This is really interesting - I wonder if, in our post-COVID world, we'll see other countries doing the same.
I'm trying to see any disadvantages for countries that do this, but the only thing I came up with is the possibility of distorting local rental prices. But presumably if enough countries offered such a visa, applicants would be spread over those countries, causing less distortion.
The disadvantage is that you may become a burden on the host country - you cost more in public services than you bring in revenue.
This could happen if the host country supplies plentiful public services funded mainly by income taxes rather than consumption taxes. Or simply if you lost your job and turned to begging or crime, and the host country finds it expensive or politically difficult to deport you.
These are pretty niche cases and most countries are happy to take wealthy, self-sufficient immigrants. But there are valid reasons why you might not want too open an immigration policy.
even countries with lots of publicly funded services usually exclude tourists. For example, a visitor to Canada would either not be allowed to take advantage of many services (ex: Employmnet Insurance / Welfare) or get billed (Healthcare) although it would be unlikely to be refused service in the later if you could not pay. In countries like Barbados the divide between citizens and visitors is even more stark. Deportation from these countries is usually easy and fast to countries that have resources (like the US or Canada); it's deporting from western countries back to poorer or "democratically challenged" countries that is hard and takes forever. Anyone who wants to turn to crime would be better served to stay at home and do it (I'd rather deal with the Canadian criminal system as a citizen than Barbados as a foreigner).
Something to keep in mind regarding Canadian health care, if you’re an American up here with no travel insurance: it is still very affordable. I suspect surgeries and things like that would be expensive, but routine procedures are very very affordable.
As an example, I moved and forgot to renew my health card. I fell in the yard and sprained my wrist. Head to a clinic, they warn me that I have to pay for the visit, but I can send the receipt to SaskHealth to get reimbursed for it when I renew my card. See the doctor, he wants to do x-rays. Go to the place next door for digital x-rays, come back, and see the doctor again. He confirms it’s just a sprain and nothing broken. Awesome. Head to the counter on my way out to pay, expecting to be out a good chunk of cash for a while. $60 total for the visit and the x-rays.
I'm sure there is a means test + some proof of your job to get the stamp, which probably dramatically limits the the odds that someone is going to become destitute and turn to a life of crime in some foreign land.
Many countries have laws so that if you are a resident there you also pay taxes there. They may also have agreements with other countries in order to avoid double taxation. But I'm fairly certain that barring any weird legal setup living in a country for a year means you pay the income taxes (at least) in that particular country.
I don't think you would pay tax in this scenario, as essentially this is just a longer-term tourist visa. You won't be allowed to get a job locally and are expected to work remote. There's no way they could track (and tax) this; it's really no different than doing some work on your 2-week Mexico vacation.
Also Americans pay tax based on citizenship too.
I don't know about tax laws on Barbados, but usually you need to pay income tax in a country where you spend more than half of a year. Just the fact that you rent a flat for a year is enough for an revenue authority to start an investigation.
> essentially this is just a longer-term tourist visa
As always the devil's in the details. A 2 week vacation will incur far fewer expenses on the host state and its citizens than a 1 year stay, while probably bringing in more money. A tourist stays at hotels, rents cars, dishes out for all the tourist attractions and baubles, eats out every meal, etc. Very little competition with locals for the same resources. A quasi-local is a different story, competing from a privileged position with locals on everything but jobs. So while both visas are time limited there's no real comparison between them. The profiles of the two types of stay are very different.
The fiscal residence usually revolves around the centre of vital interests or the habitual abode. Both would be the place you live in rather than the place your employer lives.
I don't know what the details of the implementation are but I'm guessing that if this type of setup catches up it's unlikely it will always be treated as tourist-like without making life worse for the less well off residents.
I would love to work remotely from Europe. I would think it would be in the interest of European countries to make this kind of arrangement because I would be spending my cushy US salary on European goods and services and not taking a job away from a European.
Many countries have a minimum salary limit which qualifies you (and potentially your family) to live there. For example, last I looked into it several years ago, Spain's minimum salary for a remote working visa was USD $36,000.
The US is the only country I know of that demands income taxes from its citizens when they are non-resident. Citizens of most countries would expect to pay local income taxes only when they emigrate.
Although it is important to remember that any tax one would have to pay to US IRS is for the difference between what a foreign country and US would charge, if former charged less. This only applies to countries with which US signed a treaty for the avoidance of double taxation.
I'll note Canada has a similar treaty with the US and this applied to me while working / living there for a number of years.
They wanted to tax me on my "worldwide" income and requested that I pay the difference between what I was making in the US vs. what I would be paying in Canada had I been living there.
It wasn't something I had considered in my planning so good to look into before you go!
Interesting - from this and a couple of other comments I can see my idea that you just had to pay US income tax regardless was over-simplified and wrong.
It's still a little weird to me though, as someone who would expect my own country to relinquish all tax demands if I'm not actually there!
Have something to contribute. Be able to support yourself. Don't compete for an in country job and any country should welcome your residence/citizenship.
There's no reason something like this doesn't exist in a global digital age.
> Have something to contribute. Be able to support yourself. Don't compete for an in country job and any country should welcome your residence/citizenship.
I think agree with this, but I'm not sure what this looks like apart from "remote employment". How do you not compete for an in-country job without being employed remotely? Even if you're a self-employed plumber, for example, you're still competing for a job in your host country (your presence increases the supply of plumbing services without the corresponding increase in demand).
If you design and sell tshirts globally on the internet or freelance copy edit for clients in and out of country or exhibit and sell your art internationally these are all sorts of things that are not in competition with local employment but currently have limited movement and residency options. They're not pure examples but I think they work for what people are typically concerned with when it comes to immigration and residency.
I had the same idea 10 years ago and I'm still here after marrying one of the natives. But be warned, working remotely in Europe can be difficult. I'm 7 hours ahead of my coworkers in America, so my workday is roughly 1pm to 9pm, with continual slack messages coming in until midnight at times.
Yeah, I’ve considered that as well and it seems to be the biggest downside as well. In my case, my wife and I would be on the same schedule so there wouldn’t be so much impedance there, but it would make weeknight get-together a with friends more difficult. However there should still be weekends and vacation time and so on. I’m at least confident that my employer would be flexible about me shifting my working hours to something closer to noon-8PM and respecting that schedule.
There are some rumors that indicate the Canary Islands will set up some remote worker deal. It'd be great as they have low tax, great weather and nice infrastructure including really nice Internet.
I’ve recently started looking into moving to Azores. Seems not as hot as Canary Islands and more green, almost like New Zealand.
It’s location is almost perfect for Americans and real estate seems cheap too. Even with cushy developer salary NZ real estate cost is way too burdensome.
I worked remotely from Europe for about two months last year, and spent a few weeks in Spain. I just got a travel visa. It didn't even occur to me that it would be an issue. I think they're more worried about you overstaying your visa than working on your laptop. Just make sure you have a return ticket, or a train ticket out of every country you visit. I got grilled by the immigration guy in Ireland because I bought a flight to Dublin last minute and didn't have a flight back out. I'm not suggesting anyone knowingly break the law, just sharing my experience. Nobody gives a shit what you're doing on your laptop at Starbucks.
And raising local prices. I saw this happen over the years in some areas of Canada when they became more popular destinations for the US tourists. The result is not good for the majority of local folks.
Maybe, but the cost of living in Europe is already considerably higher than in the US (barring of course the popular but disingenuous comparisons between SF/NYC and rural Europe). I'm not an economist, but I wouldn't expect an influx of Americans to drive up the cost of anything except perhaps real estate. Moreover, I wouldn't expect a significant influx of Americans period--relocating to Europe would only be for the intersection of the very privileged, those interested in Europe, and those who have the flexibility to make the move. I'm sure there's some threshold at which too many people are visiting and it's causing problems; however, I'm only arguing that the current state is suboptimal for everyone (although someone else has pointed out that it may be easier to work remotely in Europe than I'm aware of).
> Maybe, but the cost of living in Europe is already considerably higher than in the US (barring of course the popular but disingenuous comparisons between SF/NYC and rural Europe).
Living costs in Europe are incredibly uneven, like they are in the states. Denmark is much more expensive than next door Netherlands, for example, which is actually quite reasonable (and perhaps Americans might even find it cheap outside of Amsterdam).
Note that they say cost of living excluding rent is 8% higher but that rents are lower—I don’t think their rent analysis is by area but rather by number of bedrooms. Typically rent per sq foot/meter/etc is much cheaper in the US than in European countries, and I would wager that it’s the same with Netherlands specifically.
> Wouldn't this be tax fraud to claim an address in US as your paycheck address and not actually live there?
It might be other forms of fraud, but not sure how you come to the conclusion it’s tax fraud. The US government doesn’t care where you live, as long as you are a citizen, you have to file and pay taxes owed (which admittedly, might not be as high as they normally would be if a resident under some circumstances). It doesn’t matter if you haven’t lived in the US for decades and work for a foreign company, unless you renounce your citizenship, the IRS wants their claws in it.
> ok i work 100% remote, can I claim my sisters address in Texas in texas for my payroll and actaully live in new york?
That’s an entirely different issue. Yes, New York state will likely take issue with the scenario you describe, but not at the federal level (what this thread is about). Further nobody, but you, was indicating lying about their address.
Reread their post again, there is no mention of lying about their address to their employer. Based on your other comments, it seems you assume that all employers wouldn’t maintain a salary if someone moves, which isn’t true (yes, it’s common for employers to adjust salaries for that reason, but it’s not an automatic given).
> anyone know if such an employer actually exists in US?
Yes. I’ve personally seen it happen multiple times at different employers, each with unique factors.
There are way to many factors at play here to make broad assumptions that no employer does it...
- first and foremost, Covid changed everything when it comes to remote salary norms
- Duration of move (some employers would be more lenient for 6-12mo vs permanent move)
- level of seniority (which correlates somewhat with how hard it is to replace said employee if employer says no)
- how long as the employee worked for employer (another factor in how much it impacts employer if employee moves anyway and goes to work for another company)
- how bad the employer wants to retain said employee (Multiple previous emplayers, big and small, have made exceptions for specific coworkers)
- it’s important enough to mention again, Covid changed everything.
> There are way to many factors at play here to make broad assumptions that no employer does it...
Yes you can make broad assumptions that almost no hr, payroll, legal dept of any company is setup to deal with taxes, labor laws ect across hundreds of different countries.
Yes exceptions exist.
> - it’s important enough to mention again, Covid changed everything.
No it didn't. Do you have even a single example of an employer thats allowing ppl work longterm from whichever country they please due to covid?
> Do you have even a single example of an employer thats allowing ppl work longterm from whichever country they please due to covid?
Yes, I do, but I’m not doing your research for you. You’ve been extremely combative and flat rude and incredulous this entire thread, so I’m stopping my participation. If you genuinely are in pursuit of knowledge and not to just pick random fights on the Internet, then I implore you to use a different approach.
Sorry I wasn't trying to be rude, yes I agree that my comment were indeed rude. I apologize to you.
I'll try to be better.
I did do my research but I havent found any company that,
1. Lets you move to any country
2. Adjusts your payroll to that country's address.
3. Doesn't adjust your compensation from what you were getting paid in USA.
I do know of some exceptions where people were allowed to move to a country where they already have a home office. One of my coworkers moved to Dublin and my company had a home office in Ireland. Some of my coworkers are also stuck in countries like India due to covid and HR allows them to work from there for now. But it is not any sort of company policy to let ppl work from a random country forever while maintaining their US salaries.
But the claim here is that you can move to any random country like Barbados.
In my case, a company called Pathable based out of Seattle, a company called Optify based out of Seattle, and a company called iCracked based out of San Francisco. I don't know what the heads of their HR departments would say if you asked them, but everyone I worked with was aware of my situation and no one ever questioned it.
I have worked for several small startups in Seattle and the bay area that didn't say anything about me being in Brazil, Thailand, and Belize. In each case I was earning around $120k/yr on salary.
Sorry, I replied to one of your other comments but didn't mention it here: no, I used my mom's address. I had all of my mail sent there, mostly lived in monthly rentals, and renewed my tourist visa whenever it was up. When I did go back to the US I stayed with my mom, and I kept most of my stuff there, so you could make a good faith argument that it was my primary residence (in the US).
I'm pretty sure the only gray area in this arrangement is "working in the US" while staying in another country on a tourist visa, but it's pretty ambiguous. I'm working for a US company and getting direct deposits to a US bank as a US citizen. If I am on a trip to another country and I sign into my company's VPN for a work-related video conference, and maybe fix some bugs, am I working illegally? Maybe, but immigration laws aren't really written with that scenario in mind.
This is a topic that frequently came up in conversations with ex-pats, since once you start doing this you'll end up meeting lots of other remote workers doing the same thing. On the one hand, you are injecting a lot of money from your home country into the local economy, which increases GDP and supports local businesses. On the other, you are using public services without paying taxes to the host country. In practice, you can't use services like universal healthcare or free education without being a legal resident, so it's debatable whether your presence is a net negative for the local economy. It's probably not legal, but like I said, the immigration laws don't take this scenario into account. I was forthright with all of the immigration officials I spoke to and all of them just kind of shrugged their shoulders and renewed my tourist visa anyway. I figured that some countries would start writing new legislation and creating new types of visas to take advantage of this scenario, and we can see this happening now.
If your question is "is this legal", the answer is "it's complicated, but probably not". If you're asking if it's possible to do this long term, the answer is yes, it's not only possible but pretty easy. I was able to do this for almost a decade with no issues whatsoever. I'm glad that some countries are starting to think about this, because I'd much rather live with confidence that my work situation is accounted for than have to wonder if my residence there is dependent on the interpretation of each individual in the immigration department.
Yea i know people who did this undere 'don't ask don't tell' policy. But the parallel comments here are claming that companies in US are setup to do foreign payroll, labor laws which I find really hard to believe.
Oh, I see. I do know that some fully remote startups do this. There was a blog post that made the front page here for a well known company outlining which countries their employees could live in and what the salary bands were. I can't remember who it was though. Maybe gitlab?
Yea that was gitlab ( there are a couple of others like mozilla ect). But they adjust your salary based on your location, like you mentioned.
claim here was that you continue to get 'cushy US salary' no matter which country and you get your payroll to the home address in that country. That sounds really hard to believe to me.
Having a US salary doesn’t imply claiming that I live in the US. It just means my employer continues to pay me my salary which is negotiated based on the US job market. I wouldn’t lie to anyone (my employer, the US government, nor the host government) about where I live.
If I was moving for the long term (whatever the legal requirement is for an address change), then I would report my new address. There is no requirement that a US company can only employ US residents to the best of my knowledge.
> There is no requirement that a US company can only employ US residents to the best of my knowledge.
I understand this, obviously. You seemed to have implied that you would still be paid 'cushy us salary' in ireland, thats what i am talking about. does your current employer still pay you US salary if you live in ireland?
I would love to work for such an employer, i want to move back to my home country and still keep my US salary.
> does your current employer still pay you US salary if you live in ireland?
Yes, but this varies by company, and is predicated on the assumption that the move wouldn’t interfere with my job performance. E.g., I would still work my normal US hours because my job requires some amount of communication with my team.
Most don't ask questions. In my case I used my mom's address and lived abroad. When you file your taxes and you've been outside of the US for most of the year, you get all of your federal withholding refunded. I'm sure this would not stand up to scrutiny, but I did it for eight years and never had any trouble.
Why would you need to claim a local US address? Previous poster seems to be willing to tell their company "I'm working from XYZ country; send my direct deposits to bank PDQ."
ok i read that as 'salary paid to a US resident' , then not sure what 'US salary' means. It would be 'Barbados salary' if they are getting paid in barbados.
I think op meant "salary on the range of the ones paid to US residents" as in working remotely to a US company and getting paid appropriate salary to do so.
I'm trying to see any disadvantages for countries that do this
One unintended consequence could be that while a country might get some foreign citizen remote workers, it would decrease the remote working opportunities of their own citizens.
E.g Spain might think "we'll get Americans to move here and do their U.S jobs" but what they actually get is, for example, Moroccans getting U.S jobs from Spain and more less chances of Spanish citizens getting U.S jobs.
I'm trying to see any disadvantages for countries that do this, but the only thing I came up with is the possibility of distorting local rental prices. But presumably if enough countries offered such a visa, applicants would be spread over those countries, causing less distortion.