Looking for Work in the US or Canada from Kenya

This is general orientation, not legal or immigration advice. Rules, fees and quotas change often. Each path below links to the government office that runs it, and that page is the one to trust over anything you read here or hear from an agent.

First, what NAKA is and isn't

We get a lot of emails from Kenya asking us to help find a job in the US, or to sponsor a visa. We wish we could point you somewhere better than this page, but the honest answer is that NAKA is an association for Kenyans who already live in North America. We don't recruit, we don't place people in jobs, we don't sponsor visas, and we can't write letters of support or invitation. There's no membership level, paid or free, that changes that.

The Jobs board on this site is members posting roles for people already here, and nearly all of them need existing work authorisation. Joining NAKA from Kenya won't get you a job, and if you email us asking for one, this page is what we'll send back. We put it together so at least you'd get a real answer.

The paths that actually exist

Neither the US nor Canada has a general "come and work" visa. Every legal route goes through one of four doors, and in each case an employer, a university, a government or a lottery makes the decision. Not an agent, and not us.

1. An employer sponsors you

United States. The main work visa for professionals is the H-1B. Your employer files it, not you, and by law the employer pays most of the fees. Far more people apply than the yearly cap allows, so there's a lottery, once a year. The rules and costs around the H-1B have changed a few times recently, so please read the current USCIS page before taking anyone's word for how it works. Employers can also sponsor permanent residence (the employment-based "green card" categories). For that they have to show no qualified US worker was available, and it usually takes years.

Canada. An employer who wants to hire you from abroad usually needs a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) from the federal government first, showing no Canadian could fill the role. A genuine job offer is something the employer applies for. It's not something you can buy.

In both countries, a real sponsor is spending their own money and time on government paperwork for you. If you're the one being asked to pay, that's not sponsorship.

2. You qualify on your own: Canada's Express Entry

Canada runs a points system called Express Entry for skilled workers. You're scored on age, education, work experience and English or French, and the highest scores in each draw get invited to apply for permanent residence. A job offer helps but isn't required, and recent draws have targeted specific fields like healthcare, trades and STEM. This is the one path on this page you can start entirely from Kenya, on an official site, paying only the government's own fees. Get your degree assessed and sit an approved language test first, since you need both before you can enter the pool.

The US has nothing like this. If someone offers you a "US points visa" or a "US skilled worker visa", it doesn't exist.

3. You study first

For most people this is the realistic route, and also the slowest. A US F-1 or a Canadian study permit lets you work on campus while studying and for a period after graduating (Optional Practical Training in the US, the Post-Graduation Work Permit in Canada). A lot of people then move onto one of the sponsored paths above from inside the country, where employers are much more willing to hire. Costs are high, Canada has capped study permits since 2024, and you're applying to a university, not to a country. Apply to the school directly. Nobody can sell you a place.

4. The US Diversity Visa lottery

The US runs a free lottery every year, the Diversity Visa programme, for countries with low immigration to the US. Kenya is eligible. You enter online, on the State Department's own site only, during a window that usually opens in early October, and it costs nothing. Anyone charging to "submit" or "process" your entry, or emailing or WhatsApping you to say you've won, is running a scam. Results are only ever checked by you, on the same official site, with your own confirmation number.

Nurses and teachers

Most of the Kenyans who've moved to the US for work in the last few years are nurses or teachers, and they came through two specific, regulated programmes. Both are real. Here's how each one actually works.

Nurses

The US has an ongoing shortage of registered nurses and an established immigration route for them. Nursing is a "Schedule A" occupation, which means the Department of Labor has already certified the shortage, so a sponsoring employer skips the usual labour-market test. A hospital, nursing home or staffing agency files for a permanent-residence visa (the EB-3 category) on your behalf, so you arrive as a permanent resident rather than on a temporary visa. Before that petition can go anywhere you need three things, roughly in this order:

1. The NCLEX-RN, the US nursing licence exam. You apply to the board of nursing in one US state first, which reviews your Kenyan training. Once they approve you, you register with Pearson VUE and can sit the exam at an international test centre.
2. A VisaScreen certificate from TruMerit (formerly CGFNS), the body US law names for this. It covers an education assessment, confirmation that your Nursing Council of Kenya licence is valid and unrestricted, and an English test.
3. A sponsor and a visa number. The employer files the petition, then you wait for a visa to become available in the EB-3 queue. Eighteen months to two years from petition to arrival is the fast case, and the queue has been longer than that for stretches.

Most Kenyan nurses go through US staffing agencies. The agency pays for the exams, credentialing and legal costs up front, and in return you sign a multi-year contract, usually with a repayment clause if you leave early. That's a legitimate model, and it's also where people get hurt. Please read the whole contract before you sign it: the repayment clause, the pay rate compared to what local nurses earn, and who holds your documents. Have someone who's on your side look at it, not the agency.

Teachers

Nearly every Kenyan teacher now in a US classroom came on the J-1 Teacher exchange visa, which the US State Department runs. The 2024 group of around 67 teachers the Prime Cabinet Secretary saw off at the airport went to Baltimore City Public Schools this way, placed through two Kenyan-licensed agencies at the district's own request. The requirements are on the State Department's page: a bachelor's degree in education or in the subject you teach, at least two years' teaching experience, working English, and a place through a State Department-designated sponsor that screens you and matches you with a school district. The visa runs three years and the school can ask to extend it.

Two things recruiters tend to leave out. It's an exchange visa, not immigration. It doesn't lead to a green card, and many J-1 teachers have to go home for two years when it ends before they can hold most other US visas. And the list of designated sponsors is public on the State Department site, so if an agent can't tell you which sponsor they place through, they aren't placing anyone.

The Teachers Service Commission and the State Department for Diaspora Affairs are setting up Mwalimu Majuu, a government framework for placing Kenyan teachers abroad, and the US is named for English teachers. As of mid-2026 it's a policy framework in early implementation, not an application window. TSC only publishes real vacancies on tsc.go.ke and its verified social accounts, and it has warned more than once about fake overseas-recruitment adverts using its name.

Kenya's own channels

Kenya's National Employment Authority keeps the register of licensed private recruitment agencies and publishes government-to-government labour arrangements as they're signed. If an agency isn't on that register, don't deal with it. The State Department for Diaspora Affairs is the government office for Kenyans abroad and for questions about going.

How to spot a scam

The people who email us about US jobs are exactly who recruitment scammers go after, so we'd rather say this plainly. The pattern is almost always the same:

• You're asked to pay something: a "visa processing fee", a "placement fee", an "agent fee", a refundable deposit. Real employers pay their own immigration costs, and charging a worker a recruitment fee is illegal in the US and Canada.
• The offer arrives before any interview, or after one short call on WhatsApp.
• The "company" has no address you can verify, the email is a free Gmail or Yahoo account, or the website is a few days old.
• You're told you've won a lottery you never entered, or that a visa is "guaranteed".
• You're told to keep it confidential, or to hurry.

If you're not sure, look the employer up on your own, call the number on their real website, and read the fraud pages on USCIS and Immigration Canada. Report recruitment fraud on the Kenyan side to the National Employment Authority and the police.

If you do make the move

The rest of this site, from passport renewal to credential evaluation to the first-90-days checklist, is written for the day you arrive. If you get here, you're welcome to join us.