7 ms·

Airbnb employees can live and work anywhere

71 points by boolean 4y ago

8bitben 4y ago
"You have the flexibility to live and work in 170 countries for up to 90 days a year in each location" I wonder how much of a headache this creates for taxes. One of the biggest factors that keeps me from venturing abroad (and my company from allowing it) in my remote role is the complicated tax situation that arises. Anyone have experience with this?
- electroly 4y ago
  I assume the 90 day limit is specifically to avoid dealing with actual foreign residents.
- rhacker 4y ago
  I'm in "Florida".
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Yeah, this is accepting some digital nomad hacks (Florida as your “home” state [or another no income tax state like TN or SD], skating by on tourist visas when traveling, hence the 90 days stipulation) until digital nomad acceptance increases (~46 countries are issuing visas to nomads who have a remote gig from a quick web search). (not an endorsement of any specific legal or immigration actions)
    - refurb 4y ago
      r/digitalnomads has some interesting data points on people's IPs and VPNs being flagged as "outside the US".
      - toomuchtodo 4y ago
        You’ll definitely want to get ground truth from your org if you should be routing through a friendly residential connection in your org’s jurisdiction while traveling.
- simulate-me 4y ago
  It depends where you want to go. For instance, you can work remotely from Canada in many circumstances.
  - digianarchist 4y ago
    The UK too. I was actually banned from the /r/IWantOut subreddit recently for suggesting such even though it's Home Office advice [0] (under Remote Work). [0] - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1019544/Visit.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
    - bkor 4y ago
      That just implies that the origin country (UK) is ok with someone working remotely. You're still bound to the laws of the destination country. Further, there's a difference between what's easily possible (nobody will easily notice if you work from another country on a tourist visa) vs what is legal.
      - simulate-me 4y ago
        In Canada, it's expressly legal to travel and work remotely (depending on the work). You can read the Canadian government's definition of work (in the context of requiring a work permit) here: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/temporary-residents/foreign-workers/what-is-work.html https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/co... > “Work” is defined in the Regulations as an activity for which wages are paid or commission is earned, or that competes directly with activities of Canadian citizens or permanent residents in the Canadian labour market. The key part is that most remote work doesn't compete directly with the Canadian labor market. > What kind of activities are not considered to be “work”? > long distance (by telephone or Internet) work done by a temporary resident whose employer is outside Canada and who is remunerated from outside Canada;
      - digianarchist 4y ago
- futhey 4y ago
  Yeah. 90 days and 180 (sometimes 183) days are the magic numbers in most locations, that treat you as a non-resident or tourist. You still technically owe taxes abroad if you work any period of time abroad, but usually, if there is a formal process, it's much, much simpler for remote work on a short-term visa. 90 days is the magic number for almost all countries for the length of a single tourist visa. The status quo though, is that almost no governments have legal frameworks for a digital nomad to work legally in a country (as a remote employee) on a 90-day tourist visa. Most look the other way for rich, western tourists not "taking jobs from local residents", if it comes up. They mostly use tourist services and the money which could be taxed never enters a local bank account. I'm curious how AirBnB ends up solving this. Maybe they'll just contract a big consulting firm with broad international exposure to file taxes for each employee paid abroad. It definitely sounds like they're going to try and figure out how to pay taxes on behalf of employees in up to 170 countries, which, will be interesting to watch. Hopefully some good comes of this.
  - latch 4y ago
    > almost no governments have legal frameworks for a digital nomad to work legally in a country That's an ... interesting perspective. Put differently, most governments have a legal framework that prevents people from working on tourist visa.
    - theshrike79 4y ago
      I think these are historically for people coming into the country and working in the country at an actual brick and mortar place with actual local people. If a someone is on a trip abroad and gets a call/email from a customer from another country, they are technically working. Would that require a work visa? How many emails per day would require a work visa? The world is changing and laws aren't really keeping up.
      - 7steps2much 4y ago
        > If a someone is on a trip abroad and gets a call/email from a customer from another country, they are technically working. Would that require a work visa? Depends on the country in question of course but many places have different visas: - Visitor visas: Usually valid for only a couple of days / weeks and geared towards business travelers. These usually allow working in the country. - Tourist Visas: Usually valid for weeks/months and geared towards tourists. If you are on the first then working isn't a problem. If you are on the second then (as the name implies) it is kind of assumed that you are a tourist/on vacation and as such won't be doing any work at all. So to answer your question: If you are on a trip (I interpret this as a couple of days at best) then you won't need a work visa. If you want to stay there for a while though then technically yes. > The world is changing and laws aren't really keeping up. Are they though? I think it is fair to say that if you are staying in a country for an extended period of time (longer than a visitor visa) they have a right to tax you.
kikki 4y ago
> 2. You can move anywhere in the country, like from San Francisco to Nashville, and your compensation won't change This is confusing. If I work in Nashville is my start compensation the same as if I live in San Francisco? Does San Francisco market-rate determine national salary bands - or are they still different based on location? Cost of living is a thing no matter how you cut it.
- carlosdp 4y ago
  I believe he's saying it's location independent now. (Most Airbnb employees were in SF, pre-pandemic) So presumably your location of living just isn't a factor in the compensation determination (which I think is the right way to do this, compensation should be based on market, not chosen geography).
  - Flameancer 4y ago
    I feel there’s a caveat to this. If this happens in MANGA companies what’s to stop smaller cities from raising the cost of living higher than most of the locals due to having a small amount of high wages/large city types moving in. Idk having a wage adjusted for California prices but living in say the middle of Kansas doesn’t really seem fair and I doubt the local market can pay the same.
    - chottocharaii 4y ago
      OTOH, salaries are spent locally; providing a value transfer to the areas of America that have previously been overlooked for growth
    - webmaven 4y ago
      > I feel there’s a caveat to this. If this happens in MANGA companies what’s to stop smaller cities from raising the cost of living higher than most of the locals due to having a small amount of high wages/large city types moving in. If it's a small number of folks, there won't be much impact on anything that doesn't actually have a constrained supply. For example real estate prices won't be affected much unless the new folks are bidding against each other for the same properties. Without a steady stream of folks coming in, a few sellers immediately getting their asking price will only bump estimated values of the surrounding homes for a while. To get a more permanent RE price bump everyone would have to move into the same neighborhood to get their kids into the same school, or to get the same view, or they all want riverfront property which is in short supply, or something similar. About the only scenario I can plausibly construct for a real cost increase that actually affects locals (from a small number of well heeled folks moving in) is if all the newcomers move in at the same time and renovate or build their homes simultaneously, then the local cost of construction labor will go up temporarily.
zuhayeer 4y ago
Also noteworthy that they aren't making any compensation adjustments for employees going remote: https://twitter.com/bchesky/status/1519831793687441408 https://twitter.com/bchesky/status/1519831793687441408 Wonder if this applies only to existing employees and not new hires. These salaries would be game changing in places like Nashville: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Airbnb/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Airbnb/salaries/Software-Engi...
- menzoic 4y ago
  This applies to new hires too. Pay tiers are now country level.
- Kneecaps07 4y ago
  I found this really interesting. I remember in a previous job, I moved to a lower cost of living city in the same state. My employer told me about about how they were considering lowering my salary because of this. They weren't billing any less for my time. I wasn't any less productive. I got out of there soon after and found a better place in the new city.
danamit 4y ago
The amount of jobs I didn't get because I refuse to relocate abroad is astonishing, hopefully this will normalize hiring people without relocating them, but I guess it depends on the legal side of it too.
dang 4y ago
Related ongoing thread: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31200650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31200650
immigrantheart 4y ago
Hear me out. Lets say a 3rd world country, an average salary of SWE is $1000/month. An average salary of a family doctor is $3000/month. If one day the US/Canada/EU and other 1st world countries manage to finally crack the tax code by outsourcing their work. I can see some things happening: - SWEs in 1st world countries no longer price-competitive, and they have to either move to 3rd world countries or change career - People in 3rd world countries no longer want to pursue career as a doctor (and other similarly needed professions like law) (expensive, time consuming, etc) and just pursue SWE jobs Would this result in people in 3rd world countries have less and less doctors, and people in 3rd world countries would have to go to the 1st world in order to be treated. This is just a dumb shower thought that I came up with when reading about this. But I wonder what would the implication be for 3rd world countries if we as 1st world manage to crack the outsourcing/tax code. FWIW, I am a citizen of 3rd world country, now currently reside in the most expensive cities in the US. I also have a familial tie with another 1st world country in Asia that is cheaper than the US. I work as an SWE. I think people like me have the ability to earn US salary and live in 3rd world country, but I'm not sure how other non dual/triple residence would benefit in this type of arrangement.
- Maakuth 4y ago
  Outsourcing SWE work to India and Eastern Europe is already very, very common. I don't know if that has had an impact on the availability of doctors, but in Poland, Ukraine or Belarus you'll find most of the IT workers work in outsourcing. The solution for the tax issue is to either have a subsidiary in the low-cost country or buy the outsourcing as a service from a company that's specialized in this arrangement. I'm in Europe so this is my point of view for the outsourcing recipient countries. I suppose US companies might outsource to Latin America for better time zone overlap.
  - bakuninsbart 4y ago
    It is just anecdotal, but friends and colleagues who did successfully outsource part of their development (and it often also fails), didn't reduce their team sizes in western Europe. On the contrary, it usually meant they were more competitive due to lower costs and could grow both offices in size. Demand for IT around here still seems very far from topping out, and for every team you have outsourced you also need some support, management and engineering at home.

71 points by boolean 4y ago

"You have the flexibility to live and work in 170 countries for up to 90 days a year in each location" I wonder how much of a headache this creates for taxes. One of the biggest factors that keeps me from venturing abroad (and my company from allowing it) in my remote role is the complicated tax situation that arises. Anyone have experience with this?

electroly 4y ago
I assume the 90 day limit is specifically to avoid dealing with actual foreign residents.
rhacker 4y ago
I'm in "Florida".
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Yeah, this is accepting some digital nomad hacks (Florida as your “home” state [or another no income tax state like TN or SD], skating by on tourist visas when traveling, hence the 90 days stipulation) until digital nomad acceptance increases (~46 countries are issuing visas to nomads who have a remote gig from a quick web search). (not an endorsement of any specific legal or immigration actions)
  - refurb 4y ago
    r/digitalnomads has some interesting data points on people's IPs and VPNs being flagged as "outside the US".
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      You’ll definitely want to get ground truth from your org if you should be routing through a friendly residential connection in your org’s jurisdiction while traveling.
simulate-me 4y ago
It depends where you want to go. For instance, you can work remotely from Canada in many circumstances.
- digianarchist 4y ago
  The UK too. I was actually banned from the /r/IWantOut subreddit recently for suggesting such even though it's Home Office advice [0] (under Remote Work). [0] - https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1019544/Visit.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
  - bkor 4y ago
    That just implies that the origin country (UK) is ok with someone working remotely. You're still bound to the laws of the destination country. Further, there's a difference between what's easily possible (nobody will easily notice if you work from another country on a tourist visa) vs what is legal.
    - simulate-me 4y ago
      In Canada, it's expressly legal to travel and work remotely (depending on the work). You can read the Canadian government's definition of work (in the context of requiring a work permit) here: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/temporary-residents/foreign-workers/what-is-work.html https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/co... > “Work” is defined in the Regulations as an activity for which wages are paid or commission is earned, or that competes directly with activities of Canadian citizens or permanent residents in the Canadian labour market. The key part is that most remote work doesn't compete directly with the Canadian labor market. > What kind of activities are not considered to be “work”? > long distance (by telephone or Internet) work done by a temporary resident whose employer is outside Canada and who is remunerated from outside Canada;
    - digianarchist 4y ago
futhey 4y ago
Yeah. 90 days and 180 (sometimes 183) days are the magic numbers in most locations, that treat you as a non-resident or tourist. You still technically owe taxes abroad if you work any period of time abroad, but usually, if there is a formal process, it's much, much simpler for remote work on a short-term visa. 90 days is the magic number for almost all countries for the length of a single tourist visa. The status quo though, is that almost no governments have legal frameworks for a digital nomad to work legally in a country (as a remote employee) on a 90-day tourist visa. Most look the other way for rich, western tourists not "taking jobs from local residents", if it comes up. They mostly use tourist services and the money which could be taxed never enters a local bank account. I'm curious how AirBnB ends up solving this. Maybe they'll just contract a big consulting firm with broad international exposure to file taxes for each employee paid abroad. It definitely sounds like they're going to try and figure out how to pay taxes on behalf of employees in up to 170 countries, which, will be interesting to watch. Hopefully some good comes of this.
- latch 4y ago
  > almost no governments have legal frameworks for a digital nomad to work legally in a country That's an ... interesting perspective. Put differently, most governments have a legal framework that prevents people from working on tourist visa.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    I think these are historically for people coming into the country and working in the country at an actual brick and mortar place with actual local people. If a someone is on a trip abroad and gets a call/email from a customer from another country, they are technically working. Would that require a work visa? How many emails per day would require a work visa? The world is changing and laws aren't really keeping up.
    - 7steps2much 4y ago
      > If a someone is on a trip abroad and gets a call/email from a customer from another country, they are technically working. Would that require a work visa? Depends on the country in question of course but many places have different visas: - Visitor visas: Usually valid for only a couple of days / weeks and geared towards business travelers. These usually allow working in the country. - Tourist Visas: Usually valid for weeks/months and geared towards tourists. If you are on the first then working isn't a problem. If you are on the second then (as the name implies) it is kind of assumed that you are a tourist/on vacation and as such won't be doing any work at all. So to answer your question: If you are on a trip (I interpret this as a couple of days at best) then you won't need a work visa. If you want to stay there for a while though then technically yes. > The world is changing and laws aren't really keeping up. Are they though? I think it is fair to say that if you are staying in a country for an extended period of time (longer than a visitor visa) they have a right to tax you.

kikki 4y ago

> 2. You can move anywhere in the country, like from San Francisco to Nashville, and your compensation won't change This is confusing. If I work in Nashville is my start compensation the same as if I live in San Francisco? Does San Francisco market-rate determine national salary bands - or are they still different based on location? Cost of living is a thing no matter how you cut it.

carlosdp 4y ago
I believe he's saying it's location independent now. (Most Airbnb employees were in SF, pre-pandemic) So presumably your location of living just isn't a factor in the compensation determination (which I think is the right way to do this, compensation should be based on market, not chosen geography).
- Flameancer 4y ago
  I feel there’s a caveat to this. If this happens in MANGA companies what’s to stop smaller cities from raising the cost of living higher than most of the locals due to having a small amount of high wages/large city types moving in. Idk having a wage adjusted for California prices but living in say the middle of Kansas doesn’t really seem fair and I doubt the local market can pay the same.
  - chottocharaii 4y ago
    OTOH, salaries are spent locally; providing a value transfer to the areas of America that have previously been overlooked for growth
  - webmaven 4y ago
    > I feel there’s a caveat to this. If this happens in MANGA companies what’s to stop smaller cities from raising the cost of living higher than most of the locals due to having a small amount of high wages/large city types moving in. If it's a small number of folks, there won't be much impact on anything that doesn't actually have a constrained supply. For example real estate prices won't be affected much unless the new folks are bidding against each other for the same properties. Without a steady stream of folks coming in, a few sellers immediately getting their asking price will only bump estimated values of the surrounding homes for a while. To get a more permanent RE price bump everyone would have to move into the same neighborhood to get their kids into the same school, or to get the same view, or they all want riverfront property which is in short supply, or something similar. About the only scenario I can plausibly construct for a real cost increase that actually affects locals (from a small number of well heeled folks moving in) is if all the newcomers move in at the same time and renovate or build their homes simultaneously, then the local cost of construction labor will go up temporarily.

zuhayeer 4y ago

Also noteworthy that they aren't making any compensation adjustments for employees going remote: https://twitter.com/bchesky/status/1519831793687441408 https://twitter.com/bchesky/status/1519831793687441408 Wonder if this applies only to existing employees and not new hires. These salaries would be game changing in places like Nashville: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Airbnb/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Airbnb/salaries/Software-Engi...

menzoic 4y ago
This applies to new hires too. Pay tiers are now country level.
Kneecaps07 4y ago
I found this really interesting. I remember in a previous job, I moved to a lower cost of living city in the same state. My employer told me about about how they were considering lowering my salary because of this. They weren't billing any less for my time. I wasn't any less productive. I got out of there soon after and found a better place in the new city.

danamit 4y ago

The amount of jobs I didn't get because I refuse to relocate abroad is astonishing, hopefully this will normalize hiring people without relocating them, but I guess it depends on the legal side of it too.

dang 4y ago

Related ongoing thread: Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31200650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31200650

immigrantheart 4y ago

Hear me out. Lets say a 3rd world country, an average salary of SWE is $1000/month. An average salary of a family doctor is $3000/month. If one day the US/Canada/EU and other 1st world countries manage to finally crack the tax code by outsourcing their work. I can see some things happening: - SWEs in 1st world countries no longer price-competitive, and they have to either move to 3rd world countries or change career - People in 3rd world countries no longer want to pursue career as a doctor (and other similarly needed professions like law) (expensive, time consuming, etc) and just pursue SWE jobs Would this result in people in 3rd world countries have less and less doctors, and people in 3rd world countries would have to go to the 1st world in order to be treated. This is just a dumb shower thought that I came up with when reading about this. But I wonder what would the implication be for 3rd world countries if we as 1st world manage to crack the outsourcing/tax code. FWIW, I am a citizen of 3rd world country, now currently reside in the most expensive cities in the US. I also have a familial tie with another 1st world country in Asia that is cheaper than the US. I work as an SWE. I think people like me have the ability to earn US salary and live in 3rd world country, but I'm not sure how other non dual/triple residence would benefit in this type of arrangement.

Maakuth 4y ago
Outsourcing SWE work to India and Eastern Europe is already very, very common. I don't know if that has had an impact on the availability of doctors, but in Poland, Ukraine or Belarus you'll find most of the IT workers work in outsourcing. The solution for the tax issue is to either have a subsidiary in the low-cost country or buy the outsourcing as a service from a company that's specialized in this arrangement. I'm in Europe so this is my point of view for the outsourcing recipient countries. I suppose US companies might outsource to Latin America for better time zone overlap.
- bakuninsbart 4y ago
  It is just anecdotal, but friends and colleagues who did successfully outsource part of their development (and it often also fails), didn't reduce their team sizes in western Europe. On the contrary, it usually meant they were more competitive due to lower costs and could grow both offices in size. Demand for IT around here still seems very far from topping out, and for every team you have outsourced you also need some support, management and engineering at home.