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Comment by herbst | Hacker News Reader

People seem to underestimate how limiting tourist visas actually are.

Imagine you sell digital products automated or something like that. You would have to literally shut your website down if you go somewhere on a tourist visa so you don't accidently make money.

You might think there are exceptions, but no there usually aren't.

And now imagine you actually live from a digital business you run yourself. You literally can't travel on a tourist visa.

I can't legally leave the EU, more or less, as I have no control when and where I earn money. I also wouldn't travel so far for just a month or two so this is really speaking to me :)

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That’s not true. The jurisdiction that your business operates in doesn’t change depending on where you’re located. If you’re running a business without a business entity (why?) then you can use a merchant of record service (like Paddle) which will serve that role for you.

Guess that's a good point. However I still wouldn't be legally allowed to work.

That logically doesn’t make sense.

Salary workers will still receive their paycheck even while on travel/holiday/vacation. Are they violating tourist visa restrictions? If a person checks their work email while on a tourist visa?

As others have mentioned, they work for a company in a different country what doesn't matter. They usually won't work while there.

It's not realistic to expect a one-man internet company to be anywhere for longer than a few days without 'working' in a way or another.

By chance are you German? I ask given my experience with German’s cultural predilection for following rules to the letter.

Honestly I just think you and some others get too stuck on specific rules.

There are thousands of people who run digital companies and travel all the time, including people who literally travel full-time as digital nomads with zero issues whatsoever.

I can almost guarantee you that if you left the EU and "accidentally" made money via your website you would have no trouble coming and going given that I literally know and have met people all over outside of the EU, who are from the EU and do exactly this.

Even in just this past week I've met like 3 people from the EU travelling full-time who run their own bussiness online while I'm located here in South America.

I know I can, I know nobody will ever notice. It's just weird that it's illegal.

I wouldn't even get hung up on the website part. Pretty much any business traveler is making money when they're traveling and may even be doing business-y things like going to a conference or meeting with customers. Some countries require a special business visa for that but many/most don't and mostly don't give you a long precise list of what you can and can't do.

In fact for any visa outside of Europe I had so far I signed a long precise list of things I can and can't do. That's what all the small text is about.

China I definitely needed a business visa to go to a conference. Malaysia was some sort of visa on arrival thing. Indonesia I don't remember but it wasn't something I had to get ahead of time and that was business. Japan I don't need a visa from the US nor Singapore; ditto for Europe.

It's entirely possible if I needed a visa for some of the countries I've been to, I might have needed a business visa of some sort for customer meetings etc. But I've very rarely needed to get a visa for countries I've traveled to.

Visa on arrival forms have a reference to a URL or something attached and mention that you acknowledge their visa rules by applying for a visa. It's like a prechecked privacy policy checkbox.

It was probably actually Indonesia I had a visa on arrival for. And they explicitly allow business meetings and attending events--which is pretty much the norm for most (but not all) countries whether they say so explicitly or not.

The US does seem to have a different visa for temporary business activities.

You can (and probably should) incorporate your business. Then you write yourself an employment contract and give yourself vacation whenever you want to travel.

The bigger issue is that actually having a vacation where you don't work is unrealistic if you run a business by yourself, but is what the letter of the law demands for most tourist visas.

Your last point is where it gets complicated. I can barely have a week for myself, I can't realistically go anywhere for a month without 'working'.

(Yes I know, nobody will ever know)

Can you point to a specific article of the law from a country that states that you cannot work on your business registered in your home country, while visiting that particular country?

These rules and laws esp. with regards to visas and immigration are not about the rules themselves. They're a proxy for government to be able to control the types of people they think benefit their society (and whether or not to let them in the country). If you fit within those concepts of what is deemed acceptable, no one will bother you.

Are you a rich, white professional class person with a first-world passport? You have signalled that no one needs to bother with you. Things like visa regulations will be applied less strictly.

If you are from the wrong country or you are the wrong skin tone, your chances of having a bad time are much higher.

This applies not only to Japan, or countries like Thailand or Mexico, but also to the USA and Europe equally.

Why bring race into it?

I give you permission to spread your wings and leave the EU for a stint. Of course don't take the word of an internet stranger, confirm with a lawyer.

I mean sure, but the chances of that ever being enforced are close to 0. I'm a full time digital nomad for over a year in various latin american countries, always on tourist visas. Nobody notices or cares.

The only time I ever had an issue is when entering the united states, the immigration department gave me a grilling because my passport showed that I was clearly a nomad and they expected me to be working online.

Go ahead, take that holiday.

No worries, I am not limiting myself :)

When I was in Thailand years ago a coffee shop was raided, and I heard some bad experiences of people being to stupid about their visa forms.

I never had issues myself, but it's not exactly unheard of.

What was that like? "Put your hands up and prove to me this isn't just your side project"?

The people in the raid got jailed over night as far as I remember. Thailand was basically just noticing this trend and reacting, afaik this hasn't happened again.

About the visas people just were really stupid to be honest about their income (or lack of)

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