Working remotely for your home employer from abroad

What your employer has to work out

"Let me check" is the usual first answer when you ask to keep your job from another country, and it is rarely a refusal. Four separate questions sit behind it, each with a different official body.

• Payroll tax: whether withholding at home continues, and whether the new country expects any.
• Social security: which country's contributions apply, and whether a certificate stops the same pay being charged twice.
• Taxable presence: whether your working from home abroad gives the company a permanent establishment there.
• Employment law: whose rules protect you once you work from there.

This is written for employees of US, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand employers. [T1] [M2] [T4] [P1]

Payroll withholding at home, and possibly abroad

A US employer must generally keep withholding US income tax from a US citizen's pay while the citizen works abroad, unless foreign law requires it to withhold foreign income tax. One route stops it. If it is reasonable to believe you will exclude your wages under the foreign earned income exclusion, the employer need not withhold, and a statement from you such as Form 673 is enough. It must keep withholding if it has reason to believe you will not qualify.

A Canadian employer treats CPP, EI and income tax separately. CPP is deducted if you usually report for work at the employer's Canadian place of business, or if you are a Canadian resident paid from there. EI applies when the employer is in Canada, you usually live in Canada and the work is not insurable where it is done. On income tax the CRA says only that the employer "may have to deduct".

An Australian resident employer is not exempt from the super guarantee because an employee works outside Australia. If the foreign pay is not exempt, which is limited to certain kinds of work, the employer withholds under the usual PAYG rules. It can reduce the amount by foreign tax it withheld and paid to a foreign government, where it has a withholding obligation there.

For a New Zealand employer with a resident employee overseas, no position is published; ask Inland Revenue directly. Whether the country you move to expects a foreign employer to register or withhold depends on that country's law and any tax treaty. [T1] [T2] [T3]

Social security and certificates of coverage

A US employee moving to Mexico, Costa Rica, Thailand or Malaysia has no certificate of coverage to request, because the Social Security Administration's list of agreements does not include any of them. Whether the country then asks a foreign employer for contributions is a question for its own social security body.

The reason a certificate matters is that US coverage extends to American citizens and resident non-citizens employed abroad by American employers, however long the assignment, while most countries charge contributions on anyone working in their territory. The IRS lists working for an American employer among the cases where these taxes apply abroad. Totalization agreements assign coverage to one country, and a certificate of coverage is the proof. The list includes Italy, Spain, France and Portugal. The agreements generally cover "detached workers" on assignments expected to last 5 years or less; the Italy agreement has no such rule.

Canada and Australia use the same tool. An employer sending an employee to work temporarily in an agreement country can ask the CRA for a certificate, should intend to resume the employment in Canada afterwards, and a permanent transfer is not a detachment. Each agreement caps the length. For Australia, apply before the employee leaves, and the employer promises to keep paying super guarantee contributions in Australia.

All of these assume an employer that sends someone abroad. Not published; ask the agency whether a move you start yourself qualifies. The request is your employer's to file, before you leave. [M1] [M2] [M3] [M4] [T1]

The permanent establishment question

Fifty per cent of working time is the line the OECD draws for a home. A permanent establishment is a taxable presence of a company in another country, and if your home counts as one, part of the company's profits can become taxable there. The OECD Model Tax Convention is the template most tax treaties follow, and the treaty between your employer's country and the new one is what applies. In November 2025 the OECD Council approved an update to the Commentary on Article 5, adding paragraphs 44.1 to 44.21 on working from home across a border.

An employee using a place for the company's work should not automatically make it the company's place of business. A home used for less than 50 per cent of working time over twelve months would generally not be one. At 50 per cent or more, the facts decide, and a prominent consideration is whether the company has a commercial reason for the work being done in that country, such as meetings with customers there. Letting someone work from home solely to keep them, or to save on office costs, is not one.

Most people who relocate work from home well above 50 per cent, so the commercial reason is what matters. The OECD examples run both ways. An employee at home abroad 60 per cent of the time, serving clients remotely and visiting one each quarter, is not a permanent establishment. An employee at home almost exclusively, serving customers in other time zones so as to be available around the clock, is one.

The Commentary is guidance on a model, and at least one member country has recorded a reservation to the new paragraphs. Whether the tax authorities of the countries covered here have published their own positions is a question for the employer's tax adviser. [T4] [T5]

Employment law where you work

Your contract probably names the law of your employer's home country. For courts in EU countries, Regulation 593/2008 says that choice cannot deprive the employee of protection under provisions that cannot be departed from by agreement in the law that would apply without a choice. That law is the law of the country in which, or failing that from which, you habitually carry out your work, and the country is not deemed to have changed if you are only temporarily employed in another.

For Portugal, Spain, France or Italy, an employer should check which mandatory protections could follow you and whether your stay counts as temporary. For Mexico, Costa Rica, Thailand and Malaysia, how labour law treats a foreign employee working remotely for a foreign employer is not published; ask the labour authority there or a licensed lawyer. [P1]

What a remote-work visa changes, and what it does not

Spain's telework visa is for remote work for companies outside Spain, and its documents show how much lands on your employer. The consulate in Washington asks for a company certificate showing at least three months of seniority, your income and explicit permission from the company for you to work remotely from Spain. The Spain guide covers the rest.

For employees, Portugal's consular pages list a work contract or a declaration by the employer confirming the labour link. See the Portugal guide and the Portugal and Spain comparison. Malaysia's DE Rantau pass needs an employer not registered in Malaysia and a signed contract with the remote arrangement, and MDEC recommends an employer letter. Costa Rica's remote worker stay is for people paid from abroad for services to someone abroad. The Thai embassy in Washington lists an employment contract or certificate among the documents for its destination visa. The Malaysia and Thailand comparison sets those two out.

A visa answers an immigration question and nothing else. It does not register the employer, give it a certificate of coverage, answer the permanent establishment test or choose the law of your contract, and MDEC's own FAQ says tax follows residence status. Your employer's questions stay the same after you land. [V1] [V2] [V3] [V4] [V5]

Why some employers say no, and what to ask

Each check adds work or exposure that did not exist before. An employer that says no, keeps a short list of allowed countries, or offers a contractor or third-party employer arrangement is often responding to that list rather than to you. Those alternatives change the legal relationship and bring rules of their own, and no official source compares them for employees.

Specific questions move the conversation further than a general request. Ask whether payroll withholding stays the same and whether the company must register or withhold in the new country, and whether a social security agreement exists and the company can request a certificate before you leave. Ask whether its tax adviser has looked at the permanent establishment test, given how much of your time you would work from home, and which country's employment protections would apply to your contract. Ask last whether it will provide what the visa asks for, such as a certificate stating its permission. [M2] [T4] [V1]