http://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/45092/where-can-i-...
I don't know of a master list, unfortunately.
It's not a regular tourist visa (and in fact if you're in France as a regular visitor/tourist you'll have to leave to apply for a titre de sejour). We needed to prove that we had housing arranged, means to support ourselves (savings plus income coming from outside of France... telework for companies in the US, in my case), and expat medical insurance.
Then we could stay for a year. We renewed this for 5 years and then were automatically upgraded to residence permits (with the right to work in France, actually).
--
Edit: somewhere along the way I was checking if some other European countries had similar options -- I remember it wasn't an option in most (it's not allowed in the UK. I think Germany wasn't okay either... forget where else I checked).
Ireland had some options around retiring in Ireland that seemed like they might apply for teleworkers, but I haven't checked into it properly yet.
Perhaps begin with countries in which you're interested in living and working, and see what sort they offer...
The annoying thing is having to move to keep authorities happy.
You might try applying for the Spanish non lucrative visa. (Not sure if that one is still offered.)
And BTW, Americans who live outside the US can deduct nearly 100,000 from their earnings. It doesn't matter if you actually pay taxes to another country. Just make sure you aren't in the US for > 30 days in a year.
I live & roam in a camper in Europe. Pretty nice, except I miss the buzz of SF & SV.
This rule is there to avoid foreigner to renew indefinitely their tourist visa while they're actually working for good. It's not there to prevent anyone checking emails.
On a wider scale, laws are defined to give a real world shape to the general principles. If you understand the principles, you can usually avoid being scared by the laws. If you deeply agree with the right of ownership, you shouldn't need a lawyer to know what to do with the fallen leaves of your neighbors tree that are in your garden.
Most foreign governments don't care at all if as a foreigner you work from your laptop for a foreign company. You are not taking any jobs away from the locals, and you are still spending money in their country.
If it was me, I'd consult an immigration expert for the Countries I was thinking about going to, mostly because the requirements seem to have multiple ways they could be interpreted. I do have a few friends that do this, and each time they have told me they talk to immigration experts to figure it all out (generally an attorney). One has done it all himself from what I understand just by doing all the research etc, but that seems quite hard and potentially error prone.
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cost+of+living+Belize+...
The thing about tourist visa is about working in the country. That means "stealing" a job from a citizen of a country.
Nobody cares if a person during his/her holidays answer emails from his/her job in his/her native country.
From another perspective, even if there is not law saying so, for the guest country it's nice to have telecommuters. They spend money on the country, they (probably) won't use the health system (an maybe must have their own private health insurance), and they don't "consume" any of the country's jobs.
But the best part about having a telecommute job is country hopping. A big plus of switching countries at least every 179 days is that unless you are from the US or Eritrea, don't have to pay income taxes nowhere.
The other alternatives are:
1. I hire an American who works in the US
2. I open a Thai subsidiary and sponsor work visas for Americans to work there
3. I open a Thai subsidiary and hire Thais
Obviously option 2 and 3, while unlikely, provide a bigger boost to the Thai economy and result in higher tax revenue for the Thai government.
Yes, it's nice for the guest country to have people telecommuting on tourist visas, but it's detrimental to their IT industry.
Was just discussing this, is it really possible? We're in Croatia and for example if we start to move to surrounding countries, how would we manage it? Would we need to go to the gov office and say "we're moving", travel away across the border to slovenia, say "we're moving here" and repeat that process all the time?
Skipping taxes just seems unfair on locals and personally I wouldn't do it as I don't agree with super rich people that have complex tax arrangements so I'm not going to forgive the smaller fish either.
I've heard from a few people who have had their papers and laptop examined at immigration for evidence that they are working but this seems to be rare. The reports I heard were Canada, UK, and Thailand. The more computer stuff you cart around the more suspicious it might look. Everyone travels with a laptop these days. Keep your work stuff in the cloud, look like another tourist posting to Facebook, you'll be fine.
i'll be happy to answer more questions about argentina, paraguay and spain
In large cities like Madrid or Barcelona you shouldn't have issues either.
It seems the Japanese authorities don't really seem to care. But I don't know how kosher the whole arrangement is.
In any case, Singapore and Hong Kong are worth a look. They are very business-friendly, and you can probably make something work there even legally so. (And even if you had to leave Singapore every three months, that wouldn't be too much of a problem.)
If you'd like to try this, all the relevant visa information is available from the Singapore Ministry of Manpower: http://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits
I think the OP could possibly be able to get the EntrePass, if he sets up a local company in Singapore and makes sure his work is billed to it. Singapore corporate taxes are probably lower than where he's from, so it would likely be better to do that anyway.
That said, Singapore taxes are very low, so it's likely a much better deal than paying the taxes in your home country (unless you're a US citizen, in which case everything becomes a lot more complicated, to the point where many banks in most countries won't even give you an account).
The "standard" way would be to incorporate, capitalise the entity with around 40,000 USD, prove that the business will be a business (and not you buying a visa) with letters of intent from prospective customers and a detailed business plan, try and set things up so that you're not the shareholder AND the director AND the visa holder, and then apply for an Employment Pass (EP) under your own business.
That EP will be yours if you have received a high enough salary for the past X months (they ask for your salary history for years), if you have set yourself a high enough salary that you'll need to pay out every month, and - in many cases these days - the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will probably still ask you for "manpower projections" which I think is a euphemism for "prove to us you'll hire a few locals". Oh yeah, and budget another 3,000 USD or so for the advice from Corporate Service Providers (CSPs) after your initial round of DIY applications get rejected for no reason given. The whole process should take you 6-12 weeks. Whilst a Singaporean applies for a company online for a few dollars and gets it done in a week.
Once you've jumped through those hoops, yes, things are pretty good. Low taxes, extremely efficient government that treats you like a customer, rule of law, low cost of living (compared to Western large cities, not Bangkok or Beijing), great weather, international community, easy travel to dream locations, and so on. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. But it's not a pain-free process the way say, Hong Kong was before 2014.
Wouldn't Americans still pay Uncle Sam?
At least in Japan I know several people with that sort of arrangement