Working from home in Spanish and English

• Phone or no phone? Working Solutions, Liveops, Omni, NexRep, Smith.ai, the big call-center companies, and the interpreting companies are phone work (some with video). ModSquad and the assistant companies are mostly chat and email. Knowing this cuts the list in half.
• Your hours. Write down the real times you can work (e.g. “Monday to Friday, 9am to 2pm, about 20 hours a week”). Every application asks this, and “flexible” is not an answer they can use.
• Watch the time zone. Some companies list their hours in Pacific or Central time, not Eastern. 9am Pacific is noon here, so do the math before you say yes to a shift.

Don’t list five different skills at the top. Use one line that covers all of them:

Bilingual Spanish–English Virtual Assistant & Customer Support
email and chat support · scheduling · following up with clients · preparing documents · Spanish writing and proofreading · social media help

Under that, put your Spanish level (native or fluent), your English level, your time zone (Eastern), your hours, and the programs you actually know (e.g. Gmail, Google Docs, Microsoft Word, Canva, Zoom). Be honest about your levels, because the customer-service companies will test you.

You can make these up, as long as you label them as samples: a professional email in Spanish, a short paragraph in Spanish with your fixed version next to it, three Instagram posts for a pretend restaurant, and one short customer message translated from English to Spanish. Put them all in one Google Doc so you can share a link.

The phone companies are strict about this. Working Solutions, for example, requires a Windows 11 computer, wired internet of at least 10 Mbps (a cable, not Wi-Fi), a wired USB headset (gaming headsets are not allowed), antivirus software, and a smartphone or tablet for their login app. The chat and assistant companies are looser: ModSquad wants a laptop or desktop (no Chromebook or tablet), and Time etc says a regular computer with stable internet is enough. Everyone wants a quiet room. If you’re missing something, buy it wherever you want. A company telling you where to buy it, or sending you money to buy it, is the scam version.

A company that has been doing this for a long time. You choose which client programs you want, and you set your own schedule inside each program’s hours (some programs run 24/7, and they say contracts run 15 to 40+ hours a week). They post bilingual Spanish programs regularly, so go to their openings page and search for “bilingual” or “Spanish.”

Pay: per minute you’re on a call, and each program sets its own rate. Bilingual Spanish work has come out to about $19 an hour with the phones busy, and some programs guarantee a minimum number of paid minutes per hour. Pay is per minute at most of these companies, so a slow hour pays less than a busy one. Other details: phone work, a short online test, then a video interview and a background check. Their FAQ says there are no fees to join, and they run the check themselves. Each program lists which states it accepts, so check that line before you apply (Virginia was fine when I looked). Windows 11 computer required.

All their current openings →

Bilingual programs fill up and new ones open, so it’s worth checking that page once a week.

Same idea, with its own page just for bilingual jobs. You pick your hours in 30-minute blocks with no minimum, and Virginia is on their list of eligible states. Expect them to ask for about a year of customer service or phone experience, and you need to be 18+ with a high school diploma or GED.

Pay: their FAQ says most programs pay 25 to 34 cents per minute you’re on a call (that’s $15 to about $20 an hour if the phone stays busy), some add commission, and a few are commission-only. Skip the commission-only ones. You send a simple invoice and they pay twice a month. The fee: after Liveops invites you, you pay a one-time, non-refundable background-check fee to their vendor (a company called Yardstik). Their pages say $25 in most places and $35 in one, so expect $25 to $35. This is the exception mentioned in the Safety Check. It’s legitimate, but only if you got there through join.liveops.com yourself.

Liveops bilingual jobs →

Customer support and online community moderation for lots of different companies. Much of it is chat, email, and message boards, but they have phone projects too, and you choose which projects you apply to, so this is the one to start with if you’d rather not take calls. They work in 50+ languages, so bilingual people fit well here.

Their own rules: you need a laptop or desktop (a Chromebook or tablet won’t work), reliable internet, and a cell phone for two-step login. You pick project time slots each month, pay is hourly and set per project, and you’re allowed to work for other companies at the same time. Two honest notes: they say they accept only about 1 in 100 applicants, so a “no” is not about you, and if there’s no project for you right away they keep your info on file and reach out later.

Become a Mod (their apply page) →

Another work-from-home customer support company, with the same setup as Working Solutions. Their contracts pay $14 to $20 an hour, and bilingual Spanish work has been at the top of that range. Check their openings for the words “bilingual” or “Spanish,” and if nothing fits right now, join their waitlist and they’ll email you when a new contract opens. They don’t work with about 16 states, but Virginia isn’t one of them.

The fee: Omni says it never charges to join or for certification, but after they accept you, you pay a $40 non-refundable background-check fee to their vendor, and some clients require a new check (or a drug test) every six months. This is the other legitimate exception from the Safety Check. Certification is free but unpaid, and pay is weekly. Good to know: real Omni emails come from @oiteam.com (for example talent@oiteam.com), even though that doesn’t match the website name, and Omni says it never recruits through WhatsApp, Telegram, Zoom, or direct messages. Anything like that is not them.

Join Omni (their apply page) →  ·  Their waitlist →

One more home-agent company, and the fastest to get into: you register, book a 10-minute call with one of their coordinators, and they match you with a client (their site says the whole thing takes under 45 minutes). Phone, chat, and email work, and you claim your own hours ahead of time.

No fee to join, and their certification classes are free. The pay is on the low end, though (about $12.50 to $14 an hour), and they don’t advertise a Spanish-specific program, so put this one after Working Solutions, Liveops, and Omni. They don’t work in every state, so check the list when you register.

NexRep agents page →

These are big call-center companies that hire bilingual Spanish people as regular employees to work from home. That’s the opposite trade-off from the companies above: they set your shifts (often evenings and weekends), most jobs are full-time, and you can’t skip a week. In return you get a paycheck with taxes already taken out, paid training, health insurance and a 401(k), and they mail you a work computer. If flexible hours matter less to you than steady money, start here instead.

What their own sites show: Foundever hires remote bilingual Spanish customer service reps at around $17 an hour, and Virginia is on their eligible list (one catch: you can’t live within 50 miles of one of their offices; their Virginia office is in Wise, which is a long way from here, but check that when you apply). Concentrix posts bilingual customer service and tech support jobs at around $18 an hour, wants a year of customer service experience, and schedules shifts from morning to late evening Eastern. TTEC hires bilingual Spanish-English agents to work from home (job boards put their pay at about $13.50 to $17 an hour). U-Haul posts part-time work-from-home jobs, some of them bilingual, at around $17 an hour with benefits, and their shifts run on Arizona time (2 to 3 hours behind us). Search each site for “bilingual” or “Spanish,” and run the Safety Check as usual.

Foundever work-from-home jobs →  ·  Concentrix jobs →  ·  TTEC jobs →  ·  U-Haul jobs →

A virtual receptionist company. You answer calls for small businesses (law firms, contractors, clinics, etc.), take messages, book appointments, and transfer calls, which is a big part of your list. It’s a regular employee job you do from home, and their careers page says bilingual Spanish agents start at $16 an hour ($15 for English-only), with paid training, and health benefits if you work 30 or more hours a week.

Hours are flexible inside their 24/7 schedule, but you have to work 25 to 40 hours a week and at least one shift on a Monday. US applicants only (plus Mexico), and their job posts also ask for a typing test (about 34 words a minute), a computer with at least 8 GB of memory (no Chromebooks), a USB headset, a background check, and a short video interview partly in Spanish. They skip a handful of states (e.g. New York, Washington, Oregon), but Virginia is fine.

Apply to be a Smith.ai receptionist →

A US company that places assistants (and bookkeepers) with business clients for ongoing contract work. Their jobs page says clients are hiring “experienced professionals,” so this one fits best if you already have office or assistant experience. Put “bilingual” in the first line of your application, because it helps you stand out. BELAY also says on its own site that it never offers jobs by text or social media, which matches everything in the Safety Check.

BELAY job openings →

Around since 2007. They match you with business owners and pay you by the hour for every hour you work, starting at $17 an hour and going up over time. They only take US permanent residents, and they ask for 5 to 8 years of relevant work experience (office, admin, or similar - not necessarily as an assistant), so skip this one if you don’t have that yet. They call it a part-time opportunity, and say the average assistant works about 39 hours a month (you have to be free for at least 5 hours a week). A good fit for the email, scheduling, follow-up, and document side of your list, and they say you get a decision within the hour after you apply.

Become an assistant at Time etc →

Assistant jobs where you work with the same clients every week, US-based only. They ask for a college degree plus about 5 years of office or assistant experience (or 7 years without a degree), some remote-work experience, and availability during business hours, and they list “bilingual Spanish” as a plus. Pay is a share of each client’s monthly plan, which works out to roughly $1,500 to $3,800 a month depending on how many clients you carry. This is the highest bar on the page, so only apply if that describes you.

Zirtual assistant jobs →

Phone calls, scheduling, research, and small tasks for people who pay a monthly subscription. It pays per task, $3 to $7 each to start (paid every other Tuesday), so the money is small and it’s more task-by-task than the others. It’s last on this list for that reason, but it’s real, you can pick your own hours, and it’s an easy way to put some experience on your résumé while you wait to hear from the others.

Apply to work at Fancy Hands →

This one isn’t on your list, so skip it if it doesn’t appeal to you, but it’s the single biggest work-from-home market for someone who speaks Spanish and English, so I’d be leaving something out if I didn’t mention it. An interpreter sits on a phone or video call between an English speaker (e.g. a nurse, a bank, a 911 operator) and a Spanish speaker, listens to a few sentences, and says them in the other language. It’s harder than customer service, because it’s live and the calls can be about medical or legal things, and every company gives you a language test first. Pay is similar to customer service to start and goes up with experience or medical training (contractor jobs at $25 to $30 an hour exist for people with a couple of years in). Two of these three don’t require any experience.

LanguageLine is one of the biggest interpreting companies in the US. Their work-from-home Spanish interpreter jobs pay about $15 to $18 an hour with part-time or full-time schedules (they run 24/7), and they only need internet of 5 Mbps. Their own site says the only way to apply is through languageline.com, so ignore anyone who contacts you claiming to be them. Lionbridge takes freelance phone interpreters with no experience required (you pass a language test), calls are 10 to 30 minutes during US business hours, and they suggest at least 16 hours a week. Propio (which now owns CyraCom) hires remote Spanish interpreters as both employees and per-minute contractors; they ask for a landline phone, and employee training runs 8am to 5pm on weekdays before you move to the schedule you picked. If you like the work, a 40-hour medical interpreter course (offered online) opens up better-paying jobs later.

LanguageLine interpreter careers →  ·  Lionbridge Spanish interpreter (freelance) →  ·  Propio careers →

This one costs money (a monthly subscription), and that’s exactly why it’s good: a real person checks every job before it goes up, so scams and “sell this product” jobs get taken out. Search for bilingual Spanish, Spanish customer service, and bilingual virtual assistant, then pick 100% Remote Work under the remote filter (they also list hybrid jobs, which you don’t want) and Part-Time under schedule. One month is usually enough to see what’s out there.

Reminder: paying for a job website is normal. Paying an employer is never normal.

flexjobs.com →

A free website run by real people who have screened work-from-home jobs for over 20 years. Every listing links straight to the employer’s own careers page, and bilingual Spanish jobs from big companies (U-Haul, Amazon, and the like) come up all the time. The “past 10 days” page below is the one to bookmark, and they also have a good article on companies that hire bilingual remote workers.

One thing to know: the “Featured Opportunities” at the very top of each daily post are paid ads. They say those are screened too, but some of them have been Arise programs (the company in the red box above), so skip anything that says Arise or “register for the platform,” and read the rest. The 3-minute check still applies to every job.

Jobs from the past 10 days →  ·  Their list of companies hiring bilingual workers →

A remote-jobs website where real people screen the listings, with its own page for Spanish jobs (customer service, translation, and interpreting). A free account shows you a rotating sample of the jobs and lets you apply to those; seeing the full list costs about $20 a month (or $50 for three months, with a 30-day money-back guarantee). Start with the free account, and only pay if the free ones look promising.

Their Spanish jobs page →

A free remote-jobs website. This link is already filtered to Spanish jobs you can do from anywhere (customer service, support, and sales). Still read each job for a state or country rule, because some “anywhere” jobs really mean “anywhere in the US.”

Spanish jobs, remote from anywhere →

A small, free job board just for bilingual jobs, with a page for remote Spanish ones (customer service, support, and some assistant jobs). No account needed. It’s newer and smaller than the others, so treat it as a weekly look, not a main source, and always apply on the company’s own website.

Remote bilingual Spanish jobs →

Free websites that only list remote jobs, so there’s no remote filter to worry about. There are fewer Spanish jobs here, but the listings are clean. On Remote.co, search for Spanish and bilingual; the We Work Remotely link below is already searched for you.

remote.co →  ·  We Work Remotely, searched for “Spanish” →

CareerOneStop is the US Department of Labor’s job website, and the FTC names it as a safe place to start. Every listing on it is real, but it doesn’t have a good remote filter, so it’s better for local jobs than work-from-home jobs. Virginia’s own job bank, the Virginia Workforce Connection, is the same idea at the state level: free, run by the state, and you can search it for “bilingual” or “remote.” The real reason these are here is that they connect you to your local job center, which around here is called Virginia Career Works (the closest office is in Radford, at 51 A West Main Street, phone 540-267-8100. Hours when I checked: Monday to Wednesday 9:30am to 4pm, Thursday 8:30am to 4pm, Friday 8:30am to 3pm). They help with résumés and applications for free, in person, which is worth a visit.

careeronestop.org →  ·  Virginia Workforce Connection →  ·  Virginia Career Works NRV offices →

Use these two only to find company names and to set up email alerts. Then close the tab and apply on the company’s own website. If the job isn’t on the company’s website, it isn’t real. Job titles change a lot from company to company, so try several of these searches and set an alert for each one:

• bilingual virtual assistant · Spanish customer support remote · bilingual chat support
• Spanish appointment setter · bilingual intake specialist · bilingual patient coordinator
• Spanish proofreader · Spanish copywriter · Spanish social media coordinator
• Add part-time or contract to any of them.

These two links already have the remote filter turned on. If you start your own search on Indeed, type Remote in the location box, or you’ll get office jobs mixed in.

Indeed, remote bilingual Spanish jobs →  ·  LinkedIn, remote Spanish jobs →

These companies hire Spanish speakers for ongoing part-time projects, like rating search results, checking AI answers, or typing out audio recordings. Welocalize posts remote US jobs for Spanish speakers (AI training and content review, mostly contractor work, often around $15 an hour), and it also has a general Spanish sign-up that isn’t a job by itself but puts you in line for future projects. Lionbridge runs a separate site for paid AI projects (recordings, ratings, transcription, and the like) that says it takes people at any experience level, and you get to it from their freelance page below. TELUS and CrowdGen work the same way: you sign up for free, pass a short test for each project, and work the hours you want. These projects open and close all the time, so check each page below for “Spanish.” The Welocalize link is already filtered to US jobs, and the TELUS page has a language filter.

Apply only through the links below. Scammers copy these names all the time, so any message about them that arrives by text or WhatsApp is fake. (Welocalize’s job board lives on a site called lever.co, which is normal - lots of companies rent their job board - but real Welocalize emails still end in @welocalize.com.)

Welocalize US jobs →  ·  Lionbridge freelance community →  ·  TELUS AI Community open roles →  ·  CrowdGen by Appen →

If you want translation work too, agencies like RWS, TransPerfect, and Welocalize keep lists of translators. You apply once through their website, take a test, and they send you work over time. Offer everyday business translation (e.g. customer emails, social media posts, instructions), not legal or medical documents, which need special training.

Before you take work from any translation agency, look it up on the ProZ Blue Board. It’s a list where translators rate agencies on whether they’d work with them again, which mostly comes down to whether they pay. You need a free ProZ account to look, and without a paid membership you only see the overall score (the comments are hidden), but the score is the part you need. A low score, or no entry at all, means skip it.

RWS freelancer application (Workzone) →  ·  TransPerfect: become a freelance expert →

• Google Maps and Instagram: search for Hispanic-owned restaurants, salons, cleaning companies, contractors, tax offices, clinics, and churches in Christiansburg, Blacksburg, Radford, and Roanoke. Look for pages with no posts in the last two months, comments or messages nobody answered, or English-only posts when the customers clearly speak Spanish.
• People you already know: church, friends, family. A business owner who already trusts you is the easiest client to get, by far.
• Roanoke probably has more Hispanic-owned businesses than the NRV does, so it’s worth the drive for the right client.

Business owners say yes to something they can picture. For example:

Starter: 8 posts a month in Spanish, plus I answer your Facebook and Instagram messages within 24 hours, Monday to Friday - $___ a month.
Plus: everything above, plus I confirm appointments and follow up with customers by text or email - $___ a month.

One short sample is fine (e.g. two posts, or one paragraph from their website rewritten). A whole week of free posts “as a trial” is not, because that’s how people get used.

In Spanish:

Hola, me llamo ____. Ayudo a pequeños negocios a responder mensajes de clientes en español e inglés, organizar citas y mantener activas sus redes sociales. Vi que su página tiene algunos mensajes sin responder y me gustaría proponerle algo sencillo para empezar: [8 publicaciones al mes + respuesta a mensajes] por [$___]. ¿Le interesaría una llamada corta esta semana?

In English:

Hi, my name is ____. I help small businesses answer customer messages in Spanish and English, keep appointments organized, and keep their social media active. I noticed your page has some unanswered messages, and I’d like to suggest something simple to start: [8 posts a month + message replies] for [$___]. Would you be open to a short call this week?

Get the deal in writing, even if it’s just an email: what’s included, the price each month, and when they pay. Ask for the first month (or half of it) before you start.