What employers actually pay — and who sponsors your role
Every certified H-1B and PERM case is public. That data tells you where your salary really sits for your occupation and city, which employers sponsor your role, and it doubles as evidence for the EB-1A high-remuneration criterion.
Where the data comes from
To sponsor a worker, employers file wage and job data with the U.S. Department of Labor — a Labor Condition Application (LCA) for H-1B, and a PERM application for the green-card labor certification. The Office of Foreign Labor Certification publishes these filings. Each record includes the employer, job title, standardized occupation (SOC) code, worksite city and state, and the offered wage. Our benchmark normalizes millions of these certified filings so you can see, for your exact occupation and metro, what sponsoring employers actually pay.
How to read wage percentiles
Instead of a single "average," the benchmark shows percentiles, which are far more useful:
- Median (P50) — half of certified filings for your role and area paid less, half paid more.
- P25 / P75 — the typical middle range; most competitive offers fall here.
- P90 — the top decile. Pay at or above this line is what "high remuneration" looks like for your specific occupation.
Because the numbers are broken out by occupation and metro, a "$185,000" offer isn't just high or low in the abstract — you can see it's, say, the 76th percentile for software developers in Seattle but the 60th nationally. Seniority doesn't change the occupation code; it shows up in where your wage lands on this curve.
Why it matters for your case
Wage data is quietly one of the most useful pieces of evidence in the whole process:
- EB-1A criterion 9 (high remuneration). The regulation asks whether you command a high salary relative to others in your field. Occupation- and area-specific certified wage data is exactly the comparison officers find persuasive — far stronger than generic salary surveys.
- Choosing a sponsor. Seeing who files for your role, and at what wages, helps you target employers with a real sponsorship history.
- Sanity-checking an offer. Whether you're negotiating or evaluating a role, knowing the real percentile for your occupation and city is leverage.
See where your salary lands
Enter your occupation, city, and salary to see your local and national percentile against real certified filings — plus the top sponsoring employers for your role. Free, anonymous, no signup.
Open the salary & sponsor benchmark →