Immigration Client Intake Form: What to Ask (Template)

A good immigration intake form asks only what you need to separate a real case from a tire-kicker.

Every extra question reduces completions.

The template starts with general questions for every prospect, then branches into family, employment, asylum, citizenship-by-descent, and investor sections. Each section explains what it screens for. Use the questions that match the visas your firm handles rather than copying the full form.

For a five-question phone screening and objection handling, use the legal intake script template.

How to use this template

Use branching. After the general questions, show prospects only the section that fits their situation. This keeps each form short while still filtering the inquiry and protecting the completion rate.

Order matters. Ask about identity and situation first and capacity to pay last.

The form has one job: triage. It decides whether an inquiry is worth a consultation, not what happens during that consultation. Ask too much and prospects leave. Ask too little and your team must sort bad inquiries from real cases by hand.

The three things every branch needs to establish are simple:

1. Can they legally qualify?
2. Is it a case you take?
3. Can they proceed?

Everything below is built around those three.

General block (every prospect)

Ask these of everyone, before the form branches:

• Full name
• Email address
• Phone number, with country code, and whether WhatsApp reaches them there
• Preferred language
• Country of citizenship, and the country they currently live in
• Destination country
• Which best describes your situation? (family · work or employment · investment · asylum or protection · citizenship through ancestry · general relocation.) This single answer routes the prospect into the right block below.
• Are you 18 or older?
• When are you hoping to move or file? (just researching · within 3 months · 3-6 months · 6-12 months · 12+ months)
• May we contact you by phone, text, and email about your inquiry?

Why these qualify: origin, destination, and the situation selector provide the first filter. They match the prospect to a segment and confirm that you serve the route. Age provides the basic legal-eligibility check. Timeline separates prospects ready to act from those who are months away and guides intake follow-up. Ask for contact consent explicitly for both courtesy and compliance.

Family-based block

• Which relationship is the petition based on? (spouse · fiancé(e) · parent · child · sibling)
• Has a petition already been filed for this case?
• Is the sponsoring relative a citizen or a permanent resident?
• Where is the beneficiary now: inside or outside the destination country?
• Can the sponsor meet the income requirement for an affidavit of support?

Why these qualify: relationship type and an existing petition show whether the inquiry matches your case types. A marriage-only practice can exclude sibling petitions here. Sponsor status and location determine the route (adjustment versus consular processing). The income question checks capacity: a family case that cannot meet the affidavit-of-support threshold is not a case yet.

Employment-based block

• What is the employment route? (sponsored work visa · labor certification (PERM) · self-petition such as extraordinary ability or a national interest waiver)
• Do you have a job offer or a sponsoring employer lined up?
• Your highest qualification, field, and years of experience
• Current immigration status, if you are already in the destination country
• Approximate salary or offered salary

Why these qualify: the route and presence of a sponsor identify the case type. A practice that only files O-1s is not handed labor-certification inquiries, and the reverse holds too. Qualification and salary are the eligibility and capacity checks. An employment matter with no genuine route to the job or credential behind it is not going to move forward.

Note that a form built around a case-type cluster ("high-qualification employment") instead of a single visa code reaches more of the right prospects. See employment immigration leads for why.

Asylum / protection block

Keep this block short and low-friction. The population is sensitive, and a long form here suppresses the genuine claims along with the weak ones.

• Are you currently in removal or deportation proceedings? (distinguishes affirmative from defensive)
• Have you been in the destination country for more than one year?
• Country of origin
• Briefly, what is the basis of your fear of returning?
• Are family members included in the claim?

Why these qualify: proceedings status sets the case posture (affirmative versus defensive). The one-year question flags the filing deadline your firm needs to know about immediately. Country of origin and the basis of the claim help you identify people whose stated circumstances could support a protection case rather than a general immigration inquiry labeled as asylum. See asylum leads for how sensitive screening shapes this segment.

Citizenship-by-descent block

• Through which ancestor do you claim? (parent · grandparent · great-grandparent)
• The ancestor's country of citizenship or birth
• Which program are you pursuing? (Italian jure sanguinis · Irish Foreign Births Register · Polish confirmation · German restoration · other)
• Can you get hold of the birth, marriage, and death records for every generation linking you to that ancestor?
• Has anyone else in your family already secured this citizenship?

Why these qualify: which ancestor and how many generations back decide whether the prospect clears a program's eligibility limits. The program answer confirms it is a line your firm actually files. The records question separates a workable file from an early inquiry. Descent cases depend on documents, so a prospect who cannot assemble the vital records has a research project rather than a case. A relative who has already obtained the citizenship is a strong sign the chain holds together. More on the segment in citizenship by descent leads.

Investor block

• Which route interests you? (E-2 · EB-5 · a golden-visa program (Portugal, Greece, and similar) · another route)
• Approximately how much are you able to invest? (offer bracketed ranges instead of an open field)
• Can you document the source of those funds?
• Are you set on one destination country, or comparing several?
• How soon are you looking to invest?

Why these qualify: program and investable amount are the core capacity checks. A golden-visa entry threshold and an EB-5 capital requirement are very different numbers, and the bracketed ranges spare a high-net-worth prospect from typing figures into a web form. Source-of-funds readiness screens for a case that can actually clear diligence. Destination flexibility matters because most investors are still comparing programs. A form that accepts several routes reaches them earlier and at a lower cost than one requiring a single visa code. See investor visa leads.

A note on relocation and general movers

Broad relocation prospects (digital-nomad, retirement, or "we want to move but haven't chosen where") usually do not need a separate block. Route them through the general block's destination and timeline questions plus a single capacity question calibrated to the route (a pension floor for a retirement move, a baseline remote salary for a nomad route). Let the consultation sort the specifics.

What to leave off the form

Do not put the full consultation into the form. Children's birthdates, complete immigration history, prior denials, and exact document inventories belong in the call.

These questions sharply reduce completion without helping you decide whether the inquiry deserves a call. Use the form to filter and the consultation for detail. Both work better when kept separate.

Once the form is doing its job, the leads it produces still have to be worked fast and followed up for months.

What to read next:

• Speed to lead for law firms shows how to respond to new submissions within five minutes.
• The four jobs of your intake stack connects the form to routing, follow-up, and reporting.
• How much lawyers pay for leads explains how visa type affects lead value.