Hacker News Reader

Comment by basisword | Hacker News Reader

>> Most folks will end up working on tourist visas which is explicitly not allowed around most of the world.

Are you sure this is the case? You’re not allowed to get hired locally but I believe you can work online for a company based in your country of residence provided you don’t stay long enough to become a resident of the new country (which you can’t on a tourist visa). I visited Canada for 6 months on a tourist visa. I had a full immigration interview at the airport when I arrived and they were perfectly happy with me working freelance/online for those 6 months. They were just clear I couldn’t become an employee of a Canadian company.

View on HN

Yeah; I'm pretty sure that isn't the case. They don't care if you do work online while visiting, just that you're not looking to stay or to take a local job (that they'd prefer to go to a resident). The legal language may be a little fuzzy since I bet it was written before remote work (telecommuting if it even existed at the time :P) was as much a thing, but I'd challenge anyone to find a case of someone penalized for working for doing their job remotely from another country.

That said, if you're working for a multinational company, you may want to be careful. Being hired in country A, for a company that has presence in both A and B, and then flying and working for a few months in B, could conceivably raise all sorts of flags if noticed.

> Being hired in country A, for a company that has presence in both A and B, and then flying and working for a few months in B, could conceivably raise all sorts of flags if noticed.

My employer adopted a similar policy (just not as publicly announced as Airbnb's), and the way they work around this problem is by, assuming you reside in A, allowing you to travel and work in B but explicitly disallowing you from entering an office location in B.

Canada is one of the exceptions. If I as a Canadian tried to approach CBP with that intention then I wouldn’t be admitted.

Nope, unless your country has a special arrangement with the country you are visiting, you cannot work with a tourist visa, at all. Does not matter if the company is local or not. No work visa = no work.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com