Nine of the ten criteria in 8 CFR 204.5(h)(3) are qualitative. The ninth has a number in it, which makes people think it is the easy one.
It is not, and the reason is in the text: evidence that the person has commanded a high salary or other significantly high remuneration in relation to others in the field.
Those last six words are the criterion. A salary is a fact about you. The criterion is a comparison.
What a complete piece of evidence looks like
Two halves, and files routinely contain only the first.
Your remuneration. Pay stubs, tax documents, the employment contract. And not only base salary — the criterion says salary or other significantly high remuneration, so bonuses, equity, profit participation, consulting income and royalties belong here when they relate to the work in the field. Equity in particular has to be valued and documented rather than mentioned.
The comparison. Wage data for the same occupation in the same geography. The Department of Labor's Online Wage Library gives prevailing wage levels by occupation and area and is the usual starting point for U.S. work. Industry salary surveys, published compensation studies and government statistics do the same job elsewhere.
What the second half has to establish is where you sit — not that your pay is good, but that it is high against a stated benchmark, with the benchmark identified.
If you work outside the United States
The guidance is explicit and helpful here: officers evaluate persons working outside the United States based on the wage statistics or comparable evidence relevant to the applicable work location.
So a senior engineer in São Paulo is compared against senior engineers in Brazil, not against Silicon Valley. That cuts both ways — it means a salary that looks modest in dollars can satisfy the criterion comfortably in its own market, and it means the file has to supply the local benchmark rather than assume the officer knows it.
This is one of the places where petitions from outside the United States lose a criterion they actually meet, simply by never making the local comparison.
The prospective case
USCIS also accepts forward-looking evidence: a credible contract or job offer showing prospective salary or remuneration may establish that the person has been able to command such compensation.
The operative word is credible. An offer from an unrelated company, at arm's length, with terms that match the market for that role, is evidence. An offer from a company you control, written for the petition, is not — and it is visible as such.
What does not work
A number with no benchmark. The most common failure. Three hundred thousand dollars is impressive in most fields and unremarkable in a few, and the officer is not permitted to guess which yours is.
The wrong comparison group. Comparing against all workers rather than against others in the field, or against national averages when the field is concentrated in high-cost regions, invites the officer to supply a better comparison than yours.
Total compensation presented as salary. Mixing equity into a base-pay figure without separating them reads as inflation, and undermines the parts that were solid.
Where to look next
The criterion is one of the ten on the EB-1A page, and meeting three only completes the first step — the final merits determination is the second. For the criteria most records can reach without doing anything new, see judging the work of others and prizes and awards.