[futhey]

Yeah. 90 days and 180 (sometimes 183) days are the magic numbers in most locations, that treat you as a non-resident or tourist. You still technically owe taxes abroad if you work any period of time abroad, but usually, if there is a formal process, it's much, much simpler for remote work on a short-term visa.

90 days is the magic number for almost all countries for the length of a single tourist visa.

The status quo though, is that almost no governments have legal frameworks for a digital nomad to work legally in a country (as a remote employee) on a 90-day tourist visa. Most look the other way for rich, western tourists not "taking jobs from local residents", if it comes up. They mostly use tourist services and the money which could be taxed never enters a local bank account.

I'm curious how AirBnB ends up solving this. Maybe they'll just contract a big consulting firm with broad international exposure to file taxes for each employee paid abroad. It definitely sounds like they're going to try and figure out how to pay taxes on behalf of employees in up to 170 countries, which, will be interesting to watch.

Hopefully some good comes of this.

[latch]

> almost no governments have legal frameworks for a digital nomad to work legally in a country

That's an ... interesting perspective. Put differently, most governments have a legal framework that prevents people from working on tourist visa.

[theshrike79]

I think these are historically for people coming into the country and working in the country at an actual brick and mortar place with actual local people.

If a someone is on a trip abroad and gets a call/email from a customer from another country, they are technically working. Would that require a work visa?

How many emails per day would require a work visa?

The world is changing and laws aren't really keeping up.

[7steps2much]

> If a someone is on a trip abroad and gets a call/email from a customer from another country, they are technically working. Would that require a work visa?

Depends on the country in question of course but many places have different visas:

- Visitor visas: Usually valid for only a couple of days / weeks and geared towards business travelers. These usually allow working in the country.

- Tourist Visas: Usually valid for weeks/months and geared towards tourists.

If you are on the first then working isn't a problem. If you are on the second then (as the name implies) it is kind of assumed that you are a tourist/on vacation and as such won't be doing any work at all.

So to answer your question: If you are on a trip (I interpret this as a couple of days at best) then you won't need a work visa. If you want to stay there for a while though then technically yes.

> The world is changing and laws aren't really keeping up.

Are they though? I think it is fair to say that if you are staying in a country for an extended period of time (longer than a visitor visa) they have a right to tax you.

[theshrike79]

So if I go abroad for two weeks with my family on a Tourist Visa and I respond to work emails and slack messages during the trip while the family is sleeping or resting after a hard day at the beach.

In your opinion the country would have the right to tax me, since I'm in the country on a Tourist Visa and I'm working?

[7steps2much]

Yes. That said, i do also believe that taxation would have to be fair. Assuming you spent less than ten hours on these mails in total that would mean you would "earn" so little that most likely you would have not earned enough to have to pay any tax anyways.

Not to mention that in a situation like this they probably wouldn't come after you anyways, but i think they should still have the right to.

Also please note: This stems mostly from my personal opinion of not doing work outside of work hours unless explicitly agreed to. If I am on a vacation i don't do work unless everything back home is collapsing in a pile of flaming garbage.

[futhey]

It is! There's nothing wrong with the current laws, they're just incomplete. 10-20 years ago, someone who wanted to work a bit while traveling, might have taken a low-end local job, or taught English, to make a little income on the side. So, governments decided how they wanted to handle that.

Now, I can have a US income deposited into a US bank account, and decide to temporarily move somewhere for 6-12 months, either with my employers permission, without, or as a freelancer who doesn't need to worry about this.

100% this breaks the rules of a tourist visa, yet it's commonplace. And most governments have no alternative visa. Not because they legitimately want to ban tourists from working for a couple of months from their overpriced AirBnB & spending money like a tourist, but because it's not yet addressed by most travel or immigration frameworks.