general profile: F1, H1-B, EB-2 NIW, O-1A.
Option 1: F-1 Student Visa (OPT/STEM OPT)
Most international PhD founders start here, as the F-1 visa allows full-time study and many are already inside universities. Optional Practical Training provides 12 months of work authorization after graduation, while STEM OPT (which covers most PhD founders in deep tech, medtech, and climate tech) extends this to 36 months for qualifying STEM programs.
As a founder with OPT/STEM OPT, you can own equity in a company, as passive equity ownership is explicitly permitted on F-1 status. You can also incorporate a company and serve as a director or officer; but, you can’t work for that company without authorization.
This work authorization on OPT requires an employer-employee relationship: for a self-employed founder, that requires independent governance such as a board of directors with oversight. There also needs to be a clear separation between ownership and employment decisions. Most founders don’t set this up correctly, and jeopardize their status.
There is also one constraint: as of March 2025, SBA (US Small Business Association) loan programs require US citizen ownership, but, frankly, that shouldn’t matter as there are many other sources of capital, including non-dilutive programs.
Option 2: H-1B Visa
The H-1B Modernization Final Rule currently allows beneficiary-owners with more than 50% ownership, or majority voting rights, to petition for their own H-1B visas through their companies. This effectively eliminates the employer-employee relationship condition and improves options for founders already in the US.
However, a Presidential Proclamation effective September 21, 2025 imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions for beneficiaries outside the US. That fee was struck down by a federal court in mid-2026 but the ruling is under appeal. Founders should confirm the current status directly with an immigration attorney before making any key decisions.
Meanwhile the H-1B lottery, which had approximately 26-35% first-round selection odds in FY2025, adds uncertainty that a commercialization timeline can’t rely on. Founders on H-1B must pay themselves the prevailing wage, $100,000-$226,000+ annually in major tech metros, which also may not suit a start-up. And H-1B beneficiary-owners receive an 18-month initial validity period rather than the standard 3 years. This is not a stable foundation for a commercialization timeline.
There is one underused strategic alternative: the so-called cap-exempt concurrent H-1B employment through universities. In essence, universities and affiliated research institutions are exempt from that cap entirely for H1-Bs. A PhD founder who maintains a research or teaching role at their institution founder, may be able to obtain H-1B status through their university while building a spinout. This is perhaps the most underused option for PhDs.
Option 3: O-1A Visa (Extraordinary Ability)
This is the most viable and underused pathway for PhD founders and aligns well with commercialization needs. There is no lottery, no annual cap, and has solid 90-94% approval rates according to immigration platform Alma’s 2026 data. You don’t need employer sponsorship either, as the company itself can file, and the visa can be extended indefinitely as long as the extraordinary ability evidence base (a start-up venture) continues to develop.
For a PhD founder, this extraordinary ability evidence can include: peer-reviewed publications, grants and awards from recognized institutions, media coverage of the research or venture, and, most crucial for commercialization-stage founders, investment from qualified US investors, including accelerators, and commercial traction.
For example, a PhD founder who’s been granted a DARPA grant, been accepted to a top medtech accelerator, has published in high-impact journals, or has raised a SAFE round from credible angels, will meet O-1A petition requirements. Hence this visa fits exactly with the kind of evidence-based commercialization that this Brief has been documenting, and should be a well-known option for every international PhD founder in the US.
A founder’s O-1A evidence base and commercialization evidence base are synonymous, and should be tracked accordingly.
Attorney fees for O-1A petitions can cost $5,000-$15,000, ans total costs including government filing fees commonly falling in the range of $12,000-$18,000 depending on case complexity. You’ll need a lawyer to file, not ChatGPT.
There is also an important qualification here: the O-1A standard is rigorous, and “extraordinary ability” means demonstrably at the top of your field, not simply making credible progress or having a promising start-up venture. The approval rate I mentioned previously reflects all O-1A petitions, not PhD founder spinout petitions specifically. Typically a founder with one or two strong evidence items, lower-impact publications, or an accelerator that is not well-recognized by USCIS may face a Request for Evidence, or denial if the standard is unexceptional. Petitions should require specialist preparation, such as with an immigration attorney who has filed O-1A petitions specifically for founders.
Option 4: EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver Green Card)
The last option, EB-2 NIW, allows qualified professionals with advanced degrees or exceptional ability to obtain a US green card without employer sponsorship or labor certification. For PhD founders, this was historically the natural long-term pathway.
However, this pathway has been altered significantly due to heightened scrutiny. In 2022, more than 95% of NIW petitions were approved. By Q4 FY2025, the approval rate had collapsed to 35.7%. The most recent available data shows the rate recovering to 48.1% in Q2 FY2026, but it’s still well below the historical baseline.
For PhD founders, the EB-2 NIW remains viable if the evidence base is strong: things like quantifiable impact metrics, citations exceeding field medians, documented revenue contribution, government agency relationships. For example, petitions with $1M+ in revenue, 10+ employees, or key contracts with government agencies or Fortune 500 companies have approval rates near 82-84%, according to Kulen Law Firm’s EB-2 NIW analysis, July 2026. That said, pre-revenue spinout founders will face significantly higher scrutiny and generally will not meet these conditions.
Spinout-specific complications
Beyond the general status questions, university spinouts will unfortunately raise specific immigration complications:
Equity disclosure
Most universities require disclosure of any outside commercial activity as a condition of employment or fellowship. A PhD student who forms a company and takes equity must disclose it to protect their visa status.
Inventor visa question
If a faculty member or postdoc is listed as a co-inventor on the TTO license agreement, and that person is on H-1B or OPT, their visa status will define what they can do in the company. For example, a co-inventor who provides ongoing technical consulting to the spinout may require separate work authorization.
The SBIR/NIH question
SBIR and NIH grants are generally accessible to US-based entities regardless of founder citizenship since the entity, not the individual, receives the grant. However, certain DOD and DARPA grant programs have citizenship restrictions that can affect international PhD founders’ ability to serve as principal investigators.
The TTO license and status change
Most TTO license agreements include diligence milestones — commercialization targets the spinout committed to at licensing. If a founder’s visa situation changes — OPT expires, H-1B lottery not selected, status change pending — the company’s operational capacity may be affected in ways that implicate those milestones. TTOs rarely consider this scenario when setting milestone timelines.
With the current administration’s immigration posture being the most restrictive in recent memory for skilled international workers and universities, this doesn’t mean the pathways are closed. But it does mean that a founder’s visa strategy needs to be built into the commercialization sequence from the beginning, with same planning and care as defining the IP moat, regulatory pathways, and term sheet preparation.
ONE ACTION
If you’re an international PhD founder building a company in the US, or planning to, do three things before you get started:
1. Map your current status and its expiration date. If you are on STEM OPT, how many months remain? If you are on H-1B, when does it expire and what is your lottery risk? If your status expires before your next funding milestone, that is a critical path item, not a background concern. Your immigration attorney needs to be in the same planning conversation as your TTO counsel and your investor.
2. Build the O-1A evidence base now, even if you don’t need the visa yet. The evidence required for an O-1A petition is the same evidence that validates your commercialization trajectory: publications with citation impact, grants, awards, accelerator acceptance, investor interest, media coverage, pilot agreements. Every commercialization de-risking step is also a visa evidence building block. Track them together.
3. Check the entity structure against immigration requirements. If you are forming a company while on OPT or H-1B, the entity’s governance structure needs to satisfy USCIS requirements for self-employment authorization before you start working in the company. Your corporate attorney and your immigration attorney need to talk to each other. Most of the time, they don’t.
The graduate dean who told me that international students can’t be founders and stay in the US was describing a common outcome, not an inevitable one. Treat the visa question as a commercialization sequencing problem, and plan accordingly.
A note for TTO directors and graduate deans
The visa question is one of the most critical issues facing international PhD founders. A TTO that licenses technology to an international PhD founder without discussing the visa implications of company formation, diligence milestones, and co-inventor relationships is setting that founder up for a potential future problem.
Questions worth asking at the licensing stage: What is the founder’s current visa status? When does it expire? Does the company formation trigger any status complications? Do any co-inventors on the license have status-related constraints? And does the milestone timeline accommodate the additional visa uncertainty?
Making immigration status part of the commercialization conversation early helps the founder, protects the TTO’s licensing relationship, and reduces the diligence surprises that can seriously derail financing rounds at the worst possible moment.
The PhD Founder Brief is published weekly by Todd Maurer — founder of Edunomix, owner of VersatilePhD. Commercialization intelligence for research-backed ventures and the institutions that support them.
Need advice? Work with Edunomix → | TTO or university innovation office? Bring the PROVE sequence to your cohort → | Browse all issues → edunomix.com/brief
Sources
Alma: “H-1B Visa Strategy for Startup Founders 2026” (June 2026)- Alma: “Best US Visa Options for Pre-Seed Startup Founders in 2026” (April 2026)
- Alma: “Startup Founders and the H-1B Visa: What Changed in 2026?” (April 2026)
- Alma: “Founder Visas 2026: O-1A, E-2, and Self-Sponsored Green Cards” (April 2026)
- Alma: “O-1A Visa for VC-Backed Founders” (April 2026)
- Scholaro: “How International Students Can Build Successful US Companies on F-1 and OPT Visas” (March 2026)
- Scholaro: “International Student Entrepreneurs: The Real Legal Limits” (February 2026)
- Global Citizens Solutions: “EB-2 NIW 2026 Guide” (July 2026)
- Manifest Law: “EB-2 NIW Approval Rate and Trends” (July 2026) · WorkVisa Guide: “EB-2 NIW National Interest Waiver 2026 Guide” (May 2026)
- Peter Chu: “EB-2 NIW Approval Rate Changes: What 2026 Data Shows” (June 2026)
- Kulen Law Firm: “EB-2 NIW Approval Rate 2026” (July 2026)
- National Foundation for American Policy: “Immigrant Founders of US Billion-Dollar Startups” (July 2022)
- Newcomer: “Trump’s Border Crackdown Spooks International Founders & VCs” (May 2025)
- The Search Experience: “Startup H1B Visa Changes: What Founders Need to Know” (September 2025)
- USCIS: FY2026 H-1B Cap Registration Data
- USCIS: EB-2 NIW Adjudication Statistics Q2 FY2026
- Presidential Proclamation 10973 (September 21, 2025)
- H-1B Modernization Final Rule (January 17, 2025) · DHS Duration of Status Rule (2025)
- PhD Founder Brief: “America’s Brain Drain” (July 2025)