Hi Lassie
I had to cancel 7 AMAZING sits a I had back to back in CA and FL. I didn´t want to take the risk of being deported, banned from entering the US, visa revoked, etc.. Is there any visa that would allow foreigners to do informal pet sitting on platforms like THS?
thanks!
Camila:)
@Camidever According to all the input I’ve read on this forum about housesitting in the US there seems to be no visa category that covers housesitting. Therefore it is regarded as illegal ‘work’ and you risk deportation /incarceration /denial of future entry unless you outright lie. If you are not comfortable to lie (if/when needed) it is not worth the risk & stress of the potential fall out.
I’m sorry you’ve had to concel a bunch of sits but its probably for the best if its making you too nervous.
My hubby and I are pretty adventurous and carefree travellers and have a high risk threshold. We’ve taken a lot of risks over the years, (especially during the Covid years!), to protect our travel freedom. However we, like many others, have decided not to subject ourselves to the terror of US border control especially duting the current administration.
Housesitting is, in theory, illegal in much of the world but in most countries it usually poses no great risk to freedom. We are therefore happy to housesit anywhere in the world…except the US. Nevertheless we still never volunteer the info that we are housesitting. We are TOURISTS wherever we go and that is how we truly feel! 
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Unfortunately there is no visa for house/pet sitting.
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Thank You very much for your thorough response. I found out that in countries such as Canadá, The UK, Australia, and New Zealand, pet sitting is also considered “Employment”. I will only apply to sit in countries where it’s allowed, as I don’t think it’s worth risking the entry and having legal consequences. Safe travels and have a fun summer!!
It’s allowed anywhere where you have a right to work and not allowed in any other country . So it will differ for sitters depending on the passport that they have .
If you have a U.K. passport / residency you can legally work and therefore also house sit or pet sit in U.K. .
If you are a resident of a Schengen country you can legally work and house sit in any Schengen country .
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It’s not even whether it’s considered employment. Most countries don’t allow paid work, unpaid work, or volunteer work on tourist visa. A lot of conversations seem to revolve around sitting being unpaid so it shouldn’t be considered work. How anyone chooses to definite sitting, it would still fall under paid, unpaid, or volunteer.
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That’s what I meant. I will only Pet sit in countries where the Visa I have Javy allows it. 
Gosh, how times have changed. I once did a 15-week volunteer internship at a U.S. marine mammal research lab. They did not seem to have any clue what I (Canadian) should do about visas, or whether I needed something other than “tourist”, despite the fact that some of their volunteers came from a program that might expect to have other international participants. I didn’t want to get into trouble or refused entry, so I even tried phoning direct to an immigration office in that state. Several times. Nobody ever picked up the phone. They never responded to messages left. Finally I just went. I can’t remember what I said when I got to customs. 
Admittedly, many years ago.
@ABGM: “Many years ago”, I lived in Vermont and there were weekend shoppers from Quebec coming in and Burlington hipsters going to concerts and events on the regular in Montreal. I even remember a friendly border guard insisting that I was bringing “unfinished wood” and not furniture in from Ikea as “furniture” would have meant paperwork for him and duty tax for me. I thnk those days are gone.
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They could still be friendly, if they wanted to… But it seems many are taking cues from elsewhere about throwing their weight around. And on both sides. An acquaintance recently told me an opposite sort of story from yours – they were returning to Canada with two bicycles and there was some debate between a couple of border agents because one wanted to call them “exercise equipment“ so that tariffs could be charged on them.
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I spent my 60th birthday on Niagara Falls, went up in a helicopter, Spent time in Niagara on the Lake. A distant memory now but loved every minute of it.
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My dog was really into sticks. I would throw them in the lake, she went in to chase them. So I had a bunch of “good” sticks – bark off, right size – in the car. They pulled me over and took them. That was Niagara Falls, NY.
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Going which way?
I bet the dog was disappointed.
This actually doesn’t surprise me as they are pretty concerned about plant material. Because tree and plant diseases would never cross borders on their own… 
Many years ago we moved from Ontario to the east coast and drove through the states. I had my houseplants in the car, and US customs guy was very grudging about letting me in with them. If I could guarantee that my plants would stay in the car and not have any contact with other plants. (Cartoon image of little flower characters running around coughing on other plants…)
Anyway, the heck they did; it was November and I sure wasn’t leaving them in the car overnight. They got carted in and out of motel rooms.
In 1999 when I was living in Vermont, I drove over to Sherbrooke to adopt a kitten. No problem getting him across the border either!
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Surprised they let you through with live plants and soil. That is a real no no. Anyway in LA now. Apparently big protest scheduled for tomorrow. National guard and soldiers in the vicinity. But i am in a nice home with pool, hot tub and sauna.
Rich experiences crossing borders. Coming from Canada to U S after 9/11 tightened crossing. Pulled up to US booth in my old pickup. Big young man asked turn off you engine and give me your keys and passport. I turned the engine off and pulled out the screw driver that i used to start the engine and handed him the passport and screwdriver. He looks at it and I tell him that I could give him a key but the screwdriver starts this truck. He looks a me hands back the passport and screwdriver without opening the passport and tells me to go. “You’re no threat” as I leave.
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I just got back from a cocktail hour where I had a fascinating chat with a retired immigration enforcement officer. He said one major reason they deport foreigners coming to do house, pet, or childcare is actually to protect them — something I’d never considered.
He explained that promises of free housing are a classic human trafficking trick. Once the person arrives, the homeowners exploit them more and more, often taking their passport or phone, and threatening arrest if they go to the police (since they entered illegally). The person, isolated in a foreign country, becomes trapped.
When I asked about the “taking jobs” or “not paying taxes” argument, he said that wasn’t his group’s focus — they mainly wanted to stop people from falling victim to trafficking, and the safest option was to send them home. I was - blown away. I had never thought of that.
Now keep in mind, this was a cocktail party and the guy was a bit inebriated. So I wonder what @Lassie might think? She seems to be the best informed of all of us on this issue and I’d love to hear her perspective.
I can see this is as being an issue for some channels of communication, but not for THS. I would think traffickers would put ads in emerging countries, saying free housing, jobs etc, just get yourself to …but INS would be trained to block entry to anyone with that kind of offer.
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Oh I agree completely! I’m quite confident in the postings on THS. It just helped me understand why border guards might be taking this line. Until last night I admit I thought they were being mean, nasty people enforcing administrative nonsense when all we want to do is have a nice holiday with some fluffy pets.
But his perspective was, “We have limited resources, that type of situation is associated with trafficking, we want to protect vulnerable individuals, so we send them home, especially since it is actually illegal entry”. It gave me a new perspective on the whole thing and a little bit of compassion for the border guard side of the equation.
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Human trafficking is typically done in large numbers — the victims are smuggled in groups, rather than done one by one, which is highly inefficient. Traffickers wouldn’t make enough money smuggling one at a time, trying to play the long game by tricking them with housing and eventually taking advantage of them.
There are s*x traffickers who offer people fake jobs, with promises of good pay, but that’s not limited to foreigners — the traffickers lure them in from other parts of a country, too.
It’s also common for pimps to find runaways and trick them into prostitution. But runaways are easily found on streets and by bus depots, not crossing borders on say a flight.
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