Kansas City H-1B Jobs Across the State Line: Black & Veatch, Garmin, Burns & McDonnell and KU Medical
Kansas City's biggest sponsors sit on both sides of a state line. Your H-1B LCA follows where you work and its metro area, not the state you live in.
Part of our guide to H-1B jobs by state and city.
Kansas City H-1B jobs sit on both sides of the Missouri-Kansas line, and they cluster in engineering, electronics and academic medicine. In the USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub extract F1Jobs uses (petitions recorded for FY2024 through FY2026, with FY2026 partial), the largest sponsors in the area are Black & Veatch in Overland Park (252 petitions), Garmin in Olathe (134), Burns & McDonnell in Kansas City, Missouri (126), the University of Kansas in Lawrence (121), KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas (111 and 106 under two spellings) and Terracon in Olathe (103). The state line itself does not change your H-1B: the Labor Condition Application covers where you work and its commuting area, not where you live.
Status as of 2026-11-01. Wage-weighted H-1B selection is in effect (since 2026-02-27). FY2028 registration is not announced, and USCIS must give at least 30 days' notice. Proclamation 11069 is in effect on paper, but its $100,000 payment is blocked: courts vacated the agency policies that implement it, and appeals are pending. USCIS says on its Form I-129 page that "If this order is later lifted, DHS still plans to collect the payment." Even then, change-of-status and extension requests USCIS grants inside the US were never covered.
Which Kansas City companies sponsor H-1B?
Kansas City's top H-1B sponsors in FY2024-FY2026 Hub data (FY2026 partial) are Black & Veatch (252), Garmin (134), Burns & McDonnell (126), the University of Kansas (121), KU Medical Center (217 across two name spellings, our arithmetic) and Terracon (103). Five of the six are in Kansas, and the two KU employers skip the lottery because universities are cap-exempt.
Kansas City-area H-1B sponsors, USCIS Employer Data Hub extract, petitions FY2024-FY2026 (FY2026 partial), as of 2026-11
| Employer | City on most petitions | State | Petitions | Lottery for a first-time H-1B? | Line of business |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black & Veatch Corporation | Overland Park | KS | 252 | Yes (private employer) | Engineering, procurement and construction for power, water and telecom |
| Garmin International | Olathe | KS | 134 | Yes (private employer) | GPS, aviation, marine and consumer electronics |
| Burns & McDonnell Engineering | Kansas City | MO | 126 | Yes (private employer) | Engineering, architecture and construction |
| The University of Kansas | Lawrence | KS | 121 | No (university) | Research university |
| KU Medical Center (spelling 1, spelling 2) | Kansas City | KS | 111 + 106 | No (university) | Academic medical campus |
| Terracon Consultants | Olathe | KS | 103 | Yes (private employer) | Geotechnical, environmental and materials engineering |
Before you build a target list from this table:
- These are past petitions, not openings. The Hub counts USCIS's first decision on each petition, approvals and denials alike, so the total mixes first-time H-1Bs with extensions and other later filings. Each employer page splits initial from continuing employment by year.
- Names drift between years. The Hub stores the name as filed, and spellings change between fiscal years: KU Medical Center appears as "University of Kansas Medical Cente" and "University of Kansas Medical Center", and Black & Veatch and Burns & McDonnell each have a smaller duplicate row under another spelling, so the table understates both. Search every variant on the USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub.
- The state pages list employers with at least 25 petitions. The Kansas sponsor page holds 32 employers and 1,816 petitions. Many of its smaller rows are IT consulting and staffing firms in Overland Park, Leawood and Olathe, which often place people at client sites; that changes the LCA picture.
- Missouri's page is mostly St. Louis. The Missouri sponsor page is led by St. Louis-area employers, which have their own guide. Its Kansas City rows, such as HNTB, Children's Mercy Hospital, UMB Bank, HRB Professional Resources and TranSystems, sit below the 100-petition threshold for a page of their own.
Does Garmin sponsor H-1B?
Yes, on the record: Garmin International in Olathe has 134 petitions in the extract, a filing history rather than a promise for any posting. As a private, cap-subject employer, a first H-1B there goes through the lottery. Its engineering work leans electrical, embedded and firmware; our guide to electrical engineer H-1B sponsorship covers how those roles are usually classified.
Do Black & Veatch and Burns & McDonnell sponsor H-1B?
Yes, on the record: 252 petitions for Black & Veatch and 126 for Burns & McDonnell in the extract. Both are engineering, design and construction firms, so expect civil, structural, electrical, mechanical and project roles, and two things shape your path. The first is licensure: a Professional Engineer license is issued state by state, which matters in a two-state metro, and our guide to civil engineer visa sponsorship and the PE license explains the EIT-to-PE path on a visa. The second is title: project and field roles can be harder to frame as specialty occupations, which our construction management H-1B guide works through.
Does the University of Kansas sponsor H-1B?
Yes: 121 petitions for the University of Kansas in Lawrence and 217 across KU Medical Center's two spellings. Universities are exempt from the annual cap, so a KU offer can become an H-1B petition at any time of year, with no lottery.
The catch is timing. Cap-exempt petitions get no cap-gap, so if your OPT EAD ends before the H-1B starts, a pending university petition does not let you keep working; our explainer on whether cap-gap applies to cap-exempt H-1Bs walks through the dates. Some clinical jobs sit with separate entities, such as University of Kansas Physicians, listed under its own name; each entity's cap-exempt status is its counsel's call. A draft rule titled "Reforming the H-1B Nonimmigrant Visa Classification Program" (RIN 1615-AD00), whose agenda abstract mentions "revising eligibility for cap exemptions," has been under OIRA review since 2026-08-24. Its text is not public, and the current cap-exemption rules apply.
If you live in Kansas and work in Missouri, does your H-1B change?
No, not because of the state line. An H-1B petition rests on a Labor Condition Application for the place of employment, which the Department of Labor defines in 20 CFR 655.715 as "the worksite or physical location where the work actually is performed." Your home address enters the picture only if you work there.
The same regulation defines the area of intended employment as the area within normal commuting distance of that worksite, and it adds that "any place within the MSA or PMSA is deemed to be within normal commuting distance of the place of employment." The BLS OEWS area definitions put Johnson, Leavenworth, Linn, Miami and Wyandotte counties in Kansas and Bates, Caldwell, Cass, Clay, Clinton, Jackson, Platte and Ray counties in Missouri into one Kansas City, MO-KS metropolitan area. Overland Park, Olathe, Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri are therefore one labor market for LCA purposes.
Lawrence is the exception people miss: Douglas County is its own Lawrence, KS metro area. Commuting from Lawrence to Overland Park is fine, but a Lawrence home you work from is a place of employment in a different area. The regulation also says MSA borders are "not controlling": a place outside an MSA can still be within normal commuting distance, while places in a larger consolidated area are not automatically covered. Whether an existing LCA reaches a Lawrence home office is a judgment for your employer's attorney. Our guide to remote work on H-1B and OPT covers home worksites in more depth.
Two-state scenarios in Kansas City: what the LCA has to cover (as of 2026-11)
| Your situation | Does the state line matter? | What has to be true | Who to ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live in Overland Park, work full time in an office in Kansas City, MO | No | The LCA covers the Missouri office; a home you never work from is not a worksite | No one, unless your schedule changes |
| Hybrid: home in Johnson County, KS; office in Kansas City, MO | No | Home days make your home a place of employment, inside the same metro area | Employer's immigration attorney (LCA notice at each worksite) |
| Live in Lawrence, commute to Olathe | Not for commuting | Home days in Lawrence add a worksite in a different metro area | Employer's immigration attorney, before you agree to home days |
| Same employer moves your desk from Overland Park to Kansas City, MO | Usually no | A new address inside the LCA's area generally does not by itself need an amended petition, but the employer must post the LCA notice at the new site | Employer's immigration attorney |
| You change employers across the street or across the line | Yes, because of the employer | The new employer files its own H-1B petition and LCA | The new employer's attorney |
| Same employer relocates you to St. Louis or Wichita | Yes | Different metro area: generally a new certified LCA and an amended petition filed before you start there (short-term placement rules aside) | Employer's immigration attorney |
| A consulting firm places you at a client site | Depends on the client site | The LCA must cover where the work is performed | Employer's attorney; get the client address in writing |
Our checklist on relocating to a new state with the same H-1B employer covers the new-LCA and amendment sequence and short-term placements.
What about state income tax?
Living in one state and working in the other usually means dealing with two state tax systems, and Kansas City, Missouri also levies its own city earnings tax. How residency, withholding and credits work depends on your facts, including whether you are a nonresident or resident alien for federal tax purposes that year, so take it to a tax professional who handles nonresident returns. Our overview of state tax returns on F-1, OPT and H-1B explains the basics.
Is Kansas City good for engineering graduates on OPT?
For civil, electrical, environmental and construction engineering, it is a focused market: the largest sponsors are engineering and design firms, plus Garmin for electronics. For general software roles it is thinner. The whole Kansas page totals 1,816 petitions across three fiscal years, so plan on a targeted list rather than volume applying.
The national picture tilts the same way. Indeed Hiring Lab's 2026-10-22 snapshot put its national engineering postings index near 145 and healthcare near 131, while software development sat near 78-79, the lowest of the five categories it charted. Postings rarely settle sponsorship: in a single-vendor read of 2,718 software, data and infrastructure engineering postings (2026-10-13), Match.dev reported that 88.1% said nothing either way, so ask.
Keep the OPT rules in view while you search:
- Unemployment limits are unchanged: 90 days on post-completion OPT and 150 days in aggregate on STEM OPT, per the SEVIS Help Hub's unemployment counter page.
- STEM OPT needs an E-Verify employer and a Form I-983 training plan. The USCIS STEM OPT page still provides a 180-day automatic extension for timely filers, and the 2026-10-14 EAD rule did not change it.
How wage levels and the weighted lottery work in Kansas City
DOL publishes a four-level prevailing-wage table for each occupation in each OEWS area, and you can look one up in the FLAG wage search. Because Kansas City, MO-KS is one area, an Overland Park office and a downtown Missouri office use the same table. Lawrence uses its own.
That matters for the lottery. Under the weighted selection rule, in effect since 2026-02-27, a Level IV registration enters the pool four times and Level I once, with Levels II and III in between. The final rule also says that "if the beneficiary will work in multiple locations, or in multiple positions if the petitioner is an agent, the petitioner must select the lowest corresponding OEWS wage level that the beneficiary's proffered wage will equal or exceed." Our reading: a hybrid job split between a Johnson County office and a Lawrence home is measured against two wage tables, and the lower level counts. Our explainer on the weighted selection mechanism shows the math.
DOL's prevailing-wage proposal (RIN 1205-AC30, 2026-03-27) would raise every level (Level I from the 17th to the 34th percentile); it is proposed, with no final rule as of 2026-11-01. And FY2028 registration is not announced: FY2027's ran March 4-19, 2026, with a $215 fee, and March 2027 is an expectation, not a date.
A worked timeline: KU graduate, Overland Park offer, Lawrence apartment
Say you finish a civil engineering MS at KU in May 2026 and start at an Overland Park engineering firm on an OPT EAD valid 2026-06-15 to 2027-06-14, while keeping your Lawrence apartment.
- Report your employer through your school's process or the SEVP Portal when you start on 2026-06-15; your DSO tells you which.
- Ask HR early whether the firm is enrolled in E-Verify, since a STEM OPT extension depends on it and on a Form I-983.
- Mark 2027-06-14: a STEM OPT Form I-765 has to reach USCIS before the EAD expires for the 180-day automatic extension to apply, and your DSO confirms eligibility and issues the recommendation.
- Tell HR, before your employer registers for FY2028, exactly where you will work, including any home days in Lawrence, because the wage level on the registration is the lowest across your work locations.
- Confirm with the employer's attorney that the LCA filed with the H-1B petition covers every place you will actually work; the petition must list every address where you are expected to work.
- Track cap-gap if you are not on STEM OPT: per USCIS's cap-gap page, a timely, selected FY2028 change-of-status petition carries status and OPT work past 2027-06-14 to the petition's start date or 2028-04-01, whichever is earlier.
If instead you take a KU research job in Lawrence, steps 4 and 6 change: no lottery, but no cap-gap, so the university petition has to be timed against the EAD's end date.
How to find Kansas City H-1B jobs, step by step
- Open the Kansas and Missouri sponsor pages and pull every row in Overland Park, Olathe, Leawood, Lenexa, Lawrence, Lee's Summit and both Kansas Cities.
- Search each name and its variants on the USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub to see initial versus continuing approvals by year.
- Check job titles and worksite cities in DOL's LCA disclosure data on the OFLC performance page, where the latest files run through FY2026 Q3.
- Look up the prevailing-wage level for your job's occupation code in the right area (Kansas City, MO-KS or Lawrence, KS) in FLAG.
- Ask each recruiter whether the role is open to sponsorship and where the work is performed, in writing.
- Bring any question about OPT reporting or SEVIS to your DSO, and any question about the petition or LCA to the employer's immigration attorney.
Common mistakes
- Treating the state line as the boundary. For an LCA, the boundary that matters is the metro area and commuting distance, not Kansas versus Missouri.
- Forgetting that home days create a worksite. If you work from home, your home is a place of employment, and in Lawrence that is a different metro area.
- Reading petition counts as job openings. A count of 252 says Black & Veatch has filed; it does not say a posting is open to sponsorship.
- Expecting cap-gap at KU. University petitions are cap-exempt, and cap-exempt petitions get no cap-gap.
- Repeating "the $100,000 fee is back." As of 2026-11-01 it is not being collected; the agency policies are blocked and on appeal.
Frequently asked questions
Which Kansas City companies sponsor H-1B?
In the USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub extract F1Jobs uses (FY2024 through FY2026, FY2026 partial), the largest Kansas City-area sponsors are Black & Veatch in Overland Park (252 petitions), Garmin in Olathe (134), Burns & McDonnell in Kansas City, Missouri (126), the University of Kansas in Lawrence (121), KU Medical Center (111 and 106 under two name spellings) and Terracon in Olathe (103). These are past filings, not open jobs, so confirm sponsorship for each posting.
Does Garmin sponsor H-1B?
Garmin International in Olathe, Kansas, has 134 H-1B petitions in the Hub extract for FY2024 through FY2026 (FY2026 partial), so it has a recent record of sponsoring. That record is not a promise for any one posting. As a private employer, a first-time H-1B at Garmin goes through the wage-weighted lottery, in effect since 2026-02-27.
If I live in Kansas and work in Missouri, does my H-1B change?
Not because of the state line. The Labor Condition Application covers your place of employment and the area within normal commuting distance of it, and under 20 CFR 655.715 any place in the same metropolitan statistical area counts as within commuting distance. Overland Park, Olathe, Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri are all in the Kansas City, MO-KS area. Working from a home outside that area, such as Lawrence, is a separate question for your employer's immigration attorney.
Is Kansas City good for engineering graduates on OPT?
It is a focused market for civil, electrical, environmental and construction engineering, because its largest H-1B sponsors are engineering and design firms such as Black & Veatch, Burns & McDonnell and Terracon, plus Garmin for electronics. Volume is modest (1,816 petitions on the whole Kansas page over three fiscal years), so build a targeted list. OPT still allows 90 days of unemployment, or 150 in aggregate on STEM OPT.
Does the University of Kansas sponsor H-1B?
Yes. The University of Kansas in Lawrence has 121 petitions in the Hub extract for FY2024 through FY2026 (FY2026 partial), and KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas, has 111 and 106 under two spellings of its name. As a university, KU is exempt from the H-1B cap, so there is no lottery, but cap-exempt petitions get no cap-gap, so the timing has to work before your OPT EAD ends.
Sources
- USCIS, H-1B Employer Data Hub
- USCIS, Form I-129 (status of the $100,000 payment)
- USCIS, H-1B electronic registration process
- USCIS, Cap-gap extension of OPT and F-1 status
- USCIS, STEM OPT extension
- DHS SEVIS Help Hub, Unemployment counter
- Federal Register, Weighted selection final rule (effective 2026-02-27)
- Federal Register, DOL prevailing-wage proposed rule (RIN 1205-AC30)
- 20 CFR 655.715 via Cornell LII
- BLS, OEWS metropolitan area definitions
- DOL, OFLC performance data and FLAG wage search
- Indeed Hiring Lab, US labor market snapshot, October 2026
- Match.dev, Visa sponsorship in engineering job postings: data (single vendor, postings read 2026-10-13)
How we checked this: employer counts come from the USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub extract behind our sponsor pages; rule text was read from 20 CFR 655.715, the weighted selection final rule, BLS OEWS area definitions and the USCIS pages above on 2026-11-01.
This is general information, not legal or tax advice; your own I-20, I-94 and approval notice, your DSO and your employer's immigration attorney govern your case.
If you want a second pair of eyes on a Kansas City target list, or help reaching the hiring managers at firms that already sponsor, F1Jobs works with F-1, OPT and H-1B candidates on exactly that.
Frequently asked questions
Which Kansas City companies sponsor H-1B?
In the USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub extract F1Jobs uses (FY2024 through FY2026, FY2026 partial), the largest Kansas City-area sponsors are Black & Veatch in Overland Park (252 petitions), Garmin in Olathe (134), Burns & McDonnell in Kansas City, Missouri (126), the University of Kansas in Lawrence (121), KU Medical Center (111 and 106 under two name spellings) and Terracon in Olathe (103). These are past filings, not open jobs, so confirm sponsorship for each posting.
Does Garmin sponsor H-1B?
Garmin International in Olathe, Kansas, has 134 H-1B petitions in the Hub extract for FY2024 through FY2026 (FY2026 partial), so it has a recent record of sponsoring. That record is not a promise for any one posting. As a private employer, a first-time H-1B at Garmin goes through the wage-weighted lottery, in effect since 2026-02-27.
If I live in Kansas and work in Missouri, does my H-1B change?
Not because of the state line. The Labor Condition Application covers your place of employment and the area within normal commuting distance of it, and under 20 CFR 655.715 any place in the same metropolitan statistical area counts as within commuting distance. Overland Park, Olathe, Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri are all in the Kansas City, MO-KS area. Working from a home outside that area, such as Lawrence, is a separate question for your employer's immigration attorney.
Is Kansas City good for engineering graduates on OPT?
It is a focused market for civil, electrical, environmental and construction engineering, because its largest H-1B sponsors are engineering and design firms such as Black & Veatch, Burns & McDonnell and Terracon, plus Garmin for electronics. Volume is modest (1,816 petitions on the whole Kansas page over three fiscal years), so build a targeted list. OPT still allows 90 days of unemployment, or 150 in aggregate on STEM OPT.
Does the University of Kansas sponsor H-1B?
Yes. The University of Kansas in Lawrence has 121 petitions in the Hub extract for FY2024 through FY2026 (FY2026 partial), and KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas, has 111 and 106 under two spellings of its name. As a university, KU is exempt from the H-1B cap, so there is no lottery, but cap-exempt petitions get no cap-gap, so the timing has to work before your OPT EAD ends.