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I know people who have done this and different people have a different appetite for risk. But what you are thinking of doing is illegal from the USCIS perspecti
by jayzee 16y ago
I know people who have done this and different people have a different appetite for risk. But what you are thinking of doing is illegal from the USCIS perspective.
On an F-1 Visa you can only work for upto 20 hours only on University related jobs (library etc). Not on your start-up.
An option would be that you can apply for an OPT, get am American/resident co-founder, set up the company and then work on your OPT.
The USCIS considers something as 'work' even if you do not get paid for it as long as the company would have hired and would have paid somebody else to do it. So one way to get around this is to have an American/resident co-founder who can be doing all the 'work' and you can share profits in the concern.
Hire lawyers. Most people find that it is not worth messing up stuff with USCIS.
- fredliu 16y agoThanks for your advice. We've heard similar stories before (about how to find an US resident as a co-founder to do all the "work"). Working on our OPT may not be an option for now though, as we are not near to graduation... But what if we don't found a company at all, just receiving app/ads income from our app to your personal accounts? any F1 students got problems with that before?
- jayzee 16y agoThe question is not if people got in problem for that, the question is, is it illegal. And no, as far as I know, it is not legal. Still I know people who do it and it really depends on if you want to stay in the country and try to become a resident etc. If you do, it could be too risky. How about starting a company back in your home-country?
- fredliu 16y agoYa, starting up a company in our home-country is another option we are thinking, but we are targeting the US market, not sure how complicated the international business thing could get...