Amazon allows visa workers stranded in India to work remotely — but there's a catch

This is the reality for hundreds of Amazon employees currently stranded in India. Caught in a bureaucratic purgatory between US immigration backlogs and corporate tax compliance, these workers have been handed a lifeline that feels more like a leash.

Yes, they can keep their jobs while stuck 8,000 miles from their Seattle or Arlington desks. Yes, they can remain on the US payroll.

But there is a catch, and it is devastatingly specific.

According to internal memos reviewed by Business Insider and the Times of India, these employees are explicitly forbidden from performing the core functions of their existence. No coding.

No software testing. No strategic decision-making. No customer interaction.

They are, effectively, high-paid spectators.

This situation exposes a fracture in the global talent pipeline that has fueled Silicon Valley for two decades. As visa delays mount and borders thicken, the concept of "borderless work" is colliding with the hard walls of international tax law.

The Visa Black Hole

To understand why a trillion-dollar company is paying engineers to sit on their hands, you have to look at the US consulates in India.

As of January 2026, the wait times for visa appointments have spiraled. While the US Department of State has attempted to streamline processing, a new wave of "social media vetting" and administrative bottlenecks has pushed appointment availability for H-1B and L-1 stamping months, sometimes years, into the future.

For an Indian national on an H-1B visa, leaving the US to visit family is a gamble. To return, they need a fresh stamp in their passport. If the consulate cancels their appointment—as happened en masse in December 2025—they are trapped.

In previous years, Amazon might have forced these employees onto unpaid leave or, in worst-case scenarios, terminated them. This time, they offered a concession: You can work from India until March 2, 2026.

But this benevolence is wrapped in red tape.

The Compliance Straitjacket

Why ban coding? The answer lies in the terrifying complexity of Permanent Establishment (PE) risk.

International tax law works on a principle of physical presence. If an Amazon US employee sits in Bangalore and writes code that generates Intellectual Property (IP) for the US entity, the Indian tax authorities can argue that Amazon US has a "permanent establishment" in India.

This triggers a cascade of financial nightmares:

• Corporate Tax: India could claim a right to tax a portion of Amazon’s US profits.
• Labor Law: The employee might legally become an Indian employee, subject to local labor laws, benefits, and—crucially—termination rules.

To bypass this, Amazon’s legal team engineered a policy of "passive presence."

By forbidding coding, testing, and strategic decisions, Amazon is arguing that these employees are not creating value in India.

They are merely checking emails and "learning." It is a legal fiction designed to keep the Indian taxman at bay while keeping the employee on the hook.

The "Localization" Threat

The immediate restriction is "no code." The long-term threat is "localization."

The current policy expires on March 2, 2026. If the visa backlog persists beyond that date—which, given the current backlog data, is highly probable—Amazon’s generosity will likely run out.

At that point, employees face the "Localization Trap." This involves officially transferring from the US entity to the Indian subsidiary. The financial violence of this move cannot be overstated:

• Salary Collapse: A $160,000 Seattle salary ($13,300/month) creates a global purchasing power that a ₹3,500,000 INR ($41,000/year) Bangalore salary cannot match.
• Debt Crisis: Many of these workers hold US-denominated debt (mortgages, student loans). Paying a dollar debt with a rupee salary is mathematical suicide.
• Green Card Reset: Moving to the Indian entity often pauses or resets the agonizingly long clock for a US Green Card.

The Devil’s Advocate: Amazon’s Rational Hoarding

While it is easy to paint Amazon as the villain putting handcuffs on its workers, a contrarian view suggests this is a rational, defensive strategy in a talent-starved market.

Amazon is hoarding inventory.

In the AI era, a senior engineer with institutional knowledge of AWS architecture is an asset worth millions. If Amazon puts these workers on unpaid leave, they will immediately be poached by Google or local unicorns like Flipkart, who are hungry for US-trained talent.

By paying them full US wages to do nothing for three months, Amazon is paying a "retention premium." They are buying loyalty and preventing IP leakage to competitors. It is not charity; it is inventory management.

The cost of paying an engineer $40,000 to sit idle for three months is significantly lower than the cost of recruiting and training their replacement.

The End of the Digital Nomad Myth

This episode serves as a brutal wake-up call for the "work from anywhere" movement.

For years, tech workers believed that remote work meant they could decouple their location from their income.

The Amazon case proves that borders still matter. Corporations are happy to let you work from a beach in Bali, until the moment your presence triggers a tax liability.

The future isn't a frictionless global labor market. It is a fragmented map where your ability to earn is strictly tethered to your visa status.

For the Amazon engineers staring at their laptops in Bangalore, unable to type the code they have mastered, the message is clear: You are not paid for your skill. You are paid for your location. And right now, you are in the wrong place.