Working for employer through a third party agency.
Standard paid employer-employee relationship with an employer.USCIS BROAD DEFINITION OF EMPLOYMENT ON OPTĪccording to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), employment on OPT is generally defined as a paid or unpaid activity in the student’s field of study in which the student engages for at least 20 hours per week.Īctivities considered as OPT employment by USCIS include: In the unfortunate circumstance that you have not received any job offer(s) - or a job offer that you really desire - or in the scenario where your OPT employment is terminated, these are all the employment options you should strongly pursue to avoid accruing unemployment days. What Can I do to Stop Accruing OPT Unemployment Days? Once you receive the OPT EAD card and the OPT start date becomes valid, your 90 day limit of OPT unemployment starts counting down. The problem with this job search strategy is that as an international student who has completed your program, you do not have the luxury to sit idle at home while you continue job searching for your ideal job, like your American classmates can or even worse, sitting at home doing nothing.
So it becomes natural for you to keep holding out for that job offer that you can compare with those from your graduating class. When you have not received any good job offers - or even no job offers at all - and you look around and see your friends/graduating classmates receiving job offers with high starting salaries from reputable companies, it’s easy to feel down on yourself. In many instances, F1 international students who have applied for OPT and have received EAD cards remain idle while waiting to receive the “job offer they desire”. How F1 International Students Accrue OPT Unemployment DaysĪside from the unfortunate circumstance of getting laid off from a job, a very common reason why F1 international students accrue OPT unemployment days is because they lack the knowledge of what is considered employment under OPT. Once these OPT unemployment day limits are reached, your OPT or STEM OPT would effectively be terminated.Įxceeding 90 days of unemployment during the initial OPT or 150 cumulative days of unemployment during STEM OPT will not only result in a violation of your immigration status - for which you would need to depart the US immediately - but you may also be denied other US visa applications in the future. These limits also apply to the duration of time an F1 student participates in OPT using the Cap Gap Extension.Īs an F1 student engaged in optional practical training, you are required to report your days of unemployment to the US Department of Homeland Security's SEVP program. In the case of STEM OPT extension, you must not accrue more than 150 cumulative calendar days of unemployment during the total 36 month period of OPT and STEM OPT. As an F-1 student with a valid post-completion OPT work authorization, beginning from the start date shown on your OPT Employment Authorization Document (EAD) card, you cannot accrue more than 90 cumulative calendar days of unemployment during your 12 months of OPT.