”[…] any noncitizen who earns an income in the US must have proper work authorization from the United States government. Working while physically present in the US, even for a foreign employer and even if any earnings are paid into a foreign bank account, will still be classed as work.“
https://www.nnuimmigration.com/can-you-work-remotely-from-us...
> What is the difference between permissible ESTA business activities and employment?
> The key points of differentiation are that VWP activity should not deprive a US resident worker of employment opportunity, and that the traveller will not be remunerated from a US-based source.
https://www.nnuimmigration.com/esta-business/
Your interpretation of the law here is highly novel. People have been legally doing remote work on temporary entry visas for decades. If this was in fact illegal, it wouldn’t be difficult for you to find some case law that supports your interpretation.
I was employed in the US on an L-1 visa, and my wife had an L-2 which allowed her to apply for an SSN and work authorization. The advice given by Deloitte was that she should put her existing remote foreign job on hold while waiting to receive the SSN.
When I later switched to an O-1, her work authorization ended (for some reason, O-3 spouses don’t get to work like L-2 spouses do). Another immigration specialist advised us that she should not get paid abroad while on the O-3.
The restrictions on work for temporary entrants are to protect job opportunities available to legal residents. Doing remote work for you job back home doesn’t threaten that. There are 10s of millions of people who enter the US on B category visas every year. If any of this was illegal there would be no shortage of case law to support this interpretation.
Sure. But if that’s all you’re doing, then you don’t have a reason to be in the country. Entry is granted for a purpose, not as a default right (even under visa waiver programs).
That’s why you want to tell immigration officers about the meetings you’re going to have and events you’re going to attend — things that require your physical presence.
This applies to other countries too, not just the USA. I know Thailand has become more active in refusing entry to Europeans doing remote work for 3-month periods one after another, with no business contacts in the country.
Over the past three years many countries have introduced a so-called digital nomad visa for remote workers. Why would they need a new category if this were already allowed under existing tourist and business visa rules?
Tourism is a permissible purpose, and it is legitimately the purpose of entry for “digital nomads”.
> I know Thailand has become more active in refusing entry to Europeans doing remote work for 3-month periods one after another
Many countries, and Thailand quite infamously, have always had strict approaches to the tourist “visa runs”, because it has always been associated with visa and tax fraud, in the form of people working under the table jobs in the country (very frequently as English teachers). This isn’t new.
> Over the past three years many countries have introduced a so-called digital nomad visa for remote workers. Why would they need a new category if this were already allowed under existing tourist and business visa rules?
It depends on the specifics of the visa. But the most basic form of digital nomad visa is simply a longer duration multiple entry tourist visa. These are created to encourage digital nomads to stay longer than they could on a normal tourist visa, and they are created to capitalise on what the newly emerging digital nomad segment is. Which is simply a highly valuable group of tourists who bring lots of money into the economy without consuming any public services.
Other types of digital nomad visa are created to encourage people to shift their tax residence, and sometimes include tax incentives. These visas are created to capture free tax revenue that they would otherwise have no access to, and usually also don’t include any entitlements to public services.
They’re not created to allow something that was previously prohibited. They’re created to maximise the benefit that this segment of tourists can provide.
The dictionary definition of tourism is travel for pleasure. Full-time employment paid in another country is not that.
But of course online remote work is so new that legislation written decades ago doesn’t explicitly cover this. Maybe you’re right and the many immigration professionals I’ve talked to are just being overly cautious. I still wouldn’t recommend anyone try entering the United States on a tourist visa and telling the immigration officer that they’re going to be working remotely.
A digital nomad enters a country exclusively to pursue the pleasure of tourism. The entire point of digital nomadism is that those people have realised they can engage in tourism year-round.
This is where people seem to get confused. A tourist visa might get you in the country, but there are plenty of other (tax) laws you have to abide by. For example, if you move to an EU country and work remotely for a US country that doesn’t have an EU presence, and get caught. It’s extremely likely the country could claim you are hired illegally in their country and force the company to retroactively hire you, pay employment tax, and be on the hook for VAT as well. Meanwhile, you sit in jail until they figure all that out (probably without bail since you could easily leave the country).
I remember reading an article about this not too long ago, I’ll see if I can find it. But regardless, if you want to be a nomad, being familiar with local tax laws and tax-residency laws is a must-do.