2,071
Listings screened
87%
Not open worldwide
10%
Genuinely borderless
181
Employers sampled
Sample: every job pulled from 140 company career pages between August–September 2026, filtered to roles the employer themselves labelled remote. 1,803 rejected, 197 published, 62 sent to human review.
The headline
Nearly nine in ten jobs advertised as remote by well-known technology companies carry a border. Not a vague preference, an explicit requirement to live in a named country, state or city, to appear in an office on set days, or to already hold the right to work somewhere specific. The word "remote" in a job title now describes the desk, not the map.
Why listings failed
- Named a single city, state or country1,273
The listing says remote in the title and then names one place in the location field.
- Office or hybrid days expected233
Remote in name, but two or three days a week in a named building.
- No reason given beyond the location lock150
Rejected on the location line alone, before the description was read.
- Other fine print119
Payroll entity limits, state lists, travel requirements, local-hours demands.
- Work authorisation or security clearance28
You must already hold the right to work in one named country, with no sponsorship.
Which jobs hide borders most
Rejection rate by job family, across the roles our screener could classify. Customer-facing work is tied to territory; engineering travels furthest.
The fine print hall of shame
Real restrictions from real listings, all of them advertised as remote. Quoted as our screener recorded them during the sample period. None of this is hidden. It is simply printed somewhere a hopeful applicant will not look until they have written the cover letter.
Upwork
General application
"Full-time hiring is limited to 34 U.S. states."
Anthropic
Fellows Program, ML Systems
"Requires existing full-time work authorisation and physical location in the US, UK or Canada, with no visa sponsorship."
Vercel
Commercial Account Executive
"Hybrid role requiring physical presence in San Francisco, New York City or Austin."
Proton
Fullstack Software Engineer
"Hybrid role requiring three core days per week on-site (Geneva, Taipei or Skopje)."
Contentful
Mid Market Account Executive, France
"Requires hybrid on-site presence in the Central London office two to three times a week."
Hightouch
Application Security Lead
"Requires US work authorisation verified via Form I-9 and E-Verify."
Cockroach Labs
Marketing Operations Manager
"Must be based in NYC or the surrounding area."
Neo4j
Senior Enterprise Account Executive
"Restricted to specific locations within the United States: Boston area, New York City, Northeast US and Washington, D.C."
Okta
Corporate Counsel, U.S. Federal
"Requires an active security clearance."
JetBrains
Global Indirect Tax Manager
"Requires hybrid presence tied to office locations in Amsterdam, Prague or Warsaw."
Elastic
Account Executive
"Restricted to candidates in South Africa."
Fivetran
Business Development Representative
"Hybrid role requiring two to three days per week in the Denver, Colorado office."
The other ten percent
Employers with the most live roles in our sample that are open to anyone, anywhere. They exist, and they are worth naming.
Cite these figures
Free to quote with a link back to this page. Suggested citation: Really Remote, 2026 Tech Remote Benchmark, 2026-09-26.
87% of the 2,071 "remote" tech jobs we screened were not open worldwide.
Really Remote · 2026 Tech Remote Benchmark
1,273 listings called themselves remote and then named a single city, state or country.
Really Remote · 2026 Tech Remote Benchmark
Only 10% of screened roles passed as genuinely borderless.
Really Remote · 2026 Tech Remote Benchmark
Sales was the worst offender: 82% of remote sales roles came with a border attached.
Really Remote · 2026 Tech Remote Benchmark
Method
We pull jobs directly from 140 company career systems rather than from aggregators, so nothing is re-written between the employer and us. Every listing is read in full: location field first, then the description, then the benefits and legal boilerplate where restrictions usually hide.
A role is rejected when it requires living in a particular country, state or city, when it expects office days, or when it demands existing work authorisation somewhere specific. Regional and timezone-band roles are not rejected. They are published with a label saying exactly who can apply. Borderline cases go to a human.
Limitations: this is a technology-sector sample weighted towards companies that publish structured job feeds, and it covers a two-month window rather than a full year. Quarter-over-quarter trends begin with the next edition.