Read memo Amazon sent to employees stuck in India due to H-1B visa delay
Amazon has granted a rare remote work exception to employees stuck in India due to H-1B visa delays, but the arrangement comes with severe limitations that leave many tech workers struggling to perform their actual jobs. The company’s December 17 memo, as reported by Business Insider, allows affected employees to work from India until March 2, 2026—yet explicitly bans them from coding, testing, strategic decisions, customer interactions, and even entering Amazon buildings.The policy responds to massive visa processing backlogs caused by the Trump administration’s new social media screening requirements, which have pushed some appointments into 2027. Amazon joins Google, Apple, and Microsoft in scrambling to manage fallout from the delays, though Amazon’s solution remains highly restrictive despite being the program’s largest user with nearly 15,000 certified H-1B applications filed in fiscal 2024.For technical roles, the restrictions raise serious questions about productivity. “Seventy to eighty percent of my job is coding, testing, deploying, and documenting,” one Amazon software engineer told Business Insider. The memo states all coding work—including troubleshooting and documentation—must cease, and employees cannot negotiate contracts, make strategic decisions, or interact with Indian-based teams. All “final decision making and sign offs” must happen outside India, per local compliance requirements.
Read Amazon’s full memo to Indian employees below:
H-1B/H-4 Visa Appointment Postponement Issue – December 17, 2025
Temporary Remote Work Authorization
Effective immediately, impacted employees who were in India as of December 13, 2025, and are awaiting their rescheduled visa appointment may work remotely until March 2, 2026. You must follow all current limitations on remote work activities, including restrictions against coding. See the FAQs below for details.We continue to monitor developments closely and will provide further updates as more information becomes available. In the meantime, if you need additional support please reach out by asking Aza or contacting MyHR Live Support to be connected to an HR expert. You and your household also have 24/7 access to a wide range of support and resources through Resources for Living.
Employee Guidance
The remote work grace period is subject to the same activity restrictions (listed below) as all current remote work guidance in India. In compliance with local laws, there are no exceptions to these restrictions. If you have questions, please work with your manager and HRBP to determine what activities you can engage in while abroad, based on these guidelines:
- Do not code. This includes troubleshooting, testing, or documentation.
- Do not work from or visit an Amazon building or site. All work must be remote from a residential address or other non-Amazon location.
- Do not give the impression of authority to bind any Amazon entity or appoint an agent authorized to bind any Amazon entity to any contract or agreement.
- Do not undertake any strategic business decisions, business planning, product management/development, and/or business development type activities.
- Do not negotiate any contracts, sign/execute or otherwise conclude any contracts, or secure any orders, either in the approval tools and/or DocuSign (or via any other method).
- Do not render any services to any customer (resident or otherwise) or to any Amazon entity in the country where the employee is remotely working, or otherwise perform any activity that directly benefits an Amazon entity in the country where remote working is taking place.
- Do not perform any activity relating to directing, controlling, or supervising or facilitating the day-to-day operations of any Amazon local entity or employee of an Amazon local team in the country where the employee is working remotely.
- Do not make hiring decisions for any Amazon entities in India.
- Do not perform any activity related to managing any customer/partner/vendor relationship, such as discussing specific contract terms, pricing negotiations, placing orders, accepting orders, or soliciting sales.
- All employment-related matters should continue to be decided by the respective legal employing entity, i.e. the Amazon U.S. entity.
- All reviews, final decision making, and sign offs should be undertaken outside India.
- AWS employees are expected to adhere to the AWS Operating Guidance whilst working remotely, the same way they would follow the guidance during normal times.
