How Many Hours Can Pakistani Students Work? Part-Time Limits by Country (2026)

The limits at a glance

Read the table as a map of how different these systems are, not as a licence to act. Your own grant notice governs your own case.

United Kingdom: 20 hours, or 10

The UK is the clearest of the four, because the figure sits in the Immigration Rules rather than only in guidance.

As of 4 November 2026, paragraph ST 26.1 of Appendix Student permits 20 hours per week during term-time for a student following a full-time course of degree level or above sponsored by a higher education provider with a track record of compliance, with full-time employment permitted outside of term-time.

As of 4 November 2026, the same Appendix Student permits 10 hours per week during term-time for a student undertaking a full-time course below degree level sponsored by a higher education provider with a track record of compliance.

For everything else, including all part-time study, the rules say no employment permitted. That is a complete prohibition rather than a lower cap, and students on part-time courses sometimes do not realise it applies to them.

Volunteering counts, and almost nobody knows

This one costs people their status while they believe they are being generous with their time.

As of 4 November 2026, the Student route caseworker guidance states that a Student can do voluntary work if they are permitted to work, but this work and any paid work must not exceed the total number of hours they are permitted to work during term time.

The guidance gives its own worked example: a student permitted 20 hours a week who already does 15 hours of paid work cannot do more than 5 hours of voluntary work. And a student who is not permitted to work cannot do voluntary work at all.

Canada: 24 hours, and unlimited in breaks

Canada moved this figure in recent years, so a number remembered from an older cohort is not reliable.

As of 4 November 2026, the IRCC page on working off campus states that you can work up to 24 hours per week, and that you may hold more than one job to make up those hours.

As of 4 November 2026, the same IRCC page states that if you are working during a break scheduled by your institution, such as summer and winter holidays or a reading week, you can work unlimited hours off campus.

Three conditions around that are worth taking seriously.

• As of 4 November 2026, IRCC states that you can only start working in Canada when you start your study program. Arriving a month early and taking a job is unauthorised work.
• You cannot work off campus while on authorised leave, which is a trap for students taking a break. Our guide to study permit conditions and authorised leave covers how that works.
• Students taking only English or French as a second language, or only general interest courses, are excluded from off-campus work.

One narrower point, because students ask it constantly. As of 4 November 2026, IRCC states that remote work for an employer outside Canada does not count toward the 24 hours per week off-campus work limit. Read the page in full before planning around that, because it is a specific statement and not a general exemption.

United States: the number that is not on the page

Ask anyone about working on an F-1 visa and you will be told twenty hours a week. Go to the official page and that figure is not there.

As of 4 November 2026, the USCIS page on students and employment says F-1 students may accept on-campus employment subject to certain conditions and restrictions. It states no hour limit, and the word hours does not appear on it.

As of 4 November 2026, the same USCIS page states that F-1 students may not work off-campus during the first academic year, and lists three off-campus categories available afterwards: Curricular Practical Training, Optional Practical Training before or after completion, and the STEM extension of Optional Practical Training.

We are not telling you there is no limit. We are telling you the main official page does not state one, which means anyone quoting a figure is quoting something else, and you should ask them what. The practical answer for a student is the same either way: your designated school official is the person who authorises your employment, and USCIS says off-campus training must be authorised before you start any work.

Australia: counted per fortnight, and currently unclear

Australia does two things differently, and the second one is awkward to write about honestly.

First, the limit is set by visa condition 8105 and measured per fortnight rather than per week. That matters more than it sounds. A fortnightly cap is not simply a weekly cap doubled: it lets you work heavier one week and lighter the next, and it means a payroll run that looks fine weekly can still breach the condition.

Second, we could not verify the current figure from an official source on the day of writing, and we are not going to publish one we could not check. Here is exactly where that stands.

• The limit changed in 2023. That much is consistent across official material.
• Departmental pages have carried different figures in different places since, one giving forty hours per fortnight and another forty-eight.
• The Department of Home Affairs site refused automated access on the day of writing, so we could not read either page directly to confirm which is current.
• We also could not retrieve the text of condition 8105 from the Federal Register of Legislation, where Schedule 8 of the Migration Regulations sits.

So the honest answer is this. Your visa grant notice lists the conditions attached to your visa by number, and condition 8105 will be on it if it applies to you. That notice, and the department's current page for your visa, are what bind you. Check both, and do not take a number from an article, including this one.

If that reads as unsatisfying, it is. A work limit is not a figure to approximate: exceeding it is a breach of a visa condition, and the cost of being wrong falls entirely on the student. Our Australia guides carry the figures we have been able to verify elsewhere.

Germany and the rest of Europe

Europe does not have one rule, and treating Schengen as a single system is the fastest way to get this wrong. Each country sets its own student work conditions, and they are not close to each other.

Germany is the one most Pakistani students ask about, and it works on a different unit again: a yearly allowance of days rather than a weekly or fortnightly cap on hours. We have covered it separately in our guide to working part-time while studying in Germany, which carries the current figures with their sources.

For the rest of Europe, the questions to ask before you count on any income are the same four every time.

• Is the limit expressed in hours or in days, and over what period?
• Does it change during semester breaks, and who defines the break?
• Do you need a separate work permission, or does the residence permit carry it?
• Does the language of your course affect what work you can realistically get, whatever the permit allows?

That last one is not a legal question and it is the one that decides most budgets. A permit allowing twenty hours is worth nothing in a city where the available jobs need the local language and you do not have it.

Holidays and breaks, where countries differ most

If you take one thing from this page, take this. The holiday rule is the part students assume is universal, and it is the part that varies most.

• UK. Full-time employment permitted outside term time, and time after the course ends counts as outside term time.
• Canada. Unlimited hours off campus during a break scheduled by your institution. The break has to be scheduled by the institution, not chosen by you.
• USA. The USCIS employment page does not set out a separate holiday rule, so ask your designated school official rather than assuming one.
• Australia. Work when the course is not in session is treated differently from work in session. Check your own grant notice for the wording that applies to you.

A student who worked full-time over the Christmas break in the UK, and assumes the same applies after transferring to a course elsewhere, is the shape of the problem.

What the cap means for your funds requirement

There is a connection between these two things that students see and visa officers see differently, and the gap between those two views causes refusals.

A student looks at a twenty hour cap, multiplies by a wage, and treats the result as income that reduces what the family needs to show. An officer looks at the same cap and treats the earnings as unreliable, because they depend on finding work, keeping it, and having time around a full-time course.

That is why the funds requirement is calculated without assuming you will work. The countries covered here set a maintenance figure you must show regardless of your right to work, and a file that argues the figure should be lower because the student will have a job is arguing against the rule rather than satisfying it.

Two practical conclusions follow.

• Never present part-time earnings as part of your proof of funds. It reads as a shortfall with an explanation attached, which is exactly what it is.
• Do budget realistically for what the work will actually cover, which is usually living costs at the margin rather than tuition. A capped part-time wage in a high-cost city does not pay a degree.

Students who understand this early choose differently: a cheaper city, a cheaper course, or a later intake with more savings. Students who do not tend to arrive, discover the arithmetic, and spend the first year anxious about money instead of studying.

Work you cannot do at all

Hours are only half the condition. Some work is prohibited whatever the hours.

As of 4 November 2026, paragraph ST 26.5 of Appendix Student states that a Student is not allowed to be self-employed or engage in business activity unless ST 26.8 applies, work as a professional sportsperson including as a sports coach, work as an entertainer, or work in a position which would fill a permanent full-time vacancy unless ST 26.6 applies.

Read the self-employment line carefully if you freelance. Taking contract work through an overseas platform, invoicing clients in Pakistan, or running a small online business are all activities students assume sit outside the rule because the money does not come from a UK employer. The rule is about what you do, not where the client is.

The permanent full-time vacancy point is the one employers get wrong rather than students. A part-time role that is really a full-time permanent post split in two is still a permanent full-time vacancy.

What a breach actually costs

Students underestimate this because the breach feels invisible. It is not.

Payroll exists. Tax records exist. A share code check in the UK, a Social Insurance Number in Canada, an employer's records anywhere: the hours you worked are written down somewhere by someone who is not you. Our guide to the UK right to work check and share codes explains what an employer actually sees.

The consequences differ by country and we are not going to generalise them into a single sentence. What is common across all four is that a breach of conditions is a fact that attaches to your immigration history, and immigration histories are read by the next country you apply to. A student who exceeded hours for one term and was never caught at the time can still be answering for it years later on an application for permanent residence.

If you have already exceeded your hours, the worst option is to hide it and hope. Take advice on where you actually stand.

Where Pakistani students go wrong

Budgeting the full cap as certain income

Twenty hours a week is a ceiling, not a wage. It assumes you find work, keep it, and have the time around your course. A funds plan that only works if you hit the cap every week is a plan that fails in the first month.

Carrying one country's rule to another

A sibling in Canada works unlimited hours over the summer. A cousin in the UK works full-time in the vacation. Neither tells you anything about your own visa.

Counting a fortnight as two separate weeks

Where the limit is fortnightly, the period is defined and fixed. Working to a weekly figure of your own invention is how a student stays inside their imagined limit and outside the real one.

Forgetting volunteering

Covered above, and worth repeating because the people it catches are the ones doing something generous. In the UK it counts toward the same cap.

Starting before the course does

Canada says plainly you can only start working when you start your program. The same instinct, arriving early and finding a job, causes problems elsewhere too.

Frequently asked questions