The Best Way to Manage Employee Visa Renewals—Stress-Free

Work remains the primary reason people move abroad, with 47% of migrants relocating to further their careers, accept a job offer, or help expand a business. But while international relocations offer tremendous benefits, managing visa renewals has become increasingly challenging.

For those in charge of managing global talent, finding new ways to streamline your visa renewal process is important to avoid delays and help you keep the best people on your team.

Visa renewals are often one of the most stressful parts of managing a global team. They’re time-consuming, expensive, and packed with potential roadblocks. Plus, there are countless aspects to consider, from missed deadlines to changing eligibility rules, and everything in between.

And the stakes are high.

One small mistake could mean losing a key employee. For HR teams that are already juggling payroll, benefits, onboarding, and much more, the pressure is immense.

At Deel, we work with over 20,000 organizations around the world, helping them hire, pay, and manage international workers—visa renewals included. Deel Immigration simplifies the visa renewal process for organizations so that they can focus on their core business activities.

Deel Immigration is an end-to-end mobility solution for:

• Selecting visas
• Checking eligibility
• Visa applications and renewals
• Relocation discounts
• Support for dependents
• EOR visa sponsorship
• Case tracker
• A mobility dashboard for tracking immigration activities and having total oversight of expenditure and RO

So whether you’re a HR leader, an Operations specialist, or a founder growing a global team, this article is for you.

Let’s dive into the best way to manage employee visa renewals stress-free.

The need to hire foreign workers and relocate existing employees

Being able to hire foreign workers or relocate existing employees comes with many benefits. Many candidates seek location flexibility from their jobs and may choose to work with your company on that basis. If you’re expanding globally and require employees to move, relocating can be a win-win strategy.

Some employees’ requests to work from a specific location may come out of necessity. Team members may need to be closer to family. Being able to support visas in different countries allows you to hold onto them.

Foreign workers often require visa renewals. That may be because they’ve stayed in the country for one or two years, or their legal status has changed.

As team members’ employment and way of life can depend on the visa, renewals have high stakes. HR decision-makers have to navigate the process carefully to ensure they retain top talent, ensure employee satisfaction, and don’t incur high costs.

How to manage visa renewals effectively

Effective visa renewal management involves four key steps:

• Identifying compliance challenges caused by changing regulations and employee circumstances
• Preparing and organizing required documentation
• Managing complex timelines and deadlines across multiple applications
• Integrating renewal processes with existing HR systems like payroll and benefits

Streamlining these steps helps companies retain international talent while minimizing administrative burdens and compliance risks.

Step 1: Identify compliance challenges

Visa renewals aren’t simply a matter of repeating the original visa application. Changing immigration laws and regulations in the employee’s residence or home country can impact the process. Also, there are different visas depending on the length of stay. Sometimes you only get to renew one type of visa a few times, then you need to move on to another. Here are some key changes that can occur over time:

• Stricter eligibility criteria, such as skills and qualifications
• Higher minimum salary threshold
• Changes to visa categories
• New limits on dependents
• Longer processing times or shorter deadlines
• Reforms in diplomatic arrangements concerning the free movement of labor

Even if the visa requirements haven’t changed, chances are the employee’s circumstances have. Getting married, developing health issues, or even taking a new job role could affect their eligibility.

To stay compliant, HR decision-makers have to keep updated with all the changes to this complex system and their workers’ lives. Multinational teams will find that this demands a lot of time and attention, which draws focus from core HR tasks.

Hiring an immigration lawyer is an option, but it comes with high costs on top of the usual filing fees.

An immigration partner like Deel can reduce the burden on HR by managing the renewal process and any associated compliance issues. For example, Deel Immigration comprises a team of mobility experts who can support compliant visa renewals.

Should you need to transition an employee from a temporary stay visa to a long-term or permanent visa, you may need to hire the worker locally.

Deel Immigration can take care of updating contracts and adjusting benefits, payroll, and comp.

If you don’t have a local entity, you can have Deel hire the employee through its local Employer of Record and sponsor the new visa on your behalf.

Read more about sponsored visas with Deel

Step 2: Prepare documents for the visa application

With legal and regulatory challenges out of the way, HR can turn its attention to paperwork. However, managing the required documents for renewal applications can be just as complex as compliance.

For instance, the US has around 50 types of visas, and a quarter of these are employment-based. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has a two-page checklist just for the H-1B visa, the typical nonimmigrant visa for professionals.

Document management also goes beyond collecting the right paperwork. You may have to arrange anything from authentication and signatures to translation and copies of IDs. As you go through the process, you also have to store copies of documents and return the originals to their rightful owners.

Delays due to incorrect, damaged, or missing forms create extra work for your team. Repeated issues can frustrate employees and cause them to lose trust in the company.

Deel Immigration offers self-serve document upload. Workers can log in, view a personalized checklist of required documents, upload files, and submit them directly. They can also complete and e-sign paperwork directly in the platform.

Managing documents via our platform is especially beneficial for distributed teams. If you and the employee live in different countries, you have to coordinate sending paperwork between three places. Our platform centralizes all the document management tasks so nothing gets missed or lost in transit.

Step 3: Manage timelines and deadlines

When you’ve got multiple foreign nationals on your team across different countries, managing timelines is challenging. You have to consider:

• Document expiration dates
• Payment transfer times
• Processing times
• Waiting periods before the new issuance date
• Visa interviews (typical for North American visas)
• Trips to the embassy or the Department of State
• Potential delays due to political unrest or global events

If the visa holder had family members join them since their original application, there may be extra steps. For example, some spouses must leave and re-enter the country to gain a US visa.

There’s no doubt that employees each applied for their original visas at separate times. That means you may end up managing multiple visa application processes, which are at different stages.

Given how much there is to remember, planning visa renewals can be a source of stress for HR teams. But they can’t lose focus, as missed deadlines can potentially lead to penalties or even the employee’s loss of legal status.

Using a centralized platform like Deel eases the visa renewal process. You can view each employee’s visa type, status, and expiration date on the dashboard. There are also automated expiry reminders and notifications if something changes in immigration law.

Step 4: Integrate visa renewals with HR processes

Visa renewals not only require extensive planning but can also affect HR processes such as payroll, contracts, and benefits administration.

If you renew a visa for a new hire, you have to ensure their position, salary, and benefits meet specific conditions. For instance, the Canadian government states that a foreign worker’s roles and responsibilities must match their occupation. HR must double-check that any new tasks they require foreign workers in Canada to do still fall within that scope.

Renewals for existing employees don’t necessarily require contract changes, but often do. Governments frequently raise the minimum salary threshold for nonimmigrant workers. You may need to adjust an employee’s pay and benefits to meet the new conditions.

Once a contract is updated, payroll and benefits adjustments must be executed within specific timeframes to avoid late payments, tax penalties, or compliance issues.

But meeting those deadlines isn’t always simple—especially when navigating country-specific rules or visa requirements. For instance, when employing H-1B visa holders in the US, you’re responsible not only for withholding the correct taxes, but also for ensuring the official start date matches exactly what was filed.

That’s why it’s critical to work with an end-to-end immigration partner like Deel. Unlike point solutions, Deel integrates visa and immigration workflows with payroll and benefits. Any contract update is automatically synced—so compliance adjustments happen instantly, without manual handoffs, and employees receive their compensation on time.

Immigration partners like Deel can streamline many more HR processes. Including:

• Onboarding and offboarding
• Equipment management
• Performance management
• Background checks
• Accounting and tax support

Tips for HR teams managing visa renewals

Managing visa renewals effectively requires an organized approach. Your HR team can use the following practical tips:

Start early—track visa expiration dates at least 6 months in advance

Generally speaking, immigration authorities recommend starting the renewal process around four to six months before the visa expires.

A centralized tracking system can help you spot upcoming expiration dates with sufficient lead time to accommodate processing delays and potential documentation issues. This buffer is especially required for countries that have variable processing times.

With Deel Immigration, automated alerts and deadline tracking tools make it easy to stay ahead of renewals, reducing last-minute stress for HR teams and employees.

With Deel Immigration, automated alerts and a deadline tracker make it easy to stay ahead of renewals, reducing last-minute stress for both HR teams and employees.

Watch now: A Demo of Deel’s Global Mobility Platform

Establish an internal checklist or use Deel's template

Create thorough checklists for each visa type in your business processes. They should include any required documents, filing timelines, fees, and interview prep if required. Deel offers customizable templates that are specific to the country requirements, which will save you research time and help you be confident that nothing is overlooked.

Create a communication plan with employees

Establish a formal communication timeline that keeps employees informed throughout their renewal process. This would include initial notice at the 6-month mark, regular status updates, explicit document submission guidelines, and timely policy change notices. Open communication reduces anxiety and improves employee compliance in the process.

Reduce manual effort and errors with Deel

Leverage Deel’s specialized platform to automate repetitive tasks, centralize documentation, and provide real-time updates. Our digital solutions ensure consistent record-keeping across your global workforce, reducing the risk of human error. The platform integrates a range of capabilities while connecting the visa process with broader HR functions like payroll and compliance.

Manage visa renewals effortlessly with Deel

To compete in the future of work, companies need the ability to support global teams with visa renewals and cross-border relocations.

While visa renewals may seem complicated and stressful, Deel Immigration is here to make it simple. You can overcome all of these challenges with Deel’s support.

Deel offers a wide range of solutions for outsourcing tasks and reducing the administrative burden on your team. You can also streamline the tasks you manage in-house via our dashboard, automated reminders, and integrated HR features.

Schedule a free consultation today to see how we can support your global teams.