Hi All,I have been working in two voluntary positions in OPT status from 07-June-2012 until now. I do not have payslips for these months. I do have company emails to support the work experience from one company and have a Letter of Employment from the other company. Legally it is sufficient for mainiting F1OPT status.I am planning on applying for a change of Status to H4. I would like to know if I will have issues while processing H4 without payslips.Any assistance in this regards would be highly helpful to me.Thank you for your assistance.
You can work as volunteer to maintain OPT status only if:
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no labor laws are broken i.e. you don’t do work for which employer would have to pay someone else.
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you work at least 20 hours a week
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the work is related to your course
USCIS may issue RFE for the payslips. If you show volunteer work, then you will have to also show how this volunteer work doesn’t break any labor laws. Typically this is proved by showing other non-student workers doing similar work for free for the company legally. In other words, volunteering at Red Cross is ok as there are other legal volunteers, but volunteering at a consulting company is not ok as all other employees are paid for similar jobs.
Hi Saurabh … Thank you very much for the detailed response. This is very helpful.
Hi Saurabh … I guess I used the word Voluntary instead of unpaid employment. I value your opinion and appreciate you taking the time to respond to my post. I wanted to inform you that I checked with my school and here is a gist from Cornells website as well … They do not mention about other employees not being in the payroll …
“http://www.isso.cornell.edu/immigration/f1/OPTfaq.pdf”
"Does the job I have while on OPT have to be paid employment, or can it be unpaid?
“The employment does NOT have to be paid employment. Therefore, a student who is self-employed (including
performance majors with regular “gigs”), interning or volunteering in a position directly related to the academic field
would be considered “employed” for the purposes of OPT employment. If you are “self-employed,” keep careful records
of all the work you do—it is supposed to be at least 20 hours per week.”
Just wanted to double check with you to see if I am missing anything and if I am still in trouble 
Also, I was working for a firm as a trainee to employee position upon meeting sales target. But I had to quit before getting on the payroll. I have no pay stubs but emails to support it. Would that help??
Like any employment, the unpaid/volunteer employment cannot break any labor laws. This translates into working unpaid for a job for which others are getting paid. This way, an employer can hire people on OPT for unpaid work and save money and break labor laws.
It will be better to talk to attorney before filing your COS, so that your unpaid/volunteer work can be represented correctly.
Here is a link from Yale:
http://www.yale.edu/oiss/immigration/employment/offcampus/opt/employment.html
Unpaid employment : Students may work as volunteers or unpaid interns, where this practice does not violate any labor laws.
Hey in the same situation did you get your rfe or cos was completed.please reply it would be great help.
Thanks