Anyone work remotely and live abroad?

[Martynt74]

We've talked for years about moving towards the coast one day before trying to take an early retirement abroad somewhere.

My wife has worked remotely for ages and my new firm are very good and aren't in a rush to return to office working.

We had considered places like Lytham/North Wales (Porthmadog etc), but in the last month or so we've debated further afield like Spain. My parents live over there and mentioned one of their friends kids worked remotely for a London based firm and recently had moved into their friends basement as a trial which seemed to be going well.

My wife mentioned it to her boss who seems fine with the idea, and i mentioned it on a call with mine who didn't shoot it down and actually saw some benefits as my hours would coincide with our German colleagues and i therefore could support them in the first hour of the day before the UK normally come online.

We'd not be moving for another 2 years or so as our daughter is doing an apprenticeship so would want to be here to support her through that, but once that's done i think we'd look to make the move as she'll be 22 by then and her salary should increase enough to rent somewhere.

Obviously Brexit has made things difficult, but i seem to be able to get an extended Visa for Spain beyound the 90 days out of 180 so that we could spend a decent 6/12 months to make sure it was right for us.

Just wondering if anyone else has considered this so i can get as much research in as possible. Obviously there'll be elements where i'll need to get professional advice around income tax etc as not sure if we still have the double tax treaty with Spain or how that all works.

 

[Martynt74]

You need to formally ask your companies HR dept. if they support it. It has large ramifications on their payroll in terms of managing income tax especially now after Brexit (which is entirely separate from the VISA).

My company officially doesn't support it.

Ah ok, cheers. I hadn't been aware of this. I had just thought i'd be paid as normal in the UK but then pay any additional income tax in Spain that was over and above what i'd have paid in the UK.

I've only been here 3 months so not going to rock the boat too early with these questions given it's a few years away at best. We are a large international company though and i know we have people working internationally so hopefully it is something they'd allow.

Annoyingly we don't have an entity in Spain or i could've just been employed by them and re-charged! Perhaps they could employ me in Germany/Ireland which would be within the EU, although not sure how much hassle that would be for them.

 

[Martynt74]

Edit: if there was a Spanish entity don't doubt they'd switch you to a Spanish salary

Haha quite possibly, but given i work within the group level i'd hope not!

 

[Martynt74]

They'd have to open a Spanish office and pay the various Spanish social security taxes.

The alternative would be for you to be a contractor and setup in Spain as an autónomo. Either way you'd be taxed where you did the work. Spain is a terrible place for business. Taxes are higher, allowances are lower, and in the case of self employed it's a straight €200-300 a month in social security whether you make any money or not. There is a discount though for the first 18 months.

All that being said, if you just wanted to try it out, Spain or some regions at least are rolling out a remote working visa. This allows you 12 months in Spain working remotely. IIRC though it's aimed at getting people to live in smaller towns and villages since they suffer with people moving to Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia looking for work.

Man, might have to give up on this. Great information though. Thanks.

Will see how things settle in the next 2 years i guess, maybe another country maybe easier.

We would be looking at somewhere quieter. My parents live around an hour south of Valencia and we'd be looking about an hour north in a town called Peniscola. Nothing to do with being immature about the name

 

[Martynt74]

How complex is it to "get away with it"?

I don't doubt for a second half of my Italian/Spanish colleagues have fully taken the **** and effectively "moved home" and work there without making a song and dance out of it quite quietly. Is the reverse possible?

I guess it'd depend on whether we could get a long term visa without having a job.

My parents have become Spanish residents, maybe i could try and blag i need to look after them in their old age

 

[Martynt74]

Is buying them a mega-mansion that you visit regularly an option?

Not financially for me. Maybe for them though!

They just spent around £200k on renovating their house over there, i spent ages trying to get them to build a self contained "granny flat" instead but they were having none of it. That would've been ideal!

My dad also seems to have got determined to blow through as much money as possible in the last few years too. He's currently talking about spending around £7k on a damn carport!

 

[Martynt74]

Cheers all, i do love this place for advice on stuff!

Think my plan will be to give it 6 months once i'm well out of probation and then drop our HR team a message just to see what they say about possibilities.

 

[Martynt74]

I'm sure you have but worth discussing it properly with your daughter, make sure you are all on the same page about renting in case she had plans to stay at home a bit longer to save for a deposit. Once you start renting it becomes a lot harder.

Yeah. We’ve mentioned it with her already and said we’re here if she needs us. She’s pretty good at saving already and we’ve also got money aside to help with a deposit if she does decide to get somewhere straight away.

If not for her I think we’d be on our way already! Damn kids

 

[Martynt74]

Maybe i need to re-think Spain. Was looking at our groups global reach and Spain is pretty much the only place we don't have a presence

Maybe the South of France could be a way forward. I could see myself living here!
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/79588566#/?channel=OVERSEAS

 

[Martynt74]

Having a presence is one thing, having a permanent establishment is another

I would imagine in our business it'd be one and the same as we tend to sell into local markets and are effectively a software investment company hoovering up small software companies in local niche markets. I work at a group level doing consolidation so my salary is recharged to all the local entities.

Although as mentioned it's just something i'll need to look into more. This thread was more an early fishing inquiry as a lot of stuff online is either outdated or companies offering snippets of info with the hope of future business.

 

[Martynt74]

I'd look at being further abroad than the EU. A number of countries now offer remote working visas and low tax rates including some in the Caribbean and others in Eastern Europe. I think even Hawaii was looking at something.

I think distance from family would rule out some of those places. Spain/Europe is good for short cheap flights for kids visiting for the weekend etc.



For those with knowledge, hypothetically. If i was employed by a German company and then applied for residency in Spain. Presumably that would remove any UK based links and Spain wouldn't have any issues due to it being EU based?

Or is it just the same deal where you'd effectively be a freelance worked in Spain? So not really any different.

 

[Martynt74]

You aren't allowed to freely *live* in any of those countries though, you're still British.....

The big stumbling block in all of this isn't so much where you live and where you work, it's *you* as the individual - you're a British citizen, so you have the hurdle of trying to be employed in Germany where you are a 3CN, and trying to apply for residence in Spain where you are a 3CN.

For British people, stuff like this post-Brexit is either extremely difficult now if not just plain impossible.

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!

What passport do you have? If it's UK you still need a visa that permits work, sponsorship by your company or buy a property >500,000Euros. In simple terms anyway

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.

 

[Martynt74]

I think we're going to apply for that, as you say. It helps for other factors too.

I'm also curious as through my Grandad (Transylvanian) i can apply for Romanian citizenship. That should help me too providing i can find his birth records which may or may not be doable!

 

[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

 

[Martynt74]

This is different. In those cases it's about your right to stay in the country. I know people who do it in the US / Mexico and that, but when it comes to the UK it's about where you pay your tax.

There's also the 90 days in any 180 limit. It's not just 90 days in isolation.

 

[Martynt74]

The part of my post you quoted is about his wife gaining EU citizenship. In this case Irish. If she were to move to Spain, fill out an EX18 form, prove she has €7,500 (of whatever the limit is) and take up residence, he could then piggy back on her residence to gain Spanish residence himself without having to go through the usual third country visa process.

I guess this is where i need to do more reading. I had (perhaps foolishly), assumed i'd easily be able to apply for an extended Visa and be granted it, even as a UK citizen. The only issue i thought i was contending with was the Taxation side of things!

 

[Martynt74]

Just as an update. I had a call with a Spanish Gestoria yesterday.

Confirmed that being an EU citizen would make life a lot easier. My wife is going to crack on with applying for an Irish citizenship. I'm struggling to find any old documents for my Grandad and with only a name, DOB and rough location i imagine it's going to be difficult locating someone who left Romania in the 40's! Fortunately it seems that as long as one of us is from the EU then it's not too bad.

From a job point of view. He confirmed that the simple double tax treaty thing wouldn't work as people have mentioned in here. He talked me through the process of becoming an Autonomo (Self employed) and any vat/tax implications around that. The main issue would be with my wife becoming an Autonomo. It seems there's a minimum social security payment of ~€280 a month for anyone registered as Autonomo (There are reductions for the first few years), with my wife only working ~20 hours a week earning around £1k at the moment then this would wipe out a lot of her salary and we'd have to question if it was worthwhile. I did question whether i could invoice her company through myself but doesn't seem likely. Something for us to think about anyway.

As for the company needing to be registered in Spain, they didn't seem to agree that was necessary and were happy for me to be Spanish resident and just invoice a UK business (No vat for an individual invoicing a business which was another worry i had that i'd lose 21% straight away!). He suggested there was nothing like IR35 over there and being an Autonomo it's ok to work for 1 or multiple companies. This is a relief as it was a big stumbling block for me.



Still early days yet, and i've got the email of someone my parents know who's done virtually exactly as we want to do so i'm going to message him later on and see how he's done things.

 

[Martynt74]

Pretty much exactly as I said

Haha yeah, just seemed to be a lot of conflicting info in here and so was keen to try and confirm everything one way or another

It's looking more than do-able. Now for the long wait until we can properly start moving forward. Currently pulled down all my cd's from the loft and in the process of adding them to Discogs for cataloguing for selling. Some seem to be worth more than the token 50p i was expecting which is nice!

I hadn't realised the social security was tax deductible so that's a bonus i suppose. Still need to decide what's best for my wife as at the moment she's only just above the personal allowance and so doesn't pay much tax. €300 a month is a hefty increase. I guess it's just part of what needs to be done though. Maybe she could look for a payroll job with a Spanish Gestoria at some point!

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Martynt74]

Sorry, was doing a lot of cut and past, and so the post above was a mess. Cleaned it up a little.

I didn't realise SS was tax deductible either until recently. It's still a fair amount to pay out though if only earning a small income.

Personal allowance in Spain is less than half that in the UK.

Yeah, it's tempting for the small amount to just keep her registered in the UK as normal and hope it's not investigated. Not exactly the right thing to do, but you would hope that with me earning enough in Spain it could be overlooked, especially with her being an EU citizen.

I guess the other thing i'd need to consider is mortgage acceptance with being an Autonomo. Hopefully the fact i'd essentially be a fixed term external contractor would be enough for proof of that as a regular income though.

Also need to consider that since we'd still be British citizens, i could do with looking into whether it's worth continuing to top up my UK pension as i'll be some way short of the 35 years contributions. Hopefully i shouldn't need them, but always good to have that safety net. or whether i'll then move onto the Spanish system with paying their SS.

 

[Martynt74]

That's really great news that Spain doesn't have the same "Fake self-employed" scenario like you have in Germany and Austria - makes your life (and that of your Company) a lot easier!

Maybe since dividends are taxed the same as income (i think), there's less tax avoidance through those kind of setups so no need to clamp down on it.