State who actually pays, on the DS-160 and again at the window, and keep Form I-134 out of the folder unless the consulate asks for it or the applicant genuinely cannot show the trip is affordable from their own accounts. That is my answer for your own parents and it is my answer for your wife's or your husband's parents. The law is identical for both. The optics are different, and the folder should be built differently.
The reason is written in plain English on the State Department's visitor visa page. A letter of invitation or affidavit of support is not needed to apply, and if you bring one it is not among the factors used to decide the case. Applicants qualify on their residence and ties abroad rather than on assurances from family in the United States. An affidavit tells the officer that the applicant depends on someone in America. For a retired couple whose whole case is a settled life in Pune, that is the wrong opening sentence.
Below I go through the DS-160 money field, what Form I-134 actually is, when it hurts and when it helps, and how an in-law file should differ from a parent file. The invitation letter and the H-4 contact question have their own pieces, linked where they belong.
The DS-160 field that asks who is paying, and what each choice tells the officer
The travel section of the DS-160 asks for the person or entity paying for the trip. As of September 2026 the choices are Self, Other Person, Present Employer, Employer in the U.S., and Other Company/Organization. Choose Other Person and the form asks for that person's name, contact details and address, and for the relationship, from Child, Parent, Spouse, Other Relative, Friend or Other.
Each answer carries a message. Self says the applicant runs an independent household, and the officer expects the bank statements to bear that out. Self beside an account showing a small pension and no savings is a contradiction the officer notices before anyone speaks.
Other Person with the relationship Child is the usual entry for parents and is perfectly respectable, though it draws the child's income and status into the interview. Other Person with the relationship Other Relative is what a son-in-law is. The absence of a blood tie is visible on the form itself, which is one reason the in-law folder needs more of the applicants' own substance.
The DS-160 is signed under penalty of perjury, so the rule is simply to state who actually pays. If your parents are buying their own tickets from their Indian account and you are hosting them at no cost, Self is truthful and the hosting is something they mention at the window. If you paid the tickets from your US account, the answer is Other Person and your name goes in. Where the money is mixed, enter whoever pays the larger share and have the parents ready to describe the split.
Self-funding is worth preferring where it is honest. A parent who can pay for a three-month trip from their own savings is, in that one fact, showing an independent life in India. The money is evidence of ties. A sponsor's money says nothing about the applicant.
What Form I-134 is, and what it is not
Form I-134 is a USCIS form. Its current title is Declaration of Financial Support and, as of September 2026, the edition on the USCIS I-134 page is dated 01/20/25. USCIS describes it as the form on which a person agrees to provide financial support to a beneficiary of certain immigration benefits for the duration of their temporary stay in the United States.
It is not a consular requirement for a visitor visa. The State Department's visitor visa page says so directly, and the Foreign Affairs Manual goes further. In the public charge chapter at 9 FAM 302.8, the I-134 is described as an affidavit submitted by the applicant at the officer's request, one that is not legally binding on the sponsor and should not be accorded the same weight as the immigrant-visa Form I-864. Even for the purpose the form was designed for, officers are told to weigh it lightly.
Public charge is rarely what refuses a parent's B-2. Section 214(b) is. The visitor chapter at 9 FAM 402.2 lists the tests an officer applies, chiefly a residence abroad the applicant does not intend to abandon and a stay of specifically limited duration. The funds question sits inside that framework.
The arrangements the applicant has made for defraying the expenses of the visit and the return must be adequate to prevent them from obtaining unlawful employment in the United States. That is the whole of the money test. It asks whether the trip is paid for, so as to rule out working, and it does not ask for a guarantor.
Four ways an unsolicited affidavit works against your parents
The first is that it restates dependence. The only content of an I-134 is a declaration that the applicant will need the sponsor's money. When the rest of the folder shows a couple with a flat of their own and a cardiologist's appointment in December, the affidavit argues with it.
The second is that it moves the interview onto you. Once you are the declared payer, your salary and your status become fair questions, and your parents must answer them at the window without you. I have watched a retired schoolteacher be asked what an H-1B extension is, because of a form she did not need.
The third applies when the sponsor is on a temporary work visa. An H-1B or L-1 has an end date on the I-797, and the sponsor may be back in Bengaluru before the parents' ten-year visa expires. A promise of support from a person whose own stay is bounded reads oddly to an officer who can see both dates.
The fourth is the one immigration lawyers warn about most. Murthy Law Firm's guidance puts it bluntly. An I-134 can be a red flag to a consular officer, suggesting the applicant is unable to afford the trip or lacks financial ties to the home country. Their advice, which matches my practice, is to hold the form back unless an officer asks for it and never to let it stand in for the applicant's own documents. Sharma Law Offices reaches the same conclusion.
The two situations where I do put a declaration in the folder
The first is a parent with genuinely no money of their own. A homemaker mother whose account shows only household transfers from her husband, or a widowed father whose pension is tiny. Here the officer's doubt is real.
Even then I look first for a joint account or an ancestral property, because those documents do two jobs at once and an affidavit does one. Only when there is truly nothing do I add the child's declaration, with the DS-160 saying Other Person and the child's name, so the form and the folder tell the same story.
The second is when the consulate asks. A 221(g) slip requesting the sponsor's financial evidence, or an officer at the window asking to see the son's papers, makes the document responsive rather than volunteered. It then goes in with the sponsor's recent payslips and a tax transcript, and nothing more elaborate.
Own parents versus in-laws: same statute, different optics
The FAM has no separate rule for in-laws and neither does the DS-160, apart from the relationship dropdown. What changes is what the officer sees. When your own parents apply, the purpose of the visit and the source of funds point at the same person, and "we are visiting our son" needs no explanation. When your wife's parents apply and you are paying, the reason for the trip is the daughter and the money is the son-in-law.
That is normal in an Indian family and officers at the Indian posts know it. I say it plainly in the invitation letter, and I never dress it up as the daughter paying when she is on H-4 without income, because that sends the officer looking for money she does not have. If that is your household, the piece on the H-4 spouse and her parents deals with who the contact and the payer should be.
The consequence is that in-laws should lean even harder on their own life in India. The son-in-law's payslips explain how the trip is paid for and nothing about why the couple will board the return flight, and the family tie that carries some of that weight for your own parents is a step removed here.
So the in-law file needs the applicants' own accounts, their pension credits, their property papers and their reason to be home by a date. The article on retired parents' ties goes through what those documents prove when there is no salary.
What goes in the folder instead of an affidavit
I build the financial side of a parent's folder around two questions. Can the host house them, and can the applicants live without the host. A document that answers neither stays out.
- The host's status proof. The I-797 and I-94 for an H-1B or L-1, the green card, or the US passport data page. It proves presence on the dates in question and promises no money.
- The host's recent payslips. Two or three months, showing a household that can absorb two guests. Tax returns stay in reserve unless asked.
- The lease or mortgage statement. With the address matching the DS-160. This is what "we will host them" actually means.
- The applicants' own bank statements. Six months, with pension credits or rental income arriving on a rhythm. These prove the trip is affordable and that a life continues in India meanwhile.
- Fixed deposits, property papers and the last tax return. Assets that stay in India are ties in the FAM's sense, and they answer the funds question without a word from the sponsor.
- A one-page invitation letter. Relationship, dates, address, and one sentence on who pays. Nothing notarised, nothing on stamp paper.
The four cases side by side
| Case | DS-160 "who pays" entry | Sponsor supplies | Applicants supply | Form I-134 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Own parents, self-funded | Self | Status proof, lease, invitation | Six months of statements, pension proof, property, tax return | Leave out |
| Own parents, child pays | Other Person, relationship Child | Status proof, lease, payslips, invitation stating "I am paying" | Statements and ties as above, even if modest | Only if asked, or if the parent has no funds |
| In-laws, self-funded | Self | Daughter's letter as inviter, son-in-law's status proof and lease as host | Statements, pension, property, tax return, with extra weight on a reason to be home | Leave out |
| In-laws, son-in-law pays | Other Person, relationship Other Relative | Son-in-law's status proof, payslips, lease, letter saying plainly he is paying | Everything in the self-funded row, since the money says nothing about ties | Only if asked |
Where the concierge earns its fee in this file
The hard decision in this file is what to leave out. Families arrive with a folder assembled from everything a group chat suggested, and the signed affidavit is usually in it. Removing it feels like taking away protection. My job is to explain why it changes the story the rest of the folder tells, then to check that the DS-160, the bank statements and each parent's spoken answer agree. The parents are the ones who will be standing there.
Questions families ask me before the interview
My parents have money of their own, but I want to pay for the tickets as a gift. What do we write?
Write what happened. If you bought the tickets from your American account, the DS-160 says Other Person with your name, and your parents say at the window that their son paid for the flights and they are covering the rest. If you transferred money to their Indian account and they bought the tickets, Self is truthful and the transfer appears in their statements as a credit from you. Either is fine. Self on the form with a ticket receipt in your name in the folder is not.
The officer asked my father-in-law who was paying and he said his son-in-law. Is that a problem?
Not if it is true and the DS-160 said the same. Sons-in-law paying for a visit is ordinary in Indian families and the officers at the Indian posts see it every day. It becomes a problem only when the form said Self, or when the answer invites a follow-up about your income that your father-in-law cannot handle. Prepare him with your job title and your employer's name, and stop there.
Should I get the I-134 or the invitation letter notarised?
No. The I-134 is signed under penalty of perjury and a notary stamp adds nothing to it. The invitation letter is a letter, and notarising it makes it look like something it is not. If the consulate does ask for an I-134, download it fresh from USCIS that day. USCIS rejects superseded editions, and the current edition date of 01/20/25 will move eventually.