How to Verify an OPT Placement Company Is a Real, Registered Business

A practical checklist for confirming an OPT placement company legally exists before you sign a contract or send a deposit.

You found a company online — maybe through a WhatsApp group, a LinkedIn message, or a friend's referral — that promises to handle "training and placement" for your OPT or STEM OPT. They want a deposit or a signed contract before you see much beyond a polished homepage and a phone number. Before you send money, sign anything, or hand over your passport and SEVIS details, there's one question to answer first, separate from whether the job sounds good: is this an actual, registered company, or just a name attached to a website?

F1Jobs sells a job-search service to international students, so we have a commercial stake in how you evaluate this category — worth saying plainly before you read on. That stake doesn't change the mechanics below. Confirming that a company legally exists, is registered where it claims to operate, and isn't sitting under a pile of unresolved complaints is something you can and should do regardless of who you eventually work with, including us.

Why this check matters more than it sounds

Immigration-practice blogs and trade press have reported, over the past several years, on enforcement actions against companies that issued OPT-related employment paperwork — offer letters, I-9 forms, training plans — for jobs that reportedly didn't involve real work. Coverage of these cases is not a primary government dataset, and outcomes vary by case, so treat specific numbers or claims about any one enforcement action as reported rather than settled fact. The detail that should stay with you regardless of the exact figures: reporting on these cases describes students who say they didn't know their employment was structured this way facing consequences anyway, including status and future visa complications. Not knowing has reportedly not been treated as a full defense. That's why this matters even if you're confident you'd never knowingly sign up for fake employment — the company standing between you and that outcome is the thing you're being asked to trust on faith.

There's also a numbers problem worth sitting with before you evaluate any specific pitch. According to an analysis released in November 2025 by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), only 28,277 US employers were approved to hire even one new H-1B worker in fiscal year 2025 — roughly half of one percent of the roughly six million employer firms in the country — and about 61% of those sponsored exactly one person. Real sponsorship access is narrow and concentrated. When a placement company implies it has a wide, easy pipeline into that narrow pool, the size of the claim itself is a reason to verify the entity making it, not a reason to skip the check because they sound established.

What "verifying the company" actually means

It means confirming the entity exists as a legal business, separate from confirming that any specific job or promise is real. A company can be a legitimately registered LLC or corporation and still make claims you shouldn't rely on, or structure work in a way that puts your status at risk. Registration is a floor, not a ceiling. But if the floor isn't there — no real registration, no verifiable address, no way to confirm who you'd actually be contracting with — nothing else about the pitch is worth evaluating yet.

The verification checklist

Work through these in order. Each one is free or low-cost, and most take under fifteen minutes.

1. Get the exact legal entity name and state of incorporation. Not the marketing name on the website — ask directly, or find it in the contract's signature block or "governed by the laws of" clause.
2. Search the state's Secretary of State business registry. Every US state has a free, public business-entity search. Confirm the entity exists, matches the name you were given, and shows a status like "active" or "in good standing" rather than "dissolved," "revoked," or nothing at all.
3. Check E-Verify enrollment if the arrangement involves STEM OPT. STEM OPT employers are required to be enrolled in E-Verify. Our companion guide walks through how to check whether an OPT placement company is E-Verify enrolled, and what to do if you can't find them, including how to interpret an E-Verify employer search that comes back not found.
4. Verify the physical address. Look it up on Google Maps or Street View. A shared virtual-office suite, a residential address, or a PO box isn't automatically disqualifying, but it's a fact you should weigh alongside everything else, not something to skip past.
5. Search court records. A federal case search on PACER and a search of the relevant state court system for the company's exact legal name can surface civil suits, judgments, or regulatory actions. Absence of a hit isn't proof of nothing wrong, but a hit is worth reading closely.
6. Read third-party reviews for the pattern, not the verdict. Reviews on Trustpilot, Glassdoor, and Reddit are user-submitted allegations — the platforms don't investigate or adjudicate them. What's useful is a repeating shape across unrelated reviewers, like the deposit-then-silence pattern some OPT placement complaints describe, rather than any single five-star or one-star review.
7. Check for a real employee footprint on LinkedIn. A company with genuine operations usually has employees who list it as their current employer, with tenure that predates your search. A page with only a handful of accounts created recently is a signal to look harder elsewhere.
8. Call the listed phone number and ask something specific. Ask who the registered agent is, or which state the LLC is filed in. A legitimate back office can answer immediately; a forwarding number often can't.
9. Cross-reference the company against a sponsor database, not just the sales pitch. If they're claiming a track record of H-1B sponsorship, look them up yourself rather than taking their slide deck's word for it. Our guide on using the MyVisaJobs sponsor database walks through how to search a company's actual petition history.
10. Ask your DSO if anything feels off before you sign. Your Designated School Official won't vet a business for you, but they can flag arrangements that conflict with OPT rules, and they're a free resource you're already entitled to use.

Where to check each thing

Registered doesn't mean safe

Passing every item on that checklist confirms a business exists. It does not confirm the job is real, that the work matches what's described in your training plan, or that the arrangement won't put your status at risk. Those are separate questions, and they matter just as much once a company clears the registration bar. If you're weighing an actual offer rather than just a pitch, our guide on post-offer due diligence for sponsor legitimacy covers what to check once paperwork is on the table — things like whether the duties described match a real role, and whether the sponsoring entity matches who's actually paying you.

Common mistakes

• Treating a professional website as proof of anything. A polished site costs very little to build and confirms nothing about the entity behind it.
• Accepting a marketing name without asking for the legal entity name. Many placement operations use a consumer-facing brand that differs from the registered business name on any contract you'd sign — always get the legal name before searching.
• Stopping at one positive review. A single glowing testimonial, especially one posted around the same time as several similar ones, tells you less than a pattern across a longer, more organic-looking review history.
• Assuming E-Verify enrollment settles the question. It confirms a specific compliance capability, not the legitimacy of the job itself or the company's broader conduct.
• Skipping the check because a deadline feels close. OPT's unemployment clock creates real pressure, but a fifteen-minute registry search is faster than untangling a paper-employment problem later — and far faster than the process of trying to fix it after the fact.
• Assuming no online complaints means no risk. Newer companies, or ones operating under a rotating set of names, may simply not have accumulated a visible complaint history yet.

Frequently asked questions

How do I check if an OPT placement company is a registered business?

Search the company's exact legal name on the Secretary of State business registry for the state where it claims to operate. A registered company will show a filing date, a registered agent, and a status such as active or in good standing. If you can't find the name, ask for the exact legal entity name and state of incorporation, then search again before you pay anything.

Is E-Verify enrollment proof that an OPT placement company is legitimate?

E-Verify enrollment confirms the company is registered to check work authorization electronically, which most STEM OPT employers must be, but it does not confirm the job itself is real or that you'll be assigned actual work. Treat it as one data point among several, not proof on its own.

What if the company has no online reviews at all?

A brand-new company with zero review history isn't automatically disqualifying, but it raises the bar on the other checks. Business registration, a verifiable physical address, and a real working phone number matter more when there's no review trail to cross-check against.

Should I trust negative reviews about a specific OPT placement company?

Treat reviews on Trustpilot, Glassdoor, or Reddit as user-submitted allegations, not proven facts, since none of those platforms adjudicate disputes. Look for a repeating pattern across multiple unrelated reviewers, such as deposits collected before any documentation was produced, rather than treating any single review as decisive on its own.

What should I do if I already paid and now have doubts?

Talk to your DSO about how the arrangement affects your OPT or STEM OPT compliance, and consult an immigration attorney about your specific situation before taking any further action. This article can't substitute for either.

If you want a second pair of eyes on a job search that isn't producing real interviews, or you're trying to figure out whether a specific offer is worth pursuing, F1Jobs is happy to talk through it with you.