Working remotely from another country?

December 13, 2016 9:52 AM

I work remotely. I've been thinking of moving to another country, but continuing to work for my current employer. I'm pretty sure my boss would be okay with this arrangement, but what are the legal ramifications? What do I need to know with regards to visas, paying taxes, banking, and so forth?
posted by LSK to Work & Money (12 answers total)

This is impossible to answer without knowing what country you are a citizen of and which countries you are thinking about moving to.
posted by Brockles at 9:58 AM on December 13, 2016 [20 favorites]

for chile, this is entirely possible. it is what i do - i live here, i am a brit, and i work for americans. i have residency here.

however, if you are an american then there is an issue with paying taxes, which i do not understand completely, but you should check out (beyond some limit, you have to pay taxes in the usa, even if earnt while abroad).

also, it may be complicated for your employers. from the chilean side, i am self-employed. i declare my earnings monthly, pay taxes on them, retirement and health contributions, etc, all in chile. from the american side i am a contractor, not a fulltime employee. so they are simply outsourcing work to a foreign company (me). in contrast, you seem to expect to stay employed as you are now. that sounds complicated to me if your employer doesn't have any presence in chile (or wherever). note that if you change to being a contractor you have different rights.

finally, immigration is becoming "an issue" here in chile and the immigration process could become more complex than it is now.
posted by andrewcooke at 10:06 AM on December 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I do this and the two biggest considerations I have are:

- Not losing residency in my home province in Canada
- Not overstaying my visa in the country where I'm working

I live on a tourist visa. I am eligible for a spousal visa, and permanent residency, but only after six months in-country.

In British Columbia, where I live, I can stay away for a maximum of six months. After that I lose residency, which means no health coverage (I have to go with Blue Cross instead) for my family. I also lose the right to vote in municipal and provincial elections.

When working abroad I also have to be careful about appearing not to work. Typically, if you're on a tourist visa you're not supposed to be working (and you're not even supposed to volunteer). The country where I go generally doesn't care too much... but if someone, such as a police officer or immigration officer did decide to care, it would b disastrous.

All of my income flows into a Canadian bank account, and I report all of my income to Revenue Canada as well.

One thing to consider is how you'll pay for living expenses. We bring a lump sum with us to live on, and it's under the legal amount you can bring in-country without declaring. Usually the equivalent of $10K. There is a house we can live in when we're overseas, so we don't have to worry about paying rent.

However, I don't actually transfer any cash (income) into the country where I'm residing, and I'm thinking that would technically be against the rules for being on a tourist visa.
posted by My Dad at 10:07 AM on December 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Immigration lawyer.

Honestly, having gone through a similar process, it's necessary.
posted by Paper rabies at 10:59 AM on December 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

It really does depend on country. Often, many of the countries Americans want to go to in order to do exactly this are not amenable to it. As an example, I wanted to join my then-fiance in the UK while still working for a US-based company earning US dollars into my US bank account with US health insurance etc etc etc -- in my view, a super easy case because literally all I wanted to do was sleep and eat in the UK instead of the US. We were told by a number of agencies and authorities that it was not possible. We got lawyers involved. They did a bunch of research and finally said "Get married earlier than planned. There's no other way around it." So if you think you're going to go live and work in the UK on a tourist visa, that's legally impossible, and also limited to 3 or 6 months depending on the kind of visa you can get for yourself. You need to do a lot of research on this; there are lots of good American ex-pat forums that talk through these issues for different countries.

As an American living abroad, you still always have to file taxes in the US. If you were to be earning incoming from a company in your country of residence, and paying taxes on it there, you'd get a tax credit toward what you'd owe in the US, so you wouldn't ever double-pay. (On the other hand, if you pay less in tax in your country of residence than you would in the US, you owe the US the difference) But you do absolutely need to file every single year in the US as well as anywhere you are a legal resident.

When I moved abroad, my company just considered me to still be a resident of my old state for income purposes, and put my address down as their office. This made things easier on them, as did continuing to pay me in USD into my US account.

Edit to add: my partner was there through his work legally and was being paid into a UK account, so we dealt with our rent, etc through that and I didn't ever have to convert my US income into UK finances. That would have introduced a whole other host of complications that you need to understand if that's something you will need to do.
posted by olinerd at 11:19 AM on December 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Your boss being "okay" with it might not matter. There are tax reasons your company may not want to have an employee located in a foreign jurisdiction where they currently have no contacts. For example, it could create a permanent establishment, which has tax treaty implications. It may make them subject to local employment laws and local courts' jurisdiction as well.

Additionally, if you don't already have citizenship or a legal right to work in the destination country or a significant amount of personal wealth, getting a work visa will likely be very difficult. If you work for a large multinational with offices already in the destination country and have an advanced degree or some other special qualification, then your chances are a little bit better.
posted by melissasaurus at 12:28 PM on December 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Your first step is to determine what it will take you obtain legal residency. You can't just move to another country.
posted by humboldt32 at 12:29 PM on December 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here is what the IRS has to say.
posted by jeffamaphone at 1:09 PM on December 13, 2016

I have done this before, and I think this might be simpler than you think.

From a legal and tax perspective, you will still be an American citizen, paying US taxes. You'll need an address in whatever state you're a resident of (and someone to check it and forward or email you important documents). This can be handled through a registered agent service or can be done by a friend or relative.

You live wherever you want, on a tourist Visa, which may mean you have to refresh it occasionally (not difficult, I know people who have done this for years) and do your work. Pay your taxes just like you normally would, to the US. If you are working for an American company as an American citizen, you don't owe taxes to the country you happen to be hanging out in.

If you are buying property, things may change a bit. If you want to have residency in your new country, that changes it a bit as well. You don't need residency in some countries to own property, but you will have to pay taxes on it. If you need or want residency, that may change your tax situation depending on the country.
posted by ananci at 1:34 PM on December 13, 2016

An (American) nonprofit I am involved with is trying to figure out how to do this for our one employee. It is a lot more complicated than we thought, basically requiring us to set up a legal presence in Canada - and she has citizenship there so there are no residency issues for her. As it looks now, we will have pay certain taxes for her to the Canadian government, and she will benefit from Canadian workers benefits that did not exist here. We are committed to doing everything by the book. We were told that a lot of companies address this by listing their overseas people as 'contractors'. But I think this depends on how punctilious your company/boss are.

One thing YOU could do would be to locate a lawyer who has expertise/qualifications in both the jurisdiction you want to move to and the one your company is in, consult them, and pay them to prepare a memo for your company with what would be necessary, if it seems like something you could pitch. Then that lawyer would probably be a good resource for you too.

I think that this is a big enough deal to not want to do it half-assed. You don't want to end up deported/fired/injured-on-the-job-without-benefits, etc.
posted by Salamandrous at 1:50 PM on December 13, 2016

on the "contractors" thing. my (secondhand) understanding of american law is that if you're hired as a contractor, and "really are" a contractor (so you work on a specific project, rather than to given hours, for example) then it's fine. but what's not fine (and what you may want your company to do) is taking an existing employee and making them a contractor "on paper" (only) to simplify the company's obligations.

for you, this means that it may make more sense to move, and then find a new job with a (different) company in the usa, as a contractor from overseas. unfortunately, that can be non-trivial (i did it through luck and contacts).

then there's the whole living as a tourist thing, while pretending you're still in the usa, which i've not done (i mention it only to summarize the different approaches in this thread).
posted by andrewcooke at 2:28 PM on December 13, 2016

Check with your company, HR and possibly others, to see if it's actually allowed. Not just your boss. As an example, there's major HR considerations for my company for even traveling abroad. My boss knows they exist, but doesn't know what they are, while HR definitely does. What neither of them knows is that some of the software we use has a contract that doesn't allow us to use it outside of the country. (I think it works on the honor system, but still.) I only know because when we bought it we had to do a survey of every physical location the software was being used from.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:33 PM on December 13, 2016