united-states employment tax-law extraterritorial-jurisdiction
Are US employees able to work remotely while abroad?
<p>There has been an increase in employees working remotely while abroad, especially during/after COVID. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-remote-workers-secretly-working-abroad-without-boss-knowing-2022-10" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Sometimes without telling their bosses</a>. Is it legal for US employees to work (for a US company) remotely in another country for an extend period (a year or longer)? (Assume that the host country doesn't have any special laws that forbid foreigners from working remotely.)</p>

<p>I've done it, I know a number of people who have done it. There's no general rule regarding employer-employee relations – if you have to physically clock in, then basically no, if you don't do job you can get fired and the employer might require you to be physically present in a certain location. Whether or not it is legal to &quot;work&quot; in another country depends on the laws of that country, but there is no recurring law to the effect that you cannot &quot;do work&quot; while in a foreign country without a work permit or the like. There <em>is</em> a general rule that you have to be permitted to reside in a country, if you intend to reside in a country, so a US citizen cannot generally pick an arbitrary country and decide that they want to live there for a couple of years, without asking permission from the host government.</p>
<p>There can be a complex relationship between the premise for getting a long-term visa to reside for a year in another country, and the rationale for that stay, for example a student coming to the US for the purpose of study cannot decide that instead they want to work as a car salesman. A scam whereby you claim to be a student in some local college when in fact you are working remotely for a call center would run afoul of immigration laws as well. The main consideration is whether you are present in the country under one pretense but in fact are doing something very different, which may then be illegal, but that depends on the country-particular laws.</p>
<p>Since you are not employed in that country, you (probably) are not subject to taxation of your regular income (i.e. if I go to Norway for a year and receive my US salary, I will not have to also pay Norwegian income tax on the US salary).</p>

<p>A generic answer will be impossible. Some of the possible pitfalls:</p>
<ul>
<li>Bring your own device or company-owned hardware?<br />
The company might have something to say about taking their hardware abroad.</li>
<li>What software is used? Crypto for VPN?<br />
The US has regulations on the export of certain software, which could become an issue if you take the devices into certain countries.</li>
<li>What data is used from abroad?<br />
There may be compliance requirements to safeguard data, which might be broken by working from abroad.</li>
</ul>
