I have been asked whether income from google adsense, which is earned in connection with a non-commercial blog, constitutes unauthorized employment. This is a great question that will continue to arise as more and more foreign students and professionals engage in blogging and as more and more of these blogs start making money.
So here’s what I think. One is not prohibited from engaging in one’s hobbies or, in the case of a student on F-1 visa, extracurricular activities. So whether blogging that earns money is a violation of status is really a matter of degree. If such activity is incidental to one’s status, such as a student on F-1 visa blogging about a topic of interest or a professional on H1B visa blogging in his spare time, such an activity would not rise to the level of a status violation. Complexity arises when these hobbies start producing financial gains or when they replace the primary purpose of one’s given nonimmigrant classification. Thus, if the blog earns some money from adsense, but the time devoted to the blog is not competing with one’s status and the amounts earned from adsense don’t make it a significant source of one’s income, I don’t think having adsense on one’s blog would be a status violation.
Think of it as a yard sale of sorts. It’s not a status violation to sell your old books and furniture. Not once, not twice, not ever. However, if you start buying other people’s stuff and reselling it full-time or if you start having regular yard sales in multiple locations, that would be a different story. Then the activity would cease to be incidental to one’s status and would conflict with the scope of permissible activities. In short, that would be a status violation.
Another argument for adsense income not being the same as unauthorized employment is that adsense income is passive. It is not “earned” in a conventional way, in exchange for one’s time or one’s service. And it’s not consistent as the amounts fluctuate depending on the blog’s traffic. This is another argument why such income is not the same as income from employment. It’s the activity behind the income that’s important. So if the activity is not intended to compete with one’s status or violate its restrictions, any income from such activity should be permissible. This is kind of like trading stocks online. Surely, trading stocks would qualify as employment. Of course, it’s not specifically authorized by US CIS. But it’s hardly a status violation unless you are trading full-time, quit your school or your job, and start investing for other people or giving investment advice. Otherwise, simply earning money in an interest bearing account and moving it between accounts could be construed as a status violation, which would be absurd.
If earning money from your blog by working on it part-time or full-time is your goal, or if your income and degree of involvement have started to compete with your nonimmigrant status, I would suggest obtaining a specific approval from USCIS for that specific activity. Here, the degree of your intended participation and your intended goals and time commitment clearly cross the line between a hobby and gainful employment. Obtaining nonimmigrant benefits through one’s blog is not only cool, but it also is actually possible. Depending on your facts, your budget, your risk tolerance, and your commitment to the venture, this could be an H1B petition, an E-1/E-2 petition, or even an L-1 petition.