Work and Travel USA by Country: Season Dates, Job Rules and Entry Limits

Two students with the same plan can face different rules because of where their passport comes from. One must be pre-placed in a job before entry, while a student from a visa waiver country may arrive without one, and their seasons can sit months apart: the chart shows Vietnam at 2 months and Bulgaria at 5. This page puts ten countries side by side so you can see which rules are shared and which belong to your country, then sends you to the apply hub for the steps in order.

The short version

1. Look up your country’s 2026 window in the table below, then check it with your sponsor.
2. Plan for four months at most, whatever the window shows.
3. Line up a job before you enter, unless your country is in the Visa Waiver Program.
4. Check that your country is not on the entry-restriction list in force since January 1, 2026.
5. Book your visa interview in the country where you live.

Ten countries side by side

The windows come from the IENA 2026 chart, updated 01/28/2026. It is a sponsor group’s own chart, not a government chart, so treat each window as the sponsors’ published range. The job rule comes from the State Department: participants must be pre-placed in a job before entry unless they are from a visa waiver country. None of the ten countries below is flagged as a visa waiver country in the chart, and none appears in the table of designated countries on the DHS page. The entry column records whether Proclamation 10998 names the country, and it does not name any of these ten.

Whatever your row says, confirm the exact dates with your sponsor before you book flights. Countries missing from this table are not necessarily missing from the chart, and the program dates page lists every country on it.

What a window does and does not give you

A window is the outer edge of your season, not a promise of that many months. On the chart, a participant may stay a maximum of four months or the length of the academic break, whichever is shorter, and the rule behind it is the four-month limit in 22 CFR 62.32, which also says extensions are not permitted. So the Philippines and Bulgaria show 5 months on the chart, but you still stay four at most.

Where your window crosses the new year, expect a different calendar from the summer most guides describe. Peru runs from 1-Dec to 31-Mar, which suits a student whose break falls in the southern summer. Vietnam is the shortest of the ten at 2 months, from 15-Jun to 15-Aug, so there is little room to change jobs.

You also have to be home before your own classes restart: students must return to their home country before the start date of their university or college. Ask your sponsor to confirm your program dates for the window that fits your break before you pay anything.

Job before entry, and the Visa Waiver Program

Participants must be pre-placed in a job prior to entry unless they are from a visa waiver country, a rule that sits on the Summer Work Travel program page. Sponsors of non-waiver participants must provide pre-arranged and fully vetted employment. That is why the table shows “Yes” for all ten countries, and why a recruiter promising you can “find something when you arrive” is offering a route that belongs to other nationalities.

Visa waiver participants who arrive without a job need enough money to support themselves while they search. If you are one of them, your sponsor must still try to find you work when you have no job after one week. Do not confuse this with the Visa Waiver Program itself, because exchange visitors cannot travel on the Visa Waiver Program or with visitor visas.

For the list of waiver countries, including how a country can be on it and what changes for you, read the visa waiver countries page. Whether a country counts as one can change, so DHS lists the currently designated countries on its own page.

Entry limits: the proclamation effective January 1, 2026

Proclamation 10998 is the presidential order, titled “Restricting and Limiting the Entry of Foreign Nationals To Protect the Security of the United States,” that took effect at 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on January 1, 2026. It has two kinds of lists. Section 4 fully suspends entry for nationals of the listed countries, and section 5 suspends it for specific classes, including B-1, B-2, F, M and J visas, as it does for Angola.

For your countries the answer is simple: Turkey, Thailand, the Philippines, Peru, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Bulgaria and Ukraine are not in the text. One mix-up is worth knowing about. The proclamation names Dominica, whose nationals are suspended on B-1, B-2, F, M and J visas, and that is a different country from the Dominican Republic. If your passport says Dominican Republic, you are not the one the text lists.

Three details help if your country is on the list, or if a friend’s is. The limits apply only to nationals who are outside the United States and have no valid visa on the effective date. A visa issued before that date is not revoked under the proclamation. And the Secretary of State may make case-by-case exceptions where travel would serve a U.S. national interest. Turkmenistan shows that lists change: its suspension on J visas was lifted by the same text.

What your embassy adds

The U.S. Embassy in Thailand shows how a post can narrow the dates for its own students. For 2025 it set two timeframes for Summer Work Travel, depending on the student’s academic break, and students had to take the one that matches their university’s break. That fits the two Thai rows on the IENA chart. Thai students also interview with a consular officer in Bangkok or Chiang Mai, and the embassy warned that participants who return late will have difficulty qualifying for U.S. visas in the future.

Other posts publish their own notes, so read the visa section of the U.S. embassy in your country before you book anything. What you can count on everywhere is the interview. A consular officer will interview you to decide whether you qualify for an exchange visitor visa, and since October 1, 2025, all nonimmigrant visa applicants generally need an in-person interview. Officers may still require an interview case by case.

Plan to apply where you live. Applicants should schedule at the U.S. Embassy or Consulate in their country of nationality or residence, they must be able to demonstrate residence there, and those who apply elsewhere should expect to wait significantly longer. The visa interview page covers the day itself.

Country notes

Jamaica is the clearest sign that next year’s places go early: one sponsor’s program for Jamaican citizens has already reached capacity for Summer 2027, and it takes applications first come, first served. That is one sponsor’s own page and carries no date, so it says nothing about other sponsors.

Turkey, the Dominican Republic and Kazakhstan sit in the middle on the chart, at 4.5, 3.5 and 3 months. Their windows open between 8-May and 15-May, so the plan is the same: be pre-placed, then confirm your program dates with your sponsor. Sponsors screen everyone against the same eligibility rules.

Fees that apply wherever you live

A visa integrity fee is set by law for anyone issued a nonimmigrant visa. The law sets it at the greater of $250 or an amount DHS establishes by rule, payable at issuance on top of other fees, and says it may not be waived or reduced. Check your embassy’s fee page for whether it is being collected yet. It does not change by country, so budget for it the same way in Lima, Manila or Istanbul.