Not necessarily. You don’t need a new visa at all unless you leave the U.S. and you don’t already have a valid H-1B visa. If your H-1B transfer includes an extension of stay, the approval notice will have a new I-94 record appended to the bottom – and the I-94 is the document that controls your U.S. legal status and stay. 

But if you leave the U.S., do you need a new H-1B visa, or can you use the one you obtained with your previous employer? If you have an H-1B visa that’s still valid, you can enter using that visa – even though it will have your previous employer’s name and the previous case number on it. But you must carry your new H-1B approval notice, your new employer’s offer letter, and evidence showing that you are working for that employer, like recent paystubs. 

The important thing to be aware of, if you decide to do this, is to make very sure, when you come back into the U.S., that you present not only your valid H-1B visa, but also the new approval notice. Remember: your immigration status in the U.S. is actually governed by your I-94 entry record. Typically the border agent will look at the end date on your visa and give you the same expiration date on your I-94 that is on your visa, because typically all three documents (the visa, the approval notice, and then the I-94) should have the same expiration date. But if you have a new Form I-797A approval notice with a different employer, its end date is probably much later than the expiration date on your visa (same end date as your previous H-1B approval). You want to make sure that the border agent sees that you have changed employers, reads the new I-797 approval notice, and inputs the expiration date of your new I-797 into the record and therefore onto your new I-94. 

It is very important that after you enter the U.S., you go onto the U.S. Customs & Border Protection’s website and download and print your new I-94 entry record. This is the document that controls your immigration status in the U.S. Border agents make mistakes like the rest of us. Let’s say you have an H-1B visa in your passport, but perhaps you also have an old B-1/B-2 visa that wasn’t cancelled, a border agent who is busy and tired might see that old visa and assign you the wrong status in the CBP system. If you pull your I-94 record and it says “B2” when it should say “H-1B,” then you are not authorized to work in the U.S.! You will need to take steps to change your I-94, and the best way to do this is to contact the HR representative at your employer and notify them. They will contact the immigration attorney and that person will be able to either contact the CBP or direct you to have the record corrected at a secondary inspection office (usually at a nearby airport or other port of entry).

One other thing to keep in mind is that in nearly all cases your passport must be valid for at least six months beyond your intended period of stay in the United States. For example, if your H-1B expires on September 30, 2024, your passport must be valid until at least March 31, 2025. Border officers will not give you an entry date that exceeds your passport validity, which can create expense and inconvenience. 

What if your previous H-1B is in your old, expired passport? Carry both with you when you enter the U.S. and present both to the officer, pointing out the valid visa in the old passport.