Eligibility criteria – Host company

In accordance with the Department of State and/or CIEE regulations, your employer must provide us with:

Employer ID/ TAX ID number

The organization’s federal Tax ID number.

Workers' Compensation

This mandatory minimal insurance covers you for accidents within your workplace. We are not allowed to accept employers who do not carry this insurance except in states where it is not a legal requirement.

If your host organization is exempt from providing Workers’ Compensation by their state’s laws, they need to provide proof of that exemption.

Quota

there must be at least one full-time (FT) employee or one supervisor on site for your employer to be eligible to host. Host companies must respect the quota of 5 FT employees per J-1 Intern/Trainee. Example:

  • Host company with 1 to 9 FT employees = maximum 1 J-1 Intern/Trainee
  • Host company with 10 FT employees = maximum 2 J-1 Interns or Trainees

For further details, please consult CIEE’s website: Host Organization Requirements

Site visit

A site visit will be necessary for companies which have not hosted a J-1 visa participant through CIEE  within the past 3 years if they

  • have fewer than 25 full-time employees (all U.S. subsidiaries included);

OR

  • generate an annual turnover inferior to 3 million U.S. Dollars (all U.S. subsidiaries included).

Host Organizations that are academic institutions or federal, state, or local government offices are not subject to the site visit requirement.

Should your host organization require a site visit, rest assured that the process is easy and will only take 10-15 minutes of your employer’s time.

There are no additional costs for this service but you need to add 2 business days to your DS-2019 processing timeframe.

A change of employer is not authorized except under exceptional circumstances (company lay-offs, breach of the training plan agreement on the part of the employer…) and only with prior approval from CIEE.

You are only authorized to work for one employer at a time: your host company. It is illegal to work for another company or have another job on the side.