Consigliere
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If i was to pop away for a couple of weeks though to say, Spain, this would be ok if i worked remote?
Anyone work remotely and live abroad?
- Thread starter Martynt74
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Probably, yeah. I mean if you were in the position where it wouldn’t be you’d likely already know.
2 years ago you were an EU citizen and within reason could pretty much live and work where you wanted within the EU - tax legalities and so on you can probably consider as secondary to the primary issue which is "Am I allowed to physically live and work in this country"
You are no longer an EU citizen, therefore you have lost this access to free movement.
Blocker number 1 for all these remote working scenarios :
As a British citizen, you are not permitted to spend more than 90 days of any 180 day period in a Schengen country.
This is a non - negotiable without a residency permit or visa.
Non starter. It's illegal immigration, forget any small fry around possible tax complications.
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Is there anything stopping someone move to another country (or over a boarder) for a day then go back?
In Thailand I went over the boarder (3 times), to get a passport stamp for different country then went back. There were even coach trips that went over boarders to get passports stamped quickly (small fee i seem to recall)
In reality you could probably get away with working remotely upto 90 days. As I said in my earlier post, presumably after the 90 days you'd have someone from immigration checking why you haven't left the country yet.
I don't think that will help (at least in Europe) - the 90/180 is across the whole Schengen zone I believe - not just individual countries.
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True but Spain doesn't recognise dual citizenship with the UK. So with a British passport he's not an EU citizen and has to comply with their immigration rules.
Edit: at least that's how I understand it just now, and I could be wrong
Maybe sack off the Schengen zone. No-one likes brits in EU countries now anyway and it sounds like they will only make it harder for people to stay/travel there.
WFH... in Fiji
Soldato
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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.
Soldato
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True but Spain doesn't recognise dual citizenship with the UK. So with a British passport he's not an EU citizen and has to comply with their immigration rules.
Edit: at least that's how I understand it just now, and I could be wrong
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.
Now separately when travelling around the Schengen zone, if you are British for example, and your spouse is Irish, you can travel with her over and beyond the usual limits for Brits. Better not get into an argument though as if she leaves, you could theoretically be deported.
I'm not sure why you mentioned Spain's recognition of dual citizenship. That is neither here nor there in the replies I have made. You are right though in that Spain only recognises dual Spanish and another citizenship in certain circumstances. However that doesn't really matter. For example if an American took Spanish citizenship, Spain would would ask them to sign something saying they renounce their US citizenship, but since US and many other citizenships cannot be legally renounced like this, it doesn't matter.
It's the same for driving licences. If you take a Spanish driving licence you need to swear you don't hold one from another country, but DGT has no knowledge whether you do hold one elsewhere or not, and whilst they could theoretically check in some circumstances, they are unlikely to do, or even get a response back if they do.
There's also the 90 days in any 180 limit. It's not just 90 days in isolation.
Soldato
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Yep, this is true. I know people who have been asked to prove it as well with travel receipts and everything. They just fell inside by 1-2 days in the end. That was more luck than anything else as he had no idea before they asked him
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!
In my experience, (admittedly pre brexit) no one cares at all about 90 days etc unless you want to draw on the public services of the country you are in. After which its a massive can of worms with little middle ground.
I was a digital nomad for a few years, living in short term accommodation mostly but one 12 month lease. I kept paying self employed taxes in the UK (it's basically a tax haven so not too much of a problem) and didn't pay any attention to number of days etc. Who is going to pull you up on this? really?
All screwed now of course.
I was a digital nomad for a few years, living in short term accommodation mostly but one 12 month lease. I kept paying self employed taxes in the UK (it's basically a tax haven so not too much of a problem) and didn't pay any attention to number of days etc. Who is going to pull you up on this? really?
All screwed now of course.
Soldato
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Well in Mexico if you over stay your 6 month visa, you only get a small fine. So whilst you can border hop. Many don't bother if they are only going to be staying for a year. Easier to pay the fine.
It's similar within the EU. An EU citizen can only stay in another EU country for 3 months before they must become resident. However there is nothing to qualify that, It's not 3 months out of a period of 180 or anything like that. Just a continuous 3 months. So you could stay for 85 days in Spain, then hop across the border to Portugal for a short break, then return, and your 3 months starts again. This why most countries just turn a blind eye to EU nationals living within their borders.
In France its even less enforceable as unlike most EU countries, an EU national moving/living in France does not even have register the fact they are living there.
Indeed - the key part of that being "pre-Brexit".
Countries are not overly bothered about this stuff within the EU, because of reciprocal social security arrangements - tax comes behind this.
Now that we are not part of the EU, this no longer exists - we are out of the game, out of the club and out of any blind-eye turning.
Soldato
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This ain't correct. Or, at least, you are not going to be complying with local legislation if you do this. Your taxation status and other rules related to employment such as mandatory health insurance, pension, etc. are determined by residence not where you work. In terms of your income tax, this is no big deal, you just get paid the full amount and sort it out; but most European countries have mandatory employers contributions to stuff and that's an altogether bigger problem for the employer. Mind you, my wife worked for a UK university for over a year after we moved here and they never actually sorted out what was supposed to happen with all that, she just kept getting bounced around by the bureaucracy until she got a job over here and then we just sort of forgot about it and no-one cared since she'd paid the income tax over here.
I work for a US company from here in Germany; I'm okay because I'm contractor so I just register as self employed, declare my income and pay taxes here and all is good. But if the German bureaucracy decided that I was Scheinselbständigkeit (fake self-employed, the German equivalent of IR35 rules) then things would get difficult.