Anyone work remotely and live abroad?

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

I see someone mentioned Caribbean, you can certainly get a 1 year visa specifically for this in Barbados
I have been sort of semi thinking of trying it at work. Problem is the other half has to visit UK based customers and thats a hell of a commute.

We have places in the Us (actually a US company) closest would be Miami so not that far.

 

[Lopéz]

Yeah, starting to see that last part the more i look into it. I was speaking to my dad to see what he does as he's lived there a while and has residency, but he just gets paid in the UK, but he's a consultant and seems to just be hoping he gets away with it.

Stupid Brexiters!




British. My grandparents were from Yugoslavia and Transylvania so any hope of getting a passport there is going to be very difficult given they no longer exist in their own right!

My wife can get an Irish passport but that doesn't really help me.

It's a completely different situation for your dad - he was there before 31/12/20 I guess, and is therefore eligible to get official residency (5 or 10 years depending how long he has been there)

If he has NOT got his new Article 50 card then he's living extremely dangerously

 

[Lopéz]

I see someone mentioned Caribbean, you can certainly get a 1 year visa specifically for this in Barbados
I have been sort of semi thinking of trying it at work. Problem is the other half has to visit UK based customers and thats a hell of a commute.

We have places in the Us (actually a US company) closest would be Miami so not that far.

Bit of a hollow gesture when you take into account that Barbados is like the 12th most expensive country in the world to live in.

 

[englishpremier]

Bit of a hollow gesture when you take into account that Barbados is like the 12th most expensive country in the world to live in.

Most Caribbean countries are expensive. Even St Maarten where there's no tax on imports, is expensive. Then you are lucky if the supermarkets have the same product in stock two weeks in a row.

 

[Lopéz]

Most Caribbean countries are expensive. Even St Maarten where there's no tax on imports, is expensive. Then you are lucky if the supermarkets have the same product in stock two weeks in a row.

Exactly. Working on a UK wage and spending a year remotely on a Caribbean Visa sounds ace as a concept but the reality of it is pretty poor.

High prices, low standard of living, poor availability of pretty much every product and potentially having to work UK friendly hours.
Not all milk and honey.

 

[Martynt74]

It's a completely different situation for your dad - he was there before 31/12/20 I guess, and is therefore eligible to get official residency (5 or 10 years depending how long he has been there)

If he has NOT got his new Article 50 card then he's living extremely dangerously

Surely regardless though the same issue applies whereby he's "working" in Spain and therefore should be taxed accordingly or set up as an Autonomo rather than just not declaring it.

Then again, he's spent most of his life working abroad and avoiding tax so i don't think he's too bothered about trying to do things properly

 

[Uther]

Left field: Ireland is in the CTA so my understanding is you won't need a visa to live or work there. Irish citizenship after 3-5 years...

 

[Semple]

Very, if you have a British Passport.

As a British passport holder, you can no longer freely up and leave/work/stay in an EU country of your choice like you used to be able to get away with - now you have to register for residency, possibly obtain a visa or work permit and so on or you really do run a serious risk of immigration knocking at the door; also you really don't want an overstay marker on your passport or it's a world of pain further down the line.

The contractor/self employed route is a common one, although be warned that many countries specifically target this sort of activity as it's used by companies to surreptitiously bypass employment law for permanent workers.

The tax bit is the easiest part, social security contributions (both yours and your employers) are much harder.

Worth talking to a tax advisor who has experience with the Double Tax Treaty with the UK and Spain.

Presumably "getting away with it" long term is the challenge. Would any immigration officer come knocking on your door if you'd been there for say 60 or 90 days? If your job can be done solely with a laptop, then no-one would any the wiser whether you're there on a holiday or actually working. Obviously past those 90 or so days and suspicions start to get raised.

However, now if I wanted to leave my current place and get another Swiss role for example, they need to prove that there are no candidates in Switzerland, then EU and then rest of the world. We're now on the same level as indian workers when it comes to rights for visas.

I lol'd reading that, but i suppose that's one of the exact repercussions of Brexit. Presumably the UK has a similar thing for EU workers in areas where workers aren't needed (which is probably ironic at the moment as the labour market is screaming out for workers.

 

[Lopéz]

Presumably "getting away with it" long term is the challenge. Would any immigration officer come knocking on your door if you'd been there for say 60 or 90 days? If your job can be done solely with a laptop, then no-one would any the wiser whether you're there on a holiday or actually working. Obviously past those 90 or so days and suspicions start to get raised.

The difficulty with it is that now (post-Brexit) the ramifications for misdemeanours are significantly greater. If you are caught working or overstaying, then you are an illegal immigrant, and will be dealt with as such.

Pre-Brexit, this was not the case.

 

[Alibaba99]

Other things to be wary of is access to things like software licences. I work for a large engineering company which makes heavy use of licensed Fe software, and obviously these licences are accessible over our remote access software. If I'm travelling for work the T&Cs allow me to access the software remotely as I am only temporarily away from base, however if I decided to move down to a friends holiday home in the South of France for six months and work from there I would be breaking those agreements (as I now permanently based there) and would need locally purchased and located licences as most licensing terms require the licence server to be based in the same country as the worker.

Amusingly one of the pieces of software we use requires the users to be located a max of 20 miles from their normal site so many people working from home we breaking that one.

 

[Django x2]

A lot of the responses in here are complete nonsense, and people making huge (wrong) assumptions.

Let's say your company has supported a WFH policy (or hybrid workforce, ie, come in to the office twice a month). You can move to France, Spain, Italy and do your job and still be paid to a UK bank account with all relevant taxes deducted. It's up to you to source and sort foreign residency and bank accounts.

 

[Guest2]

A lot of the responses in here are complete nonsense, and people making huge (wrong) assumptions.

Let's say your company has supported a WFH policy (or hybrid workforce, ie, come in to the office twice a month). You can move to France, Spain, Italy and do your job and still be paid to a UK bank account with all relevant taxes deducted. It's up to you to source and sort foreign residency and bank accounts.

This sounds correct to me too.

I could have moved anywhere abroad 2 years ago, continued to get paid into UK bank account and company wouldnt have any idea. Similar to me doing a few days 'WHF' when i've travelled anywhere in UK. Some people work in other countries for weeks and get paid into their UK bank

 

[dowie]

Left field: Ireland is in the CTA so my understanding is you won't need a visa to live or work there. Irish citizenship after 3-5 years...

Yup you could move to Ireland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands pretty easily (if your employer was cool with it).

Might need to basically set up as a contractor + probably only suitable for certain types of work like IT etc.. if you're actually invovled in some sort of deal making, trading etc.. then it could get very messy if those things take place in a different country.

Let's say your company has supported a WFH policy (or hybrid workforce, ie, come in to the office twice a month). You can move to France, Spain, Italy and do your job and still be paid to a UK bank account with all relevant taxes deducted. It's up to you to source and sort foreign residency and bank accounts.

If I became resident in France for a few years do you reckon they'd be happy with me not paying any tax there? Do you not think they might want the equivalent of national insurance contributions from my employer too?

What happens to any business dealings too? They've been conducted from France not the UK....

Or likewise, can I set up a company in some other country with no or low min wage rules and employ people from that country (say Bulgaria) to work in the UK? It's all cool because it's my Bulgarian entity that is employing them and they're being paid into their Bulgarian bank accounts even though they've come to work in the UK?

 

[dowie]

This sounds correct to me too.

I could have moved anywhere abroad 2 years ago, continued to get paid into UK bank account and company wouldnt have any idea. Similar to me doing a few days 'WHF' when i've travelled anywhere in UK. Some people work in other countries for weeks and get paid into their UK bank

I'm not sure that the idea you might be able to get away with it (at least as far as your company is concerned) is necessarily a good argument that it is "correct". I'd suspect the tax authorities in the location you move to might want a word too depending on how long you intend to stay.

 

[Guest2]

I'm not sure that the idea you might be able to get away with it (at least as far as your company is concerned) is necessarily a good argument that it is "correct". I'd suspect the tax authorities in the location you move to might want a word too depending on how long you intend to stay.

Suppose you're right if it's a long holiday (and you still have a UK address for the company) rather than permenant move.
Yes RE the tax. Im sure if you bought abroad they would come asking for tax along with anything else depending on country.

Maybe just move abroad for a really long holiday, a few years

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Bit of a hollow gesture when you take into account that Barbados is like the 12th most expensive country in the world to live in.

Well yeah sure, I mean its the opportunity and it comes at some cost, broadly they say around 20% higher cost of living, but significantly cheaper acomodation than London
Thing is some things are really expensive as they local do far less of them, many things are similar, others cheaper.

Like many places, but agree these islands are extreme, if you insist on buying walkers crisps, living in a 6 bedroom ex plantation house etc its going to be expensive.
If you eat closer to the locals it will be cheaper, massively, and if you live outside the "cities" likewise

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Barbados?displayCurrency=GBP

Then you are lucky if the supermarkets have the same product in stock two weeks in a row.

Have you been shopping in the UK supermarkets recently?

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Suppose you're right if it's a long holiday (and you still have a UK address for the company) rather than permenant move.
Yes RE the tax. Im sure if you bought abroad they would come asking for tax along with anything else depending on country.

Maybe just move abroad for a really long holiday, a few years

I think generally most countries will allow 6 months max and then you must register for and pay local taxes.

 

[Cooler running]

The most common way I know to get into it would be taking an office job where the staff enjoy fairly high freedom, work there for a year or so, then request to go remote.
There are also plenty of remote only teams, but getting a well paying job like that can be difficult, as you tend to be competing with people who can either lie or undercut you pay wise living abroad.

 

[Lopéz]

A lot of the responses in here are complete nonsense, and people making huge (wrong) assumptions.

Let's say your company has supported a WFH policy (or hybrid workforce, ie, come in to the office twice a month). You can move to France, Spain, Italy and do your job and still be paid to a UK bank account with all relevant taxes deducted. It's up to you to source and sort foreign residency and bank accounts.

This is completely incorrect.

 

[Sui]

A lot of the responses in here are complete nonsense, and people making huge (wrong) assumptions.

Let's say your company has supported a WFH policy (or hybrid workforce, ie, come in to the office twice a month). You can move to France, Spain, Italy and do your job and still be paid to a UK bank account with all relevant taxes deducted. It's up to you to source and sort foreign residency and bank accounts.

Unfortunately it's definitely not that simple. There's a reason why this is a massive topic amongst the big 4, and that's not because it's simple. There is potential for massive ramifications for the company you wo if you start working in another country for a longer period of time.

Remote working is not the same as working from abroad.