OPT Employment - Volunteering

If you are interested in volunteering OR working as an unpaid employee, you must be aware of the difference, so that you do not violate F-1 or J-1 regulations regarding unauthorized employment, and  so you do not violate U.S. labor laws.

Remember that any off-campus employment for F-1 or J-1 students must be authorized prior to starting the employment. Without proper work authorization, off-campus employment would be considered a violation of your F-1 or J-1 requirements. The consequences would most likely include loss of legal immigration status in the U.S., possible deportation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and great difficulty in any future attempts to acquire a visa to enter the U.S.

Unpaid Employment or Volunteering?

What is the difference between an employee and a volunteer? A common misconception is that the only difference is employees are paid, and volunteers are not. However, simply being an unpaid worker does not necessarily mean that you are a true volunteer.

F-1 regulations allow students in their first year of post-completion OPT to volunteer. 

What is a volunteer? According to the Department of Labor, a volunteer is an “individual who performs service… for civic, charitable, or humanitarian reasons, without promise, expectation or receipt of compensation for services rendered.” In addition, a volunteer cannot displace a genuine employee. This means that you cannot “work for free” in a position that normally would be paid.

Again, volunteer services are those performed for public service, religious or humanitarian objective. Examples of volunteer work are visiting sick people in the hospital, serving lunch at a homeless shelter, walking dogs at the animal shelter, organizing a youth group trip for a church, building a house for Habitat for Humanity, etc.

F-1 and J-1 students are permitted to volunteer without work authorization; however, students must always check with the Office of Global Initiatives before they begin any volunteer work, to be sure that it meets the definition of “volunteering.” For F-1 students on OPT, true volunteer work can count toward their weekly hourly requirement, as long as it is related to their major. The OGI office is not able to approve/disprove employment for OPT students.

Most other work is considered employment and must be for pay. The only exception is made for official training programs where the employer has an established student intern program. In this situation, the trainee/intern must not take the place of a paid employee. Per US labor law and NJIT policy, all employment at NJIT, for an academic department, an administrative office, or a professor, must be paid.  

The U.S. Department of Labor is concerned both with the protection of jobs for United States citizens and with the prevention of exploitation of workers. They have created laws to ensure that employment that should be paid is not done for free. While both you and the employer may be happy with an unpaid arrangement (for example, you may be eager to work even on an unpaid basis in a company in order to gain job experience), this may be considered an unfair arrangement in cases where the work is normally performed by a paid person and both the company and the employee are benefiting from the employment.