UPDATE ON EXTENDING B2 VISA (I539)

[Tom]

I traveled a ton for business. I got a lot of "welcome homes" from the border agents ...

Me too, on both counts.

They always cared about money through and I was always asked if I was carrying $10k+ bucks with me.

Any amount over $10K coming in or out of the US has to be reported, whether carried in cash or transferred via bank, wire, or online. Having made countless transfers in both directions over the years, I always made sure I followed the rules.

A colleague coming into SFO once carried "too much" in cash on behalf of one of his German employees to exercise some company stock purchase/options; His version of the story was "they had me against the wall with guns drawn".

 

[Old_Crow]

Me too, on both counts.

Any amount over $10K coming in or out of the US has to be reported, whether carried in cash or transferred via bank, wire, or online. Having made countless transfers in both directions over the years, I always made sure I followed the rules.

A colleague coming into SFO once carried "too much" in cash on behalf of one of his German employees to exercise some company stock purchase/options; His version of the story was "they had me against the wall with guns drawn".

Shoot, I just gave my kid $5k to help toward a down payment on a house. You'd have thought I was the head of a cartel with all the paperwork we had to fill out. I even had to provide a bank statement that proved I had taken the money out of an existing account. Then, in the middle of the transaction, he sold a car (that he owned outright) and put the money from that in the same account that the down payment was coming out of. He had to provide a copy of the bill of sale as proof of where that cash came from (and it wasn't even going to be involved in the house transaction).

 

[UTTransplant]

When we bought our last house, we had a bunch of cash from the previous house’s sale. We had to provide the contract for the house and show we had owned it free and clear to get a loan on the new house. Same thing when we bought the MH for cash. My son is middle management for a credit union, and says it is normal these days. Even in our small city there is money laundering going on.

 

[Old_Crow]

When we bought our last house, we had a bunch of cash from the previous house’s sale. We had to provide the contract for the house and show we had owned it free and clear to get a loan on the new house. Same thing when we bought the MH for cash. My son is middle management for a credit union, and says it is normal these days. Even in our small city there is money laundering going on.

I would have expected all that had I given him $10k, it just surprised me that it came into play for a measly $5k.

 

[TonyL]

In the UK, if you go into a bank to exchange old notes that are going out of circulation, they'll query anything over £2000 ($2400) even in our small town of around 8000 people.
Remember when cash was king!!

 

[Ex-Calif]

When we bought our last house, we had a bunch of cash from the previous house’s sale. We had to provide the contract for the house and show we had owned it free and clear to get a loan on the new house. Same thing when we bought the MH for cash. My son is middle management for a credit union, and says it is normal these days. Even in our small city there is money laundering going on.

That's the loan people. I had the same thing.

They want to make sure you aren't doing any undeclared "borrowing" off the books that would change your debt load and loan app.

I did wire $10k to Colombia for condo remodeling. You can imagine what they asked me...