
“Work from anywhere” in fully distributed companies? e.g. Buffer,GitHub. How? - tajj
With a number of companies already working fully distributed, and a number of companies recently announcing that they are letting employees work remotely indefinitely, I have a question. Can employees really work from anywhere? Do they not need work visas or permission to work in the countries that they wish to be based? I’m not referring to freelancers, but people at places like Buffer and Github. I know that freelancers sometimes work (illegally) on tourist visas and do border runs. I’m assuming these fully distributed organizations would not allow&#x2F;encourage this sort of practice, but curious to know.
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gregjor
I freelance for US companies, worked remotely overseas for six years, multiple
countries, different kinds of visas. I never had a work permit. I know and met
people who worked as f/t remote employees, they mostly did the same thing —
worked on tourist visas or some other kind of visa that did not allow working
in the host country. Enforcement is lax.

Some remote employees I met had work permits because their employer had an
office in the foreign country. Some got work permits through an outfit like
Iglu in Thailand. Mostly no one seems to worry about the work permit. Although
generally illegal, most countries don’t focus immigration or labor law
enforcement on digital nomads and remote workers because they are rarely
taking jobs from locals.

