B-1 visa for installation: when your technician may set up equipment in the USA

A European machine builder sells a production line to Tennessee. The contract says two technicians will install it, commission it and train the operators. A plastics processor sends a service technician to Georgia for a warranty repair. A Swiss measurement technology company needs its specialist at a customer in Michigan for three weeks. In all three cases, people are working in the USA, tools in hand. And in all three cases, the B-1 visitor visa can still be the right route, because US law has a special rule for exactly this situation. This article shows when it applies, what the sales contract must say and where it ends.

1Why installation is a special case

The B-1 visitor visa is meant for business, not for work. The law excludes visitors who come to the USA to perform skilled or unskilled labor, and the State Department repeats this in its Foreign Affairs Manual: business in the B-1 sense generally means activities that are not work. Meetings, negotiations, trade fairs and conferences qualify; installation and repair, strictly speaking, do not. What you can do with ESTA and B-1 on a regular business trip is covered in ESTA for business travel.

In 9 FAM 402.2-5(E), however, the Manual lists a number of activities that really belong in other categories but for which the consulate may still issue a B-1 under certain conditions. The first is Commercial or Industrial Workers. The idea follows Matter of Hira, the decision the Manual relies on: the activity in the USA is part of a business whose center lies abroad. If you build and sell a machine in Europe, you earn your money on the sale. Having your technicians set it up at the buyer's site fulfills that sale; it is not a separate business in the USA.

For mid-sized manufacturers in Europe, this rule matters more than almost any other in visitor law. It allows after-sales service without a work visa, but only if every condition is met. Miss one, and you send your people across the border in the wrong status.

2The conditions of the special rule

Under the Foreign Affairs Manual, a B-1 may be issued to someone traveling to the USA to install, service or repair commercial or industrial equipment or machinery purchased from a company outside the USA, or to train US workers to perform such services. The Manual attaches three further conditions: the sales contract must expressly require the seller to provide these services or this training. The applicant must have specialized knowledge essential to the seller's contractual obligation. And the applicant must receive no remuneration from a US source.

In its guidance on permissible B-1 activities, the border agency CBP adds a point many people overlook: the machine or equipment must have been manufactured outside the USA. A European dealer who sells a machine built in Ohio and sends a technician to set it up is therefore not covered by the rule, even if the sales contract provides for installation.

Specialized knowledge does not mean your technician has to be the only person in the world who knows the machine. It means the service cannot be performed without knowledge that any local fitter would not have: knowledge of the controls, the design, your own testing procedures. A helper who carries crates and tightens bolts does not meet this condition. The table below sums up the conditions.

3What is covered and what is not

The hard limit of the rule is construction work. The Manual states expressly that the special rule does not apply to construction work, whether on site or in the workshop. The regulation is 8 CFR 214.2(b)(5): anyone entering to perform construction work cannot be admitted as a visitor. Someone who supervises or trains others in construction work without building anything themselves, on the other hand, can get a B-1.

In practice, the line runs between the machine and the building. Setting the equipment on its foundation, aligning it, connecting it, adjusting it and commissioning it is installation. Pouring the foundation, putting up the hall and running the building's electrical wiring is construction. If a project includes both, the contract should separate the parts, and your technicians should handle only what belongs to the machine. A local company does the construction, and your people may guide it.

The second limit is the sales contract itself. The rule covers services the seller is obligated to provide under the sales contract. Servicing for a customer who bought the machine from someone else is not covered, and neither are jobs that have nothing to do with the equipment sold. The table shows typical assignments.

4The sales contract is the key

Nothing decides as much as the contract. The Manual requires the sales contract to expressly obligate the seller to provide the services or training. A general reference to customer service, or a line in your terms and conditions saying service is available on request, is weaker than a clear obligation. If you build equipment for US customers, it pays to check your contract template for these points:

• Obligation to perform: The seller installs the equipment, commissions it and trains the buyer's staff. Worded as the seller's obligation, not as an option.
• Scope: Exactly what is included, such as setup, alignment, connection to existing utilities, test run, acceptance, training for a set number of operators.
• Warranty and service: Which repairs and maintenance the seller performs on site during the warranty period.
• Separation from construction: The buyer, or a company the buyer hires, provides the foundation, building and building services.
• Remuneration: The services are part of the purchase price or are billed by the seller to the buyer. The technician receives nothing from the buyer except, if agreed, reimbursement of travel and living expenses.

A later, stand-alone maintenance contract after the warranty expires is not a sales contract. Whether the special rule still applies then depends on the individual case, and you should clarify it before the first trip. The more closely the maintenance contract is tied to the original purchase, and the more clearly it was already set out in the sales contract, the better.

5Training: specialized trainers and training abroad

Training US staff to use a purchased machine is already part of the installation rule. The Manual also has a separate category, the Specialized Trainer, in the version dated 4 December 2025. Under it, a B-1 may be issued to someone traveling to the US for a limited time to train US employees or pass on knowledge, including specialized or proprietary techniques, skills and know-how for industrial plants, machinery or processes acquired or obtained from a company outside the US, in support of a qualifying project. The trainer must have knowledge that is not widely available in the US and may not receive any pay from a US source. In this case the visa carries the annotation B-1 SPECIALIZED TRAINER.

The public part of the Manual does not explain what a qualifying project is; the relevant paragraph is marked as unavailable. If you want to use this category, describe the project precisely in the application and expect the consulate to ask questions.

The reverse case is training your own employees in the US, for example at a US subsidiary or a partner. The Manual may allow a B-1 instead of the H-3 trainee visa if the training is not available at home, the employee does not fill a regular position, does no productive work beyond what the training incidentally requires, and is still paid by the employer abroad. This visa also carries an annotation: B-1 IN LIEU OF H.

6ESTA or B-1 visa for your technicians

Citizens of most European countries can enter with ESTA, and the Visa Waiver Program admits them as visitors under the same statutory provision the B-1 is based on. Legally, the same limits on the work apply. CBP's guidance on installation is written for visitors in general. So whether a technician can enter on ESTA is less a legal question than a question of how well he can document his case at the counter. There he explains in a few sentences why he has a toolbox with him, and the officer alone decides.

A B-1 visa moves that review to before the trip. The consulate examines the contract, the specialized knowledge and the pay in the application and the interview. The Manual expressly allows positive annotations on the visa about purpose and duration if they help the border officer, and for the specialized trainer and the B-1 in lieu of an H visa the annotation is mandatory. An ESTA cannot carry an annotation. For work that does not clearly fit any of these categories, the consulate must get an advisory opinion from the State Department's legal office before issuing the visa. Another reason not to test unusual assignments at the counter.

For the application: Form DS-160, a fee of $185, and an appointment in your country of residence or citizenship. An in-person interview is the rule; you can skip it only when renewing a fully valid B visa within twelve months of its expiry, and under further conditions. Before an employee who can use ESTA applies for a visa, read in our overview ESTA and B-1 visa what a refusal means for later trips. What your technician should put in his folder is in the US business trip checklist; for installation work, include a copy of the contract clause.

7Who pays and who employs

The condition that no pay comes from a US source is easier to meet for installation than for other assignments, because your company invoices the buyer anyway. What matters is who pays the technician. His salary comes from his employer abroad, as before. The US customer may reimburse travel and living costs, but under the Manual no more than the actual, reasonable costs of travel to and from the US, lodging, meals, laundry and similar basic needs. A bonus from the customer, a day rate paid to the technician or an employment contract with the customer turns the visitor into an employee.

How the Manual understands a foreign company shows in the section on the B-1 in lieu of an H visa: the company must have an office abroad, its payroll must be run abroad, and the employee must normally be employed by it. If a US company has its own entity abroad, that entity's salary payments do not count as a US source. For groups with a US subsidiary, this means: if the subsidiary sells the machine and pays the parent's technician, the situation is different from a sale by the parent.

9When the rule doesn't fit

Not every assignment fits the special rule. If your people are supposed to build, if the machine was made in the US, if the customer pays them directly, or if an assignment turns into a permanent arrangement, you need a work status. For employees moving to your own US branch or subsidiary, the L-1 visa is the route if they worked for the company at home in the year before. If at least half of your company is owned by nationals of a treaty country and it has a US entity with E-1 or E-2 status, employees with that status can work there too; how that works is explained in Sending employees to the US on the E-2 visa and in the E-1 treaty trader visa. For pure construction and installation projects without your own US entity, petition-based work visas are an option, but they need a longer lead time.

The right route depends on how often your people travel, how long they stay and whether you are building your own presence in the US. Once service for US customers becomes a solid line of business, it is usually time to think about a US company and a market entry instead of getting every assignment across the border one at a time.

In short

• Installation, maintenance, repair and training are really work; the B-1 only allows them under a narrowly drawn special rule.
• The machine must be bought from a company outside the US and made there, the purchase contract must oblige the seller to provide these services, and the technician needs the specialized knowledge to do so.
• The technician is paid by his employer abroad; construction work stays excluded, supervising and instructing do not.

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