International remote work seems simple from the employee's perspective, but you must consider the company's perspective, which is much more complex: - Labor/ta

International remote work seems simple from the employee's perspective, but you must consider the company's perspective, which is much more complex: - Labor/tax laws are different for every country. That is potentially 180X+ more work for HR/lawyers. Even adding just a single country potentially doubles the amount of work. - Often the host country expects local tax payments for the portion of the revenue generated by the remote worker. This can be a pain to calculate/track. - Legally, tourist visas usually do not allow work. So work visas need to be sponsored. - In addition, countries also have export laws about data/technology. So it is much simpler for most companies to just not allow international remote work. Bigger companies like Google that already have international offices are better prepared to support international remote work. Perhaps in the future international labor law will catch up, but most treaties, laws, and policies were created when international remote work couldn't even be imagined. Sources that helped me figure this out: - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/remote-working-from-overseas-tax-pitfalls-ross-harman/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/remote-working-from-overseas-... - https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2021/04/remote-work-in-the-new-reality.html https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2021/04/remote-work-in... - https://www.ecovis.com/global/cross-border-remote-work-considerations/ https://www.ecovis.com/global/cross-border-remote-work-consi... - https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/international-remote-working-what-80219/ https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/international-remote-worki...