Countries

Country filters let you control which client locations you receive jobs from. There are two independent lists — a whitelist (include) and a blacklist (exclude).

You can add up to 30 countries to each list.

Country List

The autocomplete uses the same set of countries that Upwork uses on job postings. If a country doesn't appear in search results, it means Upwork doesn't list it as a client location.

You can search by:

• Full country name — e.g. United States, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Alias — common short forms like bosnia, brunei, ivory coast, czechia
• Country code — e.g. US, GB, DE

You can also type a custom value and add it directly, though it won't match any jobs unless Upwork uses that exact spelling.

Lists

Include (Whitelist)

Default: empty (all countries)

Add countries to restrict results to specific locations. For example, adding United States, United Kingdom, and Canada means only jobs from clients in those three countries reach you.

Exclude (Blacklist)

Default: empty (no exclusions)

Block specific countries regardless of your include list. For example, if you leave include empty (all countries) but want to exclude Germany and Sweden, add them here.

Using Both Together

In most cases you'll only need one list:

• Exclude list — jobs from everywhere except a few countries. Most common setup.
• Include list — jobs only from a small set of countries.

If you do use both, exclusion always wins — a country in both lists is excluded.

How Matching Works

The bot reads the client's country directly from the Upwork job posting. Matching works on the country name as a substring — typing United matches United States, United Kingdom, and United Arab Emirates.

Include and exclude are checked independently:

1. If include is set, the job's country must appear in the list.
2. If exclude is set, the job's country must not appear in the list.
3. If neither list is set, all countries are accepted.

Tips

• The most common setup is an empty include list (all countries) with a few countries in the exclude list
• Use the include list only if you have a strong preference for specific regions
• Remember that the client's country may differ from where the work is performed remotely