WFH - From Abroad - Why not?

willhub

willhub

willhub

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With the technological capability its clear that we could Work from home - WFH and not be in the UK with no detriment to the employer.

A few years ago a college of mine was actually working from home, or rather, from Lisbon, and everyone was non the wiser, they knew they'd need to be back in the office at some point so took that into account.

However, going forward, why can employers not take employees work-life into account and accept that working from abroad with a UK salary would greatly improve employee's mental health and wellbeing.

Is it the tax implications? Maybe in the future we'll progress towards it?

I think the flight costs would be cheaper than a weekly train 112 miles from the North East of the UK to Manchester for me if I were the re-locate from the north west.
 
Reciprocal Tax Agreements

It's much harder now that we've left the EU but it can be done. It requires your employer to do additional work which they may be reluctant about. I'm not sure full time remote working is really here to stay. A remote worker may be able to do their job perfectly well remotely, but their skills\network will develop more slowly. And a big challenge for me is getting the experience and knowledge out of senior colleagues and into the juniors. That happens much more organically with face time 1-2 times a week. You're contributing less to the culture and development of the team when working remotely.
 
It can be done. Similarly, a colleague worked from Gran Canaria for a couple of months during peak COVID. However, most employers won't permit that in my sector and require some commitment to office attendance. Just need to find yourself an employer and contract which will permit it. I suspect our government wouldn't like it either as we'd be spending the majority of our income offshore.
 
The problem in many cases is that your employer can think, if this job can be done from anywhere then why not outsource it to somewhere like India and get it done a lot cheaper.

People have tried to do this at our place and while they’ve sometimes got short-term exemptions, I’ve definitely heard tax mentioned as a blocker.
 
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My employer allows us to work from abroad for up to four weeks a year (for a maximum of two weeks at a time). I assume the limit is for tax reasons.

However, there’s an approved list of countries we can work from. The banned list includes countries you’d expect but also some you wouldn’t (e.g. Republic of Korea). I assume it’s to do with local data laws that could put our intellectual property at risk.
 
My employer cites security concerns for not allowing this.

People have had disciplinary action for taking their lappy abroad without management sign-off.

There is one person in my organisation who is based abroad- that was agreed by a former manager (who was "asked to leave" after a number of bizarre decisions).
 
jeffk said:
My employer allows us to work from abroad for up to four weeks a year (for a maximum of two weeks at a time). I assume the limit is for tax reasons.

However, there’s an approved list of countries we can work from. The banned list includes countries you’d expect but also some you wouldn’t (e.g. Republic of Korea). I assume it’s to do with local data laws that could put our intellectual property at risk.
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Pretty much this I imagine.
 
Diddums said:
No reason not to tbh.
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There are a whole raft of reasons why you can't easily work abroad.

If you are spending significant time in another country then you will be considered to be employed in that country which brings in tax, holidays, health care, maternity / paternity and other implications. This isn't straight forward if the company actually has an office in that country, and very difficult if there is no presence. Depending on how software is licensed then you could well be breaking the terms by using a UK regional licence outside the country. The data you work with could have export restrictions so it may be impossible to effectively work outside the UK and this also puts a further load on other colleagues who could inadvertently export something by putting up images during a presentation or emailing something to you without realising that you aren't in the country,
 
Murf said:
Reciprocal Tax Agreements

It's much harder now that we've left the EU but it can be done. It requires your employer to do additional work which they may be reluctant about. I'm not sure full time remote working is really here to stay. A remote worker may be able to do their job perfectly well remotely, but their skills\network will develop more slowly. And a big challenge for me is getting the experience and knowledge out of senior colleagues and into the juniors. That happens much more organically with face time 1-2 times a week. You're contributing less to the culture and development of the team when working remotely.
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Agree with second part. It's been frustrating trying to tell some young people this (but some are wise to it and flourish). You do better being in the office there is no getting around it. You're part of conversations that are more natural, you're part of the drinks and culture where things are shared, innovation is significantly more productive where you can quickly write something on a wall and have someone critique it instantly. You get to know senior leadership get guidance etc.

For me it's a no brainer. And if people don't like it then really my line of work you're really not going to get along with.

If you work in a dead end role, or administration etc and want nothing more then fine. But even in my experience I've seen people (hard though it I'd but impossible without having networked etc) jump over those barriers by being able to be part of something.
 
willhub said:
With the technological capability its clear that we could Work from home - WFH and not be in the UK with no detriment to the employer.

A few years ago a college of mine was actually working from home, or rather, from Lisbon, and everyone was non the wiser, they knew they'd need to be back in the office at some point so took that into account.

However, going forward, why can employers not take employees work-life into account and accept that working from abroad with a UK salary would greatly improve employee's mental health and wellbeing.

Is it the tax implications? Maybe in the future we'll progress towards it?

I think the flight costs would be cheaper than a weekly train 112 miles from the North East of the UK to Manchester for me if I were the re-locate from the north west.
Click to expand...

I'm currently doing it as living in Spain and working for a company in the UK.

A lot of European countries now offer "Digital Nomad Visas" which give you the right to live there whilst working remotely. This is crucial since Brexit. You'd pay tax in that specific country and it's usually renewed every few years up to a maximum of 5 (in the case of Spain) at which point you could apply for permanent residency.

I wouldn't want to do it without telling my employer though. Essentially you'd be trying to work on a tourist visa which would be illegal if caught.
 
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Martynt74 said:
I'm currently doing it as living in Spain and working for a company in the UK.

A lot of European countries now offer "Digital Nomad Visas" which give you the right to live there whilst working remotely. This is crucial since Brexit. You'd pay tax in that specific country and it's usually renewed every few years up to a maximum of 5 (in the case of Spain) at which point you could apply for permanent residency.

I wouldn't want to do it without telling my employer though. Essentially you'd be trying to work on a tourist visa which would be illegal if caught.
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Does paying tax there give you a right to a pension and healthcare in the country?
 
I really doubt it. That'll be the reason it's popular/profitable for the issuing country. They're earning free tax revenue and not having to pay any overheads for it. Pretty sure you'll need private heath insurance.

Pension... There's a minimum consecutive year/ammount to be paid to most to be eligible...I doubt it comes near it in 5 years?
 
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Uther said:
Does paying tax there give you a right to a pension and healthcare in the country?
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No. If you're here on a nomad visa you need to have health insurance (at least for a year), as you're not classed as resident. Pension i'm not sure of, but i don't think so.

If you're officially classed as Tax Resident then you pad into the social seguridad (effectively the same as NI) and yes, you are then entitled to pension/healthcare.
 
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my old company allowed it in rare circumstances.... it wasnt ideal then as even those who worked from home generally still had to come in a couple of days a month for meetings. it would be more doable now i guess now we are all used to zoom etc.

my current company it isnt allowed due to a complex tax agreement which i wont even pretend to understand. our parent company EMBL has tax agreement with all the countries they have outstations with and apparently are not allowed to have staff working in a different country than where they are based..... this was relaxed for 3 years over covid but is back in force now.
 
Work patterns were definitely changing but this has been sped up by the pandemic. Working abroad is a problem for your employer as mentioned by several people. Brexit has certainly made this a lot harder for Brits although it is still possible.

I'm not convinced by the argument that everyone has to be in the office. For a couple of decades now I have worked almost exclusively from the UK but with teams located in multiple countries. However, for a mostly UK based company there are definitely advantages to being in the office. I have found that a hybrid model works best for me where my immediate team are in the office two to three days a week and at home the rest of the time. We all agree the same day to be in. So we get the benefits of being in the office together while still having the flexibility of "remote" (home) working. Nevertheless, there are quite a few people in my current company that are 100% full time remote workers. I would guesstimate around 10% of the company is fully remote and it works absolutely fine. The vast majority of these people do work in the same country as their designated office though, with only a few people working from a country different to their office location.

When looking for a very niche set of skills recently I considered allowing the role to be fully remote. It meant I had a much wider, and cheaper, pool of people to choose from. So if you want to work fully remote from a different location then you need to ask yourself what is it about you that makes it worth your employer choosing you over someone who can work in the office. It might be that you have skills they can't replace or find elsewhere. It might be that you have a lot of experience in the company that they don't want to lose. But if your role is fairly generic then you might have a hard time justifying a fully remote role and if you do justify it then you will also have to justify why they can't then replace you with someone in a much cheaper location.
 
European digital nomad visas have been mentioned a few times. Here is a list of the current European countries offering it.

n26.com

The New Way to Work: Discover Which Countries In Europe Offer a Digital Nomad Visa

European governments are offering digital nomad visas to attract remote workers to their countries. But where are digital nomad visas available? How much do they cost? And how long can you stay? Find out in our updated 2023 guide!
n26.com

But do bear in mind that this simply helps the worker live and work legally abroad. It doesn't absolve the employer of possible tax liabilities in that country.

The digital nomad subreddit r/digitalnomad is quite useful too.
 
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