Honorarium Payments
The U.S. Congress passed legislation in October 1998 to allow the payment of expenses and honoraria to visiting scholars in “B” or visa waiver status*, as long as that arrangement is for a single event or short series of events (master class/lecture/demonstration) and is limited to nine days and not more than five other payments from other institutions in the past six months.
Visitors should verify their status before leaving the port of entry.
In order to enter on the Visa Waiver Program, participants must now have machine readable passports. If the participant does not have a machine readable passport, they will need to apply for a B visa from the American embassy before they come to the United States.
Check with the International Tax Office for further information about payment and tax implications if you have a visitor coming on the B or Visa Waiver Program. Call 303-735-5534 for more information.
Visitors on a J-1 visa will need a permission letter from the institution they have the J-1 visa with.
Visitors on a J-2 visa without an EAD card cannot be paid honoraria or reimbursed for travel expenses. Visitors on a tourist visa cannot be reimbursed airfare to/from home (they can be reimbursed airfare from their vacation location to Boulder). Honoraria payments to international visitors are taxed 30%, travel expense reimbursements are not (usually) taxed.
Assuming visitors you are admitted in a business status, we will require copies of the passport photo page, entry stamp (or I-94 if one was issued), and form W-8BEN with parts I and IV completed in order to process the reimbursement.