Some Amazon workers in India stuck in the H-1B visa standoff are getting rare flexibility from the company. Breaking its five-day office order, Amazon is now reportedly allowing affected employees to work remotely until March 2, 2026, provided they were in India by December 13, 2025, and are still awaiting US visa appointments.

Affected employees were informed about the policy update through an internal memo shared on Amazon’s HR portal, as reviewed and reported by Business Insider. The decision to give some relaxations to employees comes at a time when delays in H-1B processing are disrupting the plans of thousands of foreign workers employed by US tech companies.

Many Amazon employees had traveled to India for personal reasons, only to find that visa appointment slots were either unavailable or moved too far in the future. With no clear timeline for return, the company has opted to offer limited work-from-home arrangements rather than placing affected employees on extended leave. As a general policy, Amazon does not allow overseas remote work for more than 20 business days.

But there is a catch.

While Amazon has reportedly decided to grant this relaxation, the flexibility comes with strict conditions. According to the memorandum, employees working remotely from India face several restrictions on the type of work they can do while working from home. This includes a ban on engaging in coding, software testing or development-related work. These employees are also not allowed to deploy code, provide quality assurance, or perform other technical activities that are a core part of many engineering roles.

Furthermore, they are not allowed to work in or even visit any Amazon offices in India. They are barred from signing or negotiating contracts, managing teams or making strategic decisions related to Amazon’s Indian operations. The memo reportedly makes it clear that “all reviews, final decision making and sign-off must be conducted outside India,” citing compliance with both US and Indian legal requirements.

Amazon has emphasized that there are no exceptions to these rules. Employees have been advised to consult closely with their managers and HR teams to ensure that their day-to-day operations remain within the permitted limits. The company also warned that failure to comply could result in legal or policy violations.

Meanwhile, Amazon isn’t the only tech giant grappling with the consequences of prolonged H-1B delays. Companies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft have reportedly cautioned visa-holding employees against international travel, warning that they could be stranded abroad for months or years due to consular backlogs.

However, this impact is particularly significant for Amazon, one of the largest corporate users of the H-1B program. In the 2024 US fiscal year, the company filed 14,783 certified H-1B applications, showing how dependent its workforce is on foreign talent. For now, the temporary work policy from India applies only until the beginning of March, providing short-term relief but little clarity for workers facing even greater visa delays.