Amazon has temporarily permitted its H-1B employees stranded in India to work remotely until March 2, 2026, as thousands face prolonged visa processing delays. The rare exception to CEO Andy Jassy’s strict five-day office mandate comes with heavy restrictions: affected staff cannot write code, make strategic decisions, interact with customers, or access Amazon facilities. The policy, detailed in a December 17 internal memo, applies to employees awaiting rescheduled visa appointments who were in India as of December 13.
The disruption stems from major backlogs created after new U.S. visa screening rules took effect on December 15, 2025. Under the changes, consular officers must review applicants’ social media profiles before visa approval, a measure that drastically reduced daily processing capacity. Thousands of appointments were pushed to spring 2026 or later, with some extending as far as October. Immigration attorneys describe the backlog as unprecedented in scale.
Amazon, which filed 14,783 certified H-1B applications in fiscal 2024, faces operational challenges as technical staff in India are unable to perform core engineering tasks. Other technology giants including Google, Apple, and Microsoft have urged foreign employees to avoid international travel until visa operations stabilize. The situation underscores how policy shifts and consular capacity constraints are disrupting global workforce mobility across the U.S. technology sector.
