You are not stuck, and you are not late. There are five real ways for you and Janika to reach permanent residence, and a sixth that exists only for completeness. They differ by up to six years and by five thousand dollars, and the choice between them is genuinely yours to make.
What to actually do in the next two weeks
One. Run one real payroll cycle before 15 September. One week's pay is enough, it costs a few hundred dollars, and it is the single most valuable thing available to you. The company already has the money for it.
Two. Cancel the New York health plan on or before 17 September, and keep the dated confirmation.
Three. Before anyone completes your employment form this week, a lawyer decides which first-day-of-work date goes in it. Your signed training plan already answers that question one way, and the form must not answer it another. Check too who signed the employer's section of that plan; if it was you, that needs fixing, and a lawyer writes the fix.
Four. Do not leave the country, and let nothing be filed before Janika flies home on 13 October.
A new rule replaces open-ended student permission with a fixed end date. If you are properly keeping your student status on that day, you are carried through to your work permit's own expiry plus sixty days, about 14 August 2028, with nothing to file.
What is at issue: your training plan certifies forty hours a week and twelve thousand dollars a year, and no wage has yet been paid. The lawyers think you more likely than not pass the test anyway, on arithmetic: even on the harshest available reading only ninety-one of your one hundred and fifty permitted days are used, and the limit is not reached until 13 November. One real payroll cycle before the 15th settles the only reading under which you would fail.
Three things you must not do, whatever else happens. Do not put an earlier date on any form than the real one, and do not write up supervision notes for meetings that did not happen; a paperwork problem becomes a criminal one that way and cannot be undone. Do not write, say or record anywhere that you were not employed because you were not paid; it is not a defence to the pay question and it is a confession to a much worse one. And from 18 September, do not claim the subsidy on your health insurance premium even if you are offered it: the new rule makes income-tested tax credits something an officer may weigh, and income is the only real weakness in your file.
One caveat on the 2028 date. The rule is being challenged in court and there is a hearing on 3 September. Nothing has been stopped yet. The reviews also read the sixty-day tail after June 2028 three different ways, so treat 14 August 2028 as approximate.
A green card application posted or submitted on or before that date is judged under the current money test for the whole life of the case. From the 18th, a new and more discretionary test applies to applications made inside America.
The recommendation is to let this window go, deliberately. Three of the four reviews say they would not file by the 17th, and the fourth, which favours it, does not resolve the question either way. The three give the same reason in three vocabularies: the petition is the weak thing; the government has said in the rule itself that the new money test makes little change for employed applicants like you; and a green card application filed alongside a petition dies with that petition if it is refused. So the sixteen days buy protection that only exists if the petition succeeds, and the petition is exactly what is not ready.
What does not go: cancel the New York health plan by the 17th. From the 18th it becomes something an officer may weigh against you, and the rule itself says proof of cancellation cures that. Your Ohio cover has been live since 1 September, so there is no gap.
Janika arrives, on the visa waiver, as booked. That is the right way for her to come. The waiver does block applying for a green card from inside America, but the immigration service's own manual says that block looks at one thing only: the most recent time she was admitted before she files. A waiver trip now is undone by later entering on a proper visa, and it has no effect at all on the route where she collects her green card at an embassy, because that route never involves applying from inside America.
A visitor visa could not realistically be obtained before 2 October in any case, and applying for one in a hurry risks a refusal that is recorded permanently and visible to every officer who ever looks her up. The one thing that matters is that nothing is filed before she leaves on 13 October, because a pending petition changes the conversation at the border.
Months counted from the day you file, not from today. Three figures per person: the best you could realistically hope for, the typical case, and the bad case short of outright refusal.
One thing to know about these numbers before you read them. The middle and worst figures are the government's own published processing times, and that published figure is the time taken to finish eighty per cent of cases, not the average. So the middle column is already pessimistic, not a midpoint. The best figures are estimates below that. The embassy figures are neither: they are a weekly reading of how far the visa centre has got, plus the State Department's own three-month scheduling target, which is a target and not a measurement.
| Route | Youbest / typical / worst | Janikabest / typical / worst | Apartgap between you | Fees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Apply now, collect it here. She waits in Finland and follows afterwards. | 6 / 9 / 40 | 15 / 25 / 82 | 9 to 42 months | $4,515 |
| B. Apply now, collect it at an embassy. You stay in Cleveland and leave only for the interview. | 7 / 10 / 58 | 7 / 11 / 62 | 0 to 4 months | $2,175 |
| C. Apply now, then leave and wait in Britain until it is done. | 7 / 10 / 58 | 7 / 11 / 62 | 0 to 4 months | $2,175 |
| D. Get an O-1 first, then you both collect it here. | 7 / 10 / 54 | 8 / 12 / 56 | 1 to 2 months | $6,710 |
| F. She comes as your student dependent and applies alongside you. | 6 / 9 / 40 | 6 / 11 / 44 | 0 to 4 months | $5,860 |
Two results in that table are the opposite of what almost everyone assumes.
The cheapest route is also the one that keeps you closest together. Collecting at an embassy costs half what collecting here costs, and it puts you and Janika on one case file, with her visa issued within weeks of yours. Collecting it here is the route that separates you, because she then has to be sponsored to follow, and that step alone is an eight month queue before her own case even opens. One honest limit on "together": on the embassy route you would most likely be interviewed at different embassies, London or Sydney for you and Stockholm for her, because the State Department now assigns by where each person lives or their own nationality. The only route that puts you both in the same room as of right is the one where you both live in Britain first, because she holds indefinite leave to remain there.
The O-1 saves no time, and on your current record you probably would not get one. But it is not true that it buys nothing. It buys three things nothing else on this page buys. Your right to work would no longer depend on the training plan that is the weak point in your file. A rule written specifically for this visa says that having a green card petition on file cannot be a reason to refuse you entry at the airport, and there is no equivalent rule anywhere for a student. And it lasts three years and renews indefinitely, where your student permission ends hard on 15 June 2028. On the good path none of that matters. If the training plan problems turn out not to be fixable, all three become the whole question, and this is the only route that answers them. Keep it as the fallback, not as the plan.
Every one of these starts with the same petition: a self-filed case arguing that your work is in the national interest, so that no employer has to sponsor you. What differs is where you collect the green card, and what Janika does while you wait.
What it is. You never leave. The petition and the application to become a permanent resident both go to the immigration service inside America, on the same day. She stays in Finland working, and you sponsor her once you have your own card.
How it works. Filing the application gives you a work permit and travel permission while it is pending. Your card is issued without you leaving the country. Then a separate sponsorship form starts her case.
In its favour. You never step outside America, so you are never standing abroad waiting to be let back in. It also preserves a forgiveness allowance of one hundred and eighty days for slips in your student status, which only exists on this route.
Against it. This is the route that separates you. She lands nine to forty two months after you do, because the sponsorship step alone is an eight month queue before her case even opens. A policy instruction issued on 21 May 2026 also tells officers to treat this route as an extraordinary favour rather than a normal path, and to weigh anything inconsistent with a student's purpose heavily against the applicant. Student status is not among the categories exempted from that. And since 5 August 2026 officers may refuse an application outright, without first asking for more evidence.
What it is. The same petition, but you elect to collect the visa abroad. You carry on living and working in Cleveland the entire time and fly out once, for the interview, returning as a permanent resident.
How it works. There is a rule written for exactly this situation: someone physically present in America is treated as a resident of wherever they lived immediately before coming, and the embassy is obliged to accept the case. Janika, once married to you, is on the same file under one case number. She would most likely interview at Stockholm and you at Sydney or, on request as a British citizen, London.
In its favour. It is the cheapest route on the page at $2,175, roughly half the alternative. Your visas issue within weeks of each other. She never has to come to America first, never has to stop working in Finland, and never has to be sponsored separately. And one thing is better than it sounds: you do not leave until after the petition has already been approved. The embassy chain does not begin until the immigration service sends the approved petition on, and the interview is scheduled after every document is in and checked. So the thing that most limits this case, the strength of the petition, is already decided before you get on the plane. What is left when you are standing abroad is the money test and the routine checks, and in August the State Department published a way to cure a money-test refusal by posting a bond rather than being refused outright.
Against it. You have to leave once, and signing the overseas application effectively retires your student visa. So if you are refused, or held for additional checks, you are abroad with no automatic way back and no right to work. The new money test taking effect on 18 September does not apply to this route, and that is written into the rule; but the embassy side has been tightening too, through internal instructions to consular officers rather than published rules, and that part nobody outside can read. Your default embassy is Sydney rather than London, because it keys off where you lived before you first came; London is available to you as a British citizen but has to be requested, and nobody publishes how often that is granted. This route also gives up the one hundred and eighty day forgiveness allowance that route A keeps.
What it is. The same as B, except you go and stay abroad from the start rather than only for the interview.
How it works. Identical mechanism, identical cost, identical timeline. Because Janika holds indefinite leave to remain in Britain, this is the one route that puts you both at the same embassy as of right: London, for both of you.
In its favour. If your training plan problems turn out not to be curable, this becomes the safest route available, because nothing about it depends on a student status that could be challenged, and you are not trying to re-enter anywhere. A refusal lands where you already live and is a disappointment rather than a stranding.
Against it. You surrender American work authorisation and presence for seven to fifty eight months on a petition nobody has decided yet. If it is refused, you have nothing to fall back on. And running the company from Britain brings its own tax questions, which sit outside this page.
What it is. The O-1 is a work visa for people at the top of their field. The idea is to hold it as a bridge, so that Janika can be here on a dependent visa and you can both apply for green cards together from inside America.
How it works. Your own company can petition for you, and owning roughly half of it is not a bar. Applying to switch status from inside means you would not have to leave to collect it.
In its favour. You and Janika would be within one to two months of each other. And it carries three protections nothing else on the page carries: your right to work stops depending on the training plan; a rule written for this visa says a pending green card petition cannot be a reason to refuse you entry at the airport; and it lasts three years and renews, where your student permission ends on 15 June 2028.
Against it. It adds between three weeks and fourteen months and costs $6,710, the most on this page. Janika's dependent status on an O-1 does not permit work at all, and no work permit exists for it, so she would spend roughly twelve months here unable to earn. If the switch is refused on your training plan record, you must leave the country to collect the visa, which is precisely the outcome the route exists to prevent. And on the merits, nothing currently in your file touches any of the criteria the O-1 is judged on, so on your current record you would probably not get one. It is the fallback if the training plan cannot be fixed, not the plan.
What it is. Janika gets a dependent visa attached to your student status, comes to Cleveland, and files her green card application at the same time as yours.
How it works. She has to be physically in America, on that visa, to file. No O-1 is needed, which is why it is $850 cheaper than route D for the same outcome.
In its favour. You reach permanent residence within nought to four months of each other, living in the same place throughout.
Against it. A student dependent cannot work at all, and the work permit that comes with the green card application runs about twelve and a half months, so she would be here and unable to earn for most of the wait. Her entire status hangs off yours, and yours is the thing being tested on 15 September; if yours fails, hers fails with it and she has no claim of her own. She would also be giving up her job and her employer provided flat in Finland to do it.
Which petition you file. There are two: the national interest waiver, which argues your work matters enough that no employer sponsor is needed, and the extraordinary ability petition, which is a higher bar but a faster decision.
The faster petition only actually saves time on the embassy routes. On the routes where you stay in America, the green card application is what sets the pace, so a quicker petition buys about six weeks that nobody experiences. On your current record the extraordinary ability petition is much the harder case, and a refusal on it would sit on your record for anything you file afterwards. Filing both together is possible and adds about $1,015.
Four reviews, working independently and blind to each other, then a fifth reading all four against each other. On filing before 17 September, three of the four say plainly they would not. The fourth says the window is worth taking if a petition can honestly be assembled, then says in its own closing pages that it would not resolve the question either way on an irreversible act. The recommendation on this page follows the three: let the window go, deliberately and in writing, and keep the two things that share those dates and cost nothing, one real payroll cycle before the 15th and cancelling the New York health plan by the 17th.
On which route, the honest position is that it is not yet decidable, and the reason is not legal. The fifth review put it in one sentence: no decision about the petition is answerable without knowing what evidence actually exists for it. Nobody has produced that inventory. Six reference letters written for an earlier attempt sit in a package the previous lawyers never returned, and nothing else has been gathered. Until that is done, the route choice is a choice between timelines for a petition whose strength is unknown.
The fallback all five agree on. If the training plan problems cannot be cured, route C, filing and then living in Britain until it is done, becomes the safest thing on the board, and an O-1 becomes the only thing that keeps you working in America in the meantime.
The thing that most limits the petition is not money, paperwork or timing.
It is that the company is three months old with no revenue, no outside investment, no users and no other employees. The second of the three tests a national interest petition has to pass asks about progress toward the work and the interest it has attracted from customers, users and investors. Nothing in the drafting substitutes for that, and it is the one thing on this page that closes with months of building rather than with a decision. An appeal decision from February 2026 makes the point in a related way: the government said it looks at the actual work you will do rather than the importance of the industry you are in, and that overlapping with a national priority is not by itself enough.