If your startup is a Delaware C-corp and your salary lands in an Indian bank account from an Indian private limited company, your DS-160 employer section should name the company that actually employs and pays you. For most flipped founders that is the Indian subsidiary. The US parent still gets disclosed, plainly, in your duties and at the window. You hide nothing. You simply put each entity where it really sits.
The answer that gets founders refused is the one that feels most impressive to type. "CEO, Acme Inc., Delaware", with a US registered-agent address or a San Francisco coworking address in the employer field, and then an INR monthly income underneath it. To a consular officer that reads as a person whose employer is in America, whose business lives in America, and who wants a visitor visa to go and run it. That is a 214(b) refusal waiting to happen.
The opposite mistake is just as bad. Leaving the US entity out entirely, because someone told you it "confuses" the officer, sets you up for a credibility problem the moment your LinkedIn, your website or your pitch deck says otherwise.
Which founders this actually describes
Four structures keep turning up, and officers read them very differently.
- The classic flip. A Delaware parent, usually created because a US investor or accelerator asked for it, owning 100% of an Indian Pvt Ltd. The team, the office and your payroll are in India. The strongest B-1 profile of the lot, if the form tells it honestly.
- US entity only. You formed a Delaware or Wyoming company online, there is no Indian company, and you either draw nothing or pay yourself from the US account while living in Bengaluru or Pune. Defensible, though harder, because the officer has to take your word that the business really runs from India.
- US entity with real US operations. US customers served from US soil, a US hire or two, and you spending months a year there already. Here the employer section is the least of your worries. B-1 is probably the wrong visa.
- Mid-transition. Payroll about to move to the US entity, an O-1 being drafted, a lease being signed. Sequencing matters more than drafting in this case, and we come back to it below.
If you are in the third or fourth group, read our piece on choosing between O-1, L-1 and E-2 before you touch the DS-160. Indian nationals cannot use E-2, since India has no treaty of commerce for it, which leaves O-1 and L-1 as the realistic paths.
The test the officer is applying to your employer section
Every B-1/B-2 applicant is judged on three factors in the Foreign Affairs Manual at 9 FAM 402.2-2(B). A residence abroad you do not intend to abandon. A trip of specifically limited duration. A purpose that is a legitimate business or pleasure activity. Fail any one and the officer must refuse under INA 214(b).
For founders, the employer section feeds directly into the first and third factors. The same chapter explains B-1 business activity through Matter of Hira, an old Board of Immigration Appeals decision about a tailor who measured customers in the US for suits made abroad. The manual's point is that the principal place of business, and where profits accrue, stay abroad. Your US trip has to be incidental to work that happens mainly outside the US.
Then there is pay. Under 9 FAM 402.2-5(F), a B-1 visitor may not receive a salary from a US source for services rendered in the US. A US source can cover reasonable travel and living expenses.
The manual also says that where a US enterprise has a separate business enterprise abroad, salary paid by that foreign entity is not treated as coming from a US source. For an employer to count as a foreign firm it needs an office abroad and payroll disbursed abroad, and the employee should customarily be employed by it.
Read that twice if you are a flipped founder. It almost describes your structure, and the rules are on your side. Founders get refused because the form and the interview tell a different story from the one the rules would accept.
One more line matters. The manual's section on investors notes that people seeking investment in the US are not ineligible for a B visa on that basis alone, but that all B visitors are precluded from productive labour and from actively participating in the management of the business while in B status. Attending a board meeting of a US corporation you sit on is listed separately as a permitted B-1 activity. Running the company from a WeWork in SoMa for six weeks is not.
How the DS-160 fields are read, one by one
The Present Work section asks for your primary occupation, the name and address of your present employer, your start date, monthly income in local currency, and a short description of your duties. Officers read them together.
| Field | What gets founders refused | What holds up |
|---|---|---|
| Present employer name | The Delaware parent, because it is the "real" company in your head | The Indian Pvt Ltd that pays you, exactly as registered with the MCA |
| Employer address | Registered-agent address in Delaware, or a US coworking space | Your Indian office address, matching GST and MCA records |
| Monthly income | A rounded figure that does not match Form 16 or payslips | The actual monthly salary in INR, as on your payslips |
| Duties | "CEO of Acme Inc. Managing US operations and growth" | Your Indian role in plain words, plus one line that the Indian company is a wholly owned subsidiary of a Delaware holding company |
| Who pays for the trip | Picking the US employer option without thinking | The entity that genuinely bears the cost, with the purpose described accurately |
If you are in the US-entity-only group with no Indian company, "self-employed" or the company's own name are both truthful answers. The address you give should be where you actually work from. Do not invent an Indian entity, and do not dress the US one up as a foreign firm. Your proof then comes from Indian tax returns, a home lease, where your customers are served from, and a dated return ticket.
Consistency is where good files quietly fail. The DS-160 asks for social media identifiers used over the past five years, and officers can look.
If LinkedIn says "Founder and CEO, Acme Inc., San Francisco Bay Area" and your DS-160 says Bengaluru, you have handed the officer a contradiction to resolve in ninety seconds. Fix LinkedIn so it is accurate about where you live and work. Earlier visa applications also sit in the system, so a 2023 DS-160 that named the US company as employer will be compared with this one.
The window answer that ends interviews early
Take a founder we worked with earlier this year. Seed-funded, flipped two years ago, 18 people in Bengaluru, all paid by the Indian company. He named the Delaware parent as employer, because that is what his investors call the company. At the window he was asked who he worked for. He said the US company. Asked where it was based, he said Delaware. Asked how long he planned to stay, he said "a few weeks, maybe more if the round moves."
Refused under 214(b) inside two minutes. Nothing in that file was untrue. Every answer, though, pointed at a man whose business was in America and whose return date was open.
The same facts, put in order, sound like this. "I run a software company in Bengaluru with 18 employees. I'm on its payroll there. Our investors asked us to set up a Delaware holding company last year, which owns the Indian company. I'm going for ten days of investor meetings in San Francisco and I fly back on the 14th."
That gives the officer an Indian employer, an Indian salary, a US entity explained before it is discovered, and a fixed end date. It is also true.
Most refusals in this structure come from founders who are telling the truth in the wrong order. The officer hears "US company" first and stops listening.
Hiding the US entity is worse than naming it badly
Some founders hear stories like that and leave the Delaware company out of everything. Do not.
Under 9 FAM 302.9, a misrepresentation is material if it tends to shut off a line of inquiry relevant to your eligibility. Concealing a US company you control, on a visa where the whole question is whether you will work in the US, does exactly that. A 214(b) refusal can be overcome on reapplication. A wilful misrepresentation finding under INA 212(a)(6)(C)(i) is a permanent ineligibility that needs a waiver. One costs you a few months. The other can cost you the US.
How SaathiVisa would handle this file
We start with the cap table and the payroll, before the form. Who owns the Indian company, who pays you, from which account, under which TAN. The documents decide the employer section. If the documents say two different things (say you take a small Indian salary and also draw director fees from the US entity) we deal with that in the drafting, openly, because an officer will ask.
Then we check every public and prior record against the form. LinkedIn, the company website's "about" and footer address, Crunchbase, previous DS-160s, the invitation letters from the people you are meeting. Anything that says you are based in the US when you are not gets corrected before the appointment, never after.
We draft the duties line so the US parent appears in the first sentence the officer reads about it, in your words, and we prepare a short document set for the interview bag. Indian payslips and Form 16, recent ITRs, the MCA master data for the Indian company, the Delaware certificate of incorporation, a board resolution or investor email that explains why the flip happened, and a day-by-day itinerary.
Officers rarely ask for paper. When they do, one clean folder says you have nothing to work around.
Last, we rehearse three answers until they come out in the right order. Who you work for. Why there is a US company. When you are coming back. If the honest answer to the third is "I'm not sure", that is a sign the B-1 is the wrong instrument, and we will say so. Our pieces on fundraising trips on a B-1 and incorporating a Delaware C-corp on a B-1 cover the activity side of the same question.
When you should not draft this yourself
Indian posts are still running interview waits measured in months as of October 2026, so a refusal does more than sting. It puts you back in a long queue, often after the round or the demo day has passed. Get help before you file if any of these apply.
- You have already been refused once with the US company named as employer. The second DS-160 must be consistent with the first while correcting the impression it left. See reapplying after a refusal.
- Any part of your salary already comes from the US entity, or will before you travel.
- An O-1 or L-1 petition is in preparation, which changes how the officer reads your intent. We cover that in B-1 trips while an O-1 is pending.
- Your public profiles say you are US-based and you have an interview in the next few weeks.
- The trip is long, open-ended, or tied to an accelerator where you will be building the product on US soil.
Questions founders ask us about the employer section
Should I just write "Self-employed" to avoid the whole question?
Only if it is true. If the Indian company pays you a salary, you are its employee, and writing "self-employed" removes the strongest fact in your file, a foreign firm with foreign payroll. If you have no Indian entity and no salary, self-employed or the company name is accurate. Either way, the US entity still gets named in your duties and at the window.
Can my Delaware company pay for my flights and hotel?
Yes, within limits. The Foreign Affairs Manual allows a US source to cover an expense allowance or reimbursement for reasonable travel and living costs during the visit. What it cannot pay is a salary for services you perform while in the US. Say on the form who is paying, accurately, and be ready to explain that it covers expenses only.
I named the US company and got a 214(b). Is my US travel finished?
No. A 214(b) refusal cannot be appealed, but you can reapply as soon as you can show something has changed, as the State Department's visa denials page explains. Correct the employer section to reflect the Indian payroll, explain the structure upfront, fix the public profiles, and go back with a tighter, dated trip. What you must not do is pretend the US company does not exist the second time.