Remote jobs with visa sponsorship: what postings say
Remote does not mean visa friendly. Of 15,860 remote US postings, 0.2% state that the employer sponsors visas, 6.7% rule it out, and 3.1% add that you must live in or be authorized to work in a specific place. Among employers with ten or more remote postings, only two state sponsorship in any of them.
By OfferMagnet · · 3 min read
The short answer
- of remote postings state the employer sponsors (38 of 15,860)
- 0.2%
- of remote postings restrict sponsorship or require a citizenship or clearance
- 6.7%
- remote postings say you must be located in, or authorized to work in, a specific place
- 484
Remote postings are slightly less restrictive than on-site ones (6.7% against 9.5%) but also state sponsorship less often (0.2% against 0.6%). That is a quiet market, not an open one. A company hiring remotely inside the US still needs you to be authorized to work in the US, which is the same legal question as an on-site role.
If you are looking for a job you can do from abroad, that is a different search: postings that allow it tend to say so in the text, often with contractor or employer-of-record wording.
Remote against on-site
We counted a posting as remote if the crawler flagged it remote or the word appears in the title or location. A stricter reading, with the word in the title or location only, gives 10,520 postings and a similar result.
| Group | Postings | Sponsors | Relocation only | Restriction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Remote (flag, title or location) | 15,860 | 0.2% | 4.0% | 6.7% |
| Remote (title or location only) | 10,520 | 0.1% | 1.7% | 8.8% |
| Not remote | 53,873 | 0.6% | 3.1% | 9.5% |
The relocation share is 4.0% under the broad definition and 1.7% under the narrow one, so it depends on how remote is defined.
By role family
| Role family | Postings | Sponsors | Relocation only | Restriction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software and other engineering | 5,060 | 0.4% | 4.1% | 8.5% |
| ML, AI and data science | 1,795 | 0.2% | 5.7% | 6.4% |
| Product and design | 859 | 0.0% | 4.7% | 3.7% |
| Finance, legal and people | 749 | 0.1% | 5.9% | 3.5% |
| Sales and marketing | 2,499 | 0.0% | 1.8% | 5.0% |
| Everything else | 4,898 | 0.3% | 4.1% | 6.7% |
Engineering remote roles restrict most often (8.5%). Product, design, finance, legal and people roles restrict least, at 3.5% to 3.7%, but none of those families has a single sponsorship statement worth counting. The gap is in what is ruled out, not in what is offered.
Who states it on remote roles
Among employers with at least 10 remote postings in the window, two state sponsorship in any of them:
| Employer | Remote postings | State sponsorship | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thinking Machines | 40 | 23 | 58% |
| Anthropic | 74 | 5 | 7% |
That is the entire list. If your search is remote and you need a visa, the number of employers who say yes up front is in the single digits. The broader list of employers that state sponsorship on any role is in companies that sponsor H-1B.
What we counted
OfferMagnet reads postings from company careers pages on Greenhouse, Workday and Ashby. We kept US postings first seen between 19 September and 17 October 2026 and set aside the three largest employers, leaving 69,733 postings. Labels follow the same rules as our visa sponsorship study: restriction first, then sponsorship statements, then relocation-only.
"Must be located" counts postings whose text says the candidate must be located or reside in a place, be based in the US, or be authorized to work in the US. We read the first 4,000 characters, so the count is a floor.
What to do with this
- Do not use "remote" as a visa filter. It does not change what employers write.
- Read the location line first. "Remote, US" and "remote, must be authorized to work in the US" are the same condition in different words.
- Look at non-engineering roles if you are flexible. Remote product, finance and people roles restrict least in this data.
- If you want to work from abroad for a US company, look for postings that say contractor or employer of record, and ask which entity employs you.
FAQ
›Do remote jobs sponsor H-1B visas?
Some do, but remote does not change the odds. In this data 0.2% of remote postings state that the employer sponsors, against 0.6% of on-site postings.
›Can I get a US remote job from another country?
Sometimes, but not usually as a direct employee. Postings that allow it tend to say so, often with contractor or employer-of-record wording. Read the location and eligibility lines and ask which entity pays you.
›Which remote roles are least restrictive?
Product, design, finance, legal and people roles, at 3.5% to 3.7% restriction. Software and other engineering restricts most, at 8.5%.
›How many remote postings say you must be located in the US?
484 of the 15,860, about 3%, say you must be located in or authorized to work in a specific place. The true share is higher, since we read only the start of each posting.
Method and sources
- Source: OfferMagnet's own index of public job postings from Greenhouse, Workday and Ashby. 69,733 US postings from 1,403 employers after setting aside the three with the most postings.
- Remote = the crawler's remote flag, or the word "remote" in the title or location (15,860); the narrow version uses the title or location only (10,520).
- Restrictions use fixed phrase matching on the full text. Sponsorship statements are matched on the first 4,000 characters with negations excluded, so they are a floor.
- We report counts of postings, not people. No applicant or customer data is used.