To go abroad when working from home?

[StreakOfTheWeek]

If I went to Italy or France or Spain or wherever... and logged in and did my work - would this be wrong?
I work 8-2 Mon - Thurs normally
Never have to go into office, except for 4 meetings a year.

And I would work as usual, and thought I could then spend the afternoons exploring and taking it all in.

There's nothing wrong with my idea, is there??

Presumably your father was not spending so much time in France that he incurred a tax liability for his company, and it was when UK nationals were permitted to work in France. Whether or not your father's company would have checked the tax point and put restrictions in place, who knows but they always should have.

A remote contract on its own doesn't mean you can do this unless you contract specifically states you can work from anywhere in the world (which it may do but a sensible company wouldn't agree to for the reasons on this thread!). Even if your contract doesn't state that, presumably your employer's policy permits work in France. As everyone is saying, the OP needs to check with her employer because it is by no means a given!

You will need to seek permission from your employer … there may be security implications.

For my work, you would need to ask for permission and most of the time it is agreed. We don't even have a particularly sophisticated IT set up but if someone logins from somewhere that is not there normal Wifi network, they have to go through two-factor authentication and I and others get an alert - we can see a rough location - City, Country. If you had not asked in our organisation and had it agreed, you would be in trouble.

You’d need to check with your employer. Mine specifically forbids it (WFH must be from a UK location), they claim it’s for tax purposes IDK if that is true

From Google

, you can work remotely for a UK company while based in the EU after Brexit, but it's crucial to understand the implications for both the employee and the employer, including potential tax and social security obligations.

Here's a breakdown of key considerations:

For the Employee:
Tax Residency:
If you spend a significant amount of time in the EU country, you may become tax resident there, potentially requiring you to pay income tax in that country, even if you're working for a UK company.

Social Security:
Social security contributions may be due in the country where you're working, not necessarily the UK, depending on the specific circumstances and any relevant agreements between the UK and the EU country.

Visa Requirements:
As a UK citizen, you may need to obtain a visa to live and work in the EU country, depending on the specific country and your nationality.

Employment Law:
Your employment contract will likely be governed by UK law, but you should be aware of the employment laws of the EU country where you are working, especially regarding working conditions, pay, and social security.

Double Taxation Agreements:
You may be able to avoid double taxation through double taxation agreements between the UK and the EU country.

For the Employer:
Compliance:
UK companies need to ensure they comply with the employment laws of the EU country where their remote employees are based, including tax and social security obligations.

Tax Obligations:
The company may need to register for tax and social security in the EU country where the employee is based.

HR and Payroll:
The company may need to set up a payroll system and HR processes that comply with the laws of the EU country.

Data Protection:
Companies need to comply with data protection laws, including GDPR, when processing personal data of employees working remotely in the EU.

Secondment or Project Basis:
Companies can consider sending employees to work abroad on a secondment or project basis, which may simplify some compliance issues.

It's nothing to do with whether your contract is remote or in-person, and everything to do with what country you're legally employed in, where your employer is legally incorporated, the legalities of the jurisdiction you're working in, the nature and location of the data you're working with, and your employer's IT and cybersecurity setup.

You need to ask your company. It shouldn’t matter where you work from so long as work gets done but there may be technical things that need sorting. Eg do you need permission to take laptop abroad, what if it was seized at customs? I work for government and have to have a letter of carriage and if customs take my work laptop then I have a letter and customs have to call the Embassy immediately. I’m not even very senior!

Will the company’s VPN work overseas? Are you allowed to hook onto public wifi where your data could be compromised.

how does it look to other people who are working and then complain to managers that you appear to be on holiday even though you are working. You know there is someone who will moan. You probably even know who!!!! 😂

Yes it's all good. We're allowed to work from any country that has no negative FCDO travel advisories. I think there is a 4 week limit per year per country.

VPNs would make it more secure. Nothing is failsafe though.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it and it’s not that different from going to a conference etc abroad and working around that.
My work does have a policy that you can’t permanently live abroad because of tax issues I believe, but no real policy about what you’re talking about. I think if you asked HR they would say no but most individual managers wouldn’t really care as a one off as long as you did your work.

You are allowed but that doesn’t meant the op is allowed, it’s not a blanket rule for everyone

We are, initially, talking pre Common Market between De Gaulle saying Non and his successor relenting. Later in early years of UK Membership.

He was working in France as going there to meet suppliers was part of his job. His salary was paid in the UK in £. Never there longer than Monday to Friday.

I don't believe that sort of thing would fall foul of rules now.

Would probably depend on the type of work you do.
If you have to connect to the network what wi-fi would you be using?
Using public wi-fi , like hotel free wi-fi would not be allowed in my job which involves access to customer data sometimes

I don’t see anything wrong with your idea. In my company we’re allowed to work remotely (ie not from home or from the office) for 3 weeks of the year but we have to have prior approval from manager.

There is a list of countries that we’re not allowed to work remotely from because of tax / security / data sovereignty reasons.

Depends what he was doing. Business meetings usually fall under the standard visit visa/waiver exemptions. But not if he was considered to be 'working' in France. Nowhere near enough to know whether or not it fell foul of 'the rules'.

What OP is proposing isn't business meetings though, she wants to work in France.

@travelwaffle

Whether for my Father's case 50-60 years ago or for the OP I suspect the answer is 'it depends'.

I'd be surprised if AN Other EU country like France or Spain, or UK if the situation were flipped, would be worried about remote working for a few days for an employer in your home country. but I'm happy to be proved wrong.

From memory I think things like visits (even frequent ones) for sales purposes (visiting suppliers not selling in shops,) ,attending business fairs, meetings etc might have a get out from visa requirements, taxation and social charge requirements, possibly always have done, because they are on some sort of list of permitted business activities.

I’m not convinced entering a country to WFH for weeks on end for a UK office would be regarded in the same way by some authorities.

I do temporary contracts and usually visit family in EU in the summer.
For one employer, I had to get IT to allow me access from abroad but the other needed no adjustment.
In both cases I asked permission, although I had a working from home agreement.
A UK resident can do their usual UK employment in EU, however doing your UK job in USA would breach the terms of the tourist visa. A UK girl fell foul of this recently and was imprisoned by ICE then deported.
Be very careful about checking the rules.

I’m the person at my company that had to review these requests. It’s different for every country. We allow certain countries for up to 45 days in a year.
There’s multiple reasons it would be turned down things like setting up a permanent establishment which would mean that your company would need to register an entity in that location and pay corporation taxes. There’s also your personal tax situation, posted worker notifications, whether you legally have the right to work in that country. Whether your employer would be obliged to pay certain benefits to you or pay NI equivalent to the local government. Whether that country has implied employment rights so you could take on their (maybe more generous) rights to certain leave. Then there’s insurance and if you have an accident whether they would be liable. Not to mention cybersecurity, whether the data you access can be taken outside the uk.

I’ve probably missed a few things too. Don’t do it without permission, it’s not worth the risk.

Whether or not they're likely to pursue the OP for a breach of immigration law or not doesn't change it being a breach of immigration law. Obviously people do it all the time. It's not relevant whether the French government will care, it's relevant whether OP's employer will care. Any sensible employer will require OP to comply with French law as one of the conditions of allowing this. They may not insist on proof - it's likely mainly a CYA requirement so they can't get in trouble.

Business meetings are allowed under current visa rules (no idea about 40-60 years ago but I would assume so then). Working isn't. 40-60 years ago remote working wasn't a thing.

You can attend meetings and conferences in US, but need B-1 if you perform services and are paid via UK. It is super easy to apply for from UK though, you just give a letter.

Make sure you ask your employer if they allow this. I would be allowed to where I work currently, but it’s down to company policy.

There will be tax implications potentially so make sure you look into that as well.

You are asking a question that mumsnet can’t answer! Ask your employer!
Going behind their backs is not advisable - there could be security breaches, compliance issues, tech issues, tax implications.
We can do it, we have a formal working from abroad policy which specifies countries you are permitted to work from and for how long (tax implications). There are other stipulations too like secured WiFi, and can’t access certain systems due to confidentiality.

There are certain jobs where it can be a security breach if you take a work computer abroad and can be treated as gross misconduct.

Certainly in the civil service and certain online securities companies you could get the sack. And they'd know from where it connected to the Internet. I absolutely wouldn't risk it