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Ask HN: Help, any US-based companies that allow you to work from Europe?

42 points by jc_811 ↗ HN
Hi HN - a bit of a personal post here. I'm an American citizen but due to some personal/family reasons I have to relocate to the EU this year.

I will be relocating without a residency visa, but there are a handful of visas out there that would allow me to work for a company outside the EU (eg "Digital Nomad" visas). The only thing I'd need is permission from the company to let me work from the EU and I could handle the rest of the visa/immigration challenges.

I'm hoping somebody out here could provide any insights or leads on companies hiring who are flexible on location. I've been attempting for months to find a fit but so far have come up short; hence why I am reaching out to the network here.

The HN community has been amazing over the years so here's hoping somebody out there will be able to help!

Roles I'm seeking are Customer Engineering positions (really any technical customer facing position) such as: Solutions/Sales Engineer, Support Engineer, Success Engineer, etc

Thanks all - wishing everyone a great week (contact info in my profile as well)

62 comments

[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] thread
blakblakarak
Which country are you relocating to ? Certain ones such as France don’t allow ‘digital nomads’ - there are workarounds but it inevitably involves paying taxes and social charges. Working cross borders can also be difficult- I’m English but have French residency but cannot work for a non-French (and possibly Ireland) without getting a blue card or getting my EU citizenship back which was stripped from me against my will…
aj3
It's weird to consider paying taxes as a tradeoff. "Digital nomad" isn't a code for tax avoidance, is it?
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
nyargh
No, its specific visa category that a few EU countries have now, the most popular being Portugal's. You pay plenty of taxes to the host economy and are usually excluded from social welfare and healthcare.
deadbabe
Just get a regular remote job and then set up a vpn from a US based location and just use that all the time. No one will ever know and maybe won’t even care.
madduci
But timezones play a crucial role
Nextgrid
Just make sure you VPN back to somewhere residential - given you're originally from the US, see if you can host a server (RPi is enough) at a friend/family on their Comcast/etc connection.

Absolutely do not use a commercial VPN, those are havens for malicious activity and will rightfully raise all kinds of red flags.

toomuchtodo
Have backups in the event your primary residential VPN endpoint is down.
Unfrozen0688
Dont cry when you get caught by conditional access :)
falcolas
Most companies with 1k+ employees will have offices or at least contractors in different countries, adopting a "follow the sun" support model typically. I'd start by looking at public companies, or potentially companies (like Percona) who don't really have an office to begin with - pure remote.
gottorf
Your best bet is probably to form a business entity and work corp-to-corp as a contractor (client pays your contracting entity, which pays you either as an owner or employee) with a smaller company that is more flexible about things like this.

Big companies are capable of dealing with the complexities of having an employee in another country, but are usually not flexible about that sort of hiring. Small companies are flexible, but are not set up to deal with that kind of cross-border employment relationship.

keiferski
Yes, this is the answer. Basically you just need a company that is willing to pay you as a contractor or as a separate company. In my experience, smaller startups are more flexible with this kind of thing.
moneywoes
would it a be US company?
nyargh
Depends on the laws and how you are being paid. If the local country thinks you're an employee (earning wages) then it would probably have to be a local company. If you're just being paid dividends from your US, then it could remain a US company but you may not qualify as a digital nomad. Either way you would have tax liabilities in the local country to sort out and paying corporate tax, then capital gains taxes is usually a worse tax scenario than wages - but YMMV depending on how much you earn.

There are lots of companies that handle this case, remote.com being one - where they are the local employer of record and handle all the social taxes and reporting.

nyargh
Yes, this is the only way to do it but the tax situation is complex. Most (all?) EU countries have tax treaties with the US to avoid double taxation but you will be a tax resident in that EU country and they will want their due.

You will also likely fall under local labor laws and have to pay social taxes, but this will depend a lot on the digital nomad laws. If digital nomad laws don't apply, you will need a work permit which is no small feat.

pyr0hu
There are also middlemen who deals with these kindof employement. I'm from the EU and when I asked around remote US companies how do they employ people from all around the planet a few of them said they use Deel for example. Basically, you are an employee of Deel and the company sends the money to Deel, which then pays you as salary.
nyargh
Yep, using a middleman is the easiest way to go. No need to incorporate in the country, understand local taxes and labor laws and you just get a check. They usually even handle invoicing and collection, if you're a contractor. Fees tend to be reasonable for the services offered imo.
sithadmin
>middlemen who deals with these kind of employment

The term of art you're looking for is an 'employer of record' service.

wheels
Those are both options, but there is a third. There are international payroll companies that handle local taxes and compliance. They're not cheap (a couple hundred per employee per month, plus usually a base fee of $1-2k/month), but for a company that's potentially doing such for multiple people, not just the post author, and more than few employees, it might be in reach.

It's just a relatively hard sell if they haven't had the need for such in the past. I'd think getting a job at a local company would perhaps be more sensible, and was the route that I went before I got permanent residence in Germany (at which point I started my own company). I'm not certain on such, but I doubt the digital nomad offer a path to permanent residence, which if one wants to be long-term in the EU, eventually is a very nice thing to have sorted.

whalesalad
FWIW: I am based in Detroit. Founders are based in Vancouver, with one in Tel Aviv. Rest of the team (and company HQ) is in London. We are 100% remote with a small office space for gatherings in London.

So it is certainly possible. I believe a green flag for a company is that they will hire you regardless of where you are located. Some companies even prefer this, as it means you can have 24-hour coverage for critical systems with team members scattered all over the planet.

I don't have any recs or connections I can offer, but just wanted to share my experience to show that it is possible. I have also been a contractor since about 2018 so that helps. As a remote contractor you can inherently work from anywhere.

ta1243
How is your company structured with regards to tax and regulations, it doesn't sound like you're the size of a multi-national

Are team members employed as local contractors, so take on all the legal liabilities (e.g. the "no email outside work hours" rule in France)

paulcole
> I believe a green flag for a company is that they will hire you regardless of where you are located

The counterargument here is that unless you are personally familiar with the legal/compliance/tax issues, you can't really tell if they're doing things on the up and up.

Honestly, companies doing it 100% by the book and hiring people from anywhere is a red flag for me because it's such a pain in the butt both in terms of time and cost to do this right. Is this really the best use of the company's resources?

It makes much more sense to expand slowly than expand quickly (assuming you do it 100% legally) unless you have a massive surplus of time and/or money to figure it out.

moneywoes
Do the employee of record come in here?
paulcole
I don't understand exactly what you mean by that question.

If a company is working with a 3rd-party to act as the employer of record that is fine for the employee. And it can be a decent option for the company as well.

teaearlgraycold
I'm sure HN's lawyer's will be on my ass for saying this, but you could take a remote role from an east-coast company and then simply proxy any mail to you in a western EU country while working US eastern time hours. I know someone that did this. If you're a night owl anyway it might work out well for you.
bookofjoe
I doubt HN has lawyers who will care at all what you say, assuming they ever see it.
alephnan
So tax evasion and potential wire fraud
teaearlgraycold
lol obviously not tax evasion. Keep paying those state and federal taxes and everyone is happy. Also pay any applicable EU taxes. The OP is prioritizing living in the EU. If that’s #1 then you have to accept you’re going to pay extra taxes.
Nextgrid
Only when the little guy does it. If you are high net worth and use a web of shell companies & various schemes to achieve the same outcome then it's no longer criminal.
sneak
I did this for over 10 years, and it works totally fine. It’s not really your employer’s business where you sleep at night. Discrimination based on physical location is just as unjust as discrimination based on national origin.
droobles
I am not an accountant nor a lawyer but my hunch is that to engage with US companies from abroad you would either need to be transferred or apply for a job at an entity in the EU representing that employer or you would need to operate as a 1099 contractor (self employment).

1099 in EU may not be so bad, you would most likely still need to pay for access to national healthcare but it would be cheaper than US insurance. You will need to report your taxes with both the US and your country of residence, but there is a foreign income exclusion available that would make it so you didn't actually pay any taxes to the US besides what your employer owes. Again, not an expert, you might look into this further with your own research or consult a CPA that has experience working with Digital Nomads or citizen contractors working abroad.

CalRobert
It seems a lot of people go in to consultancy and start their own business under the Dutch American Friendship Treaty. If you're quick about it you can start a BV in the Netherlands, recruit yourself as director while you're still abroad, and get 30% of your income exempted from tax (until it's killed off). Let me know if you want an accountant referral. The Netherlands is great.

Your US taxes will be a pain, form 5471 etc. There's also groups like oysterhr.com, boundlesshq, deel, etc. that act as employer of record.

Edit: To explain, the DAFT treaty has a very small investment needed. It has not been raised with inflation.

https://ind.nl/en/residence-permits/work/residence-permit-se...

""" You invest a lot of money (substantial capital) in your business. The level of this sum depends on the form of your business. For most forms, the IND requires a minimum investment of €4,500. See the rules on substantial capital investment. """

jayvoordemensen
How about you have the decency to pay the taxes our hight trust, safe, clean, universal health care providing government needs? Instead of living off of others, raising housing costs and saying 'like' all day long in our once friendly neighborhood bars?
nyargh
Like, its still a net positive for the dutch taxpayers my dutchbro. Like, your taxpayers didn't have to pay to raise and like educate this person for 12+ years and you get them in their peak economically productive years. And like, even with the tax breaks they're earning high wages in IT and paying plenty in taxes.

Like, if your government wasn't Hebben Een Serieus Probleem in the middle of their wildly racist meltdown right now, you could, like, petition them to solve real problems for your countrymen.

But like, way eaier to whine on the internet.

sokoloff
If the Dutch government offers such an arrangement, shouldn’t someone presume they are offering it for a reason that Dutch politicians believe is in the country’s interests? (It reads to me as an arrangement wherein the Netherlands is able to tax 70% of someone’s income who might otherwise become a resident of a different country.)
CalRobert
For what it's worth I'm often on r/Netherlands pointing out that the 30% ruling is unfair to Dutchies and downvoted to oblivion for saying it.

It would be kinda weird to have the 30% ruling available and then get mad at someone for taking it. For what it's worth, I think it's insane that people get to claim gigantic, child-crushing Dodge Rams as a business expense and pay almost zero tax, but I don't blame the truck owners, I just think those laws are stupid.

If it helps, though, I brought my job here with me, I barely go to bars because I have two young children, I don't say "like" much, and the Netherlands has horrendous demographics and probably benefits from someone who came here with kids, brought a job with them, lives car free, and has a strong desire to integrate. It would help if country built enough housing though. Funny enough, though, my landlords emigrated to my home country (the US), so I guess it's a wash when it comes to housing.

jayvoordemensen
Fair points, from other commenters as well. Being a bit too blunt here maybe.

But still: starting a BV, appointing yourself, with the sole purpose of 30% tax reduction may be by the law, but it's also bending the idea of the law. So legal, but moral? It was meant for employees of proper businesses, with offices and other employees, paying taxes like we all do AND hire fine people like yourself. Not for private persons starting one person LLCs. But hey, hoop dat je blijft hangen, wat de wet ook gaat doen.

CalRobert
We intend to stay, we moved here so our daughters could bike to school.

For what it's worth I briefly had an Irish and a Dutch company but never attempted any base erosion or profit shifting!

alexanderchr
It's already part killed off and the way things are going will likely be fully killed soon. Since January 1st it's 30% for 20 months, then 20% for 20 months and finally 20 months of 10%.
Unfrozen0688
Hello, please pay taxes in the country you are in also :)
lukan
Hard not to, with taxes included on allmost everything you buy.
OrvalWintermute
If you're open to something slightly different there are many US government jobs in Europe for US citizens, and that can include engineering jobs, and technical jobs interfacing with customers - normally located around embassies & US/NATO bases.

https://www.usajobs.gov/

someotherperson
The answer is yes, you can find roles like that. It would help if you link to your resume somewhere -- I'm not really interested in emailing you for it.
bookofjoe
Yes. I suggest LinkedIn, where I frequently see resumes posted.
cbare
I tried to do a similar thing, but in New Zealand, for engineering or ML engineering roles, without success. The folks I know of that pulled it off either knew people from previously working together in-person or were special in some way - PhD in valuable niche, wrote a book.
gnopgnip
Many smaller companies that use a PEO professional employer organization will be equipped to handle this.

Covering the night shift because of the time zones can be a competitive advantage for the types of rolls you listed. This is what my employer does, a handful of employees are in Portugal or other countries.

mindcrash
There are quite a few tech companies headquartered in the United States, but with employees globally.

37signals, MongoDB, GitHub, GitLab, Uber, and the AWS subsidiary of Amazon for example are some which I definitely know have (or had) remote employees in the Netherlands.

Protip: You will probably get quite some good leads when you search for remote jobs at the location you are relocating to at LinkedIn.

Good luck!

fuzztester
>Ask HN: Help, any US-based companies that allow you to work from Europe?

"companies that allow"

The wording itself shows that the person saying it may have the mentality of, and meekly accepts, a master-slave relationship between employer and employee. Which in turn tends to perpetuate that idea, at least for those who are weak enough to follow the herd.

People need to get out of such weak-minded, weak-hearted and slavish ways of thinking, more so on a site like this, which is ostensibly about startups, entrepreneurship, etc.