For everyone on the other side of the visa
You got in. Nobody prepares you for the rest of it.
Nobody warns you that the bank wants an address, the landlord wants a credit score you cannot have yet, and the school year starts before your shipping container lands. None of that is legal work - it is just a lot of small things in an unfamiliar order.
So we wrote them down. 8 guides are live, more are on the way, and once a month we send a letter about whatever is about to hit you next.
Start with whatever is in your way
You might have landed last week or be three years in and only now holding the approval. It does not change which of these you need next.
One thing worth knowing before you start: almost nothing here stands on its own. The bank wants an address. The address wants a lease. The lease wants a credit score, and the score wants a bank account.
Most people go round that loop at least once before they find the way out of it. So when something looks impossible, it usually needs a different thing done first - not more paperwork.
Arriving
The move itself
Whether the flight is next month or was two years ago, this is the part everybody does once and nobody does twice.
Moving to the US with your family
The complete pre-arrival guide: documents, timing, what to ship and what to leave behind.
Read the guide →The first 30 days
A complete checklist, in the order things actually need to happen.
Read the guide →Your O-1 was approved. Now what?
Ten things worth doing between the approval notice and the move.
Read the guide →Money and credit
A financial life that starts at zero
Your salary history, your mortgage, your twenty years of never missing a payment - none of it crossed the border with you.
Opening a bank account without a green card
Step by step, including which banks take a passport instead of a Social Security number.
Read the guide →Building credit history from scratch
How a score is actually calculated, and the three habits that move it fastest in the first year.
Read the guide →Your SSN and your first paycheck
When the card arrives, what to do if it does not, and how to read a W-4.
Somewhere to live
Renting when the landlord cannot look you up
The one part of this list where being new is expensive rather than just confusing.
Renting an apartment without a credit history
Guarantors, larger deposits, international credit reports, and what to ask before you pay an application fee.
Read the guide →A phone number and an address
The two things every other form asks for, and how to get them in your first week.
Insurance and taxes
The two systems you cannot opt out of
Both have their own vocabulary and both have deadlines that do not care when you arrived.
Settling in
Driving, schools, and how work works here
The questions that arrive once the paperwork is behind you and you start deciding whether to stay.
Getting a driver's license, state by state
How long your home license stays valid, what the test involves, and why insurance costs what it does.
US schools for parents from abroad
Districts, grades, enrollment documents, and why the school you want decides the neighborhood you rent in.
The dashed cards are the guides we are writing next. Sign up for the letters and you'll get each one the week it goes live - or tell us which one you need first and we'll move it up the list.
Informational only, not legal advice. PassRight is not a law firm. Consult a licensed immigration attorney about your case.
One letter a month
We'll be your support at the start of your US journey.
Twelve months, twelve letters, each one about what actually happens to you that month: the Social Security card that has not arrived yet, the lease you cannot sign without a credit score, the school enrollment deadline nobody mentioned. No sales pitch. Leave whenever you want.
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