Can you work remotely on a tourist visa? Where it's allowed
isvisarequired.com · 2026-09-15
Say your employer is happy for you to spend a month working from somewhere with better weather, and you plan to arrive as an ordinary visitor, doing the same job for the same salary. The question is whether answering email from a rented flat breaks the terms of your entry.
In three countries the government has answered in writing, and the answer is yes. New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Canada all allow visitors to work remotely for an employer abroad. Elsewhere the visitor rules mostly don't mention remote work at all, which is not a ban but is not permission either. And where rules do exist, they turn on who pays you, not on where your laptop happens to be open.
Where remote work on a visitor visa is allowed
New Zealand's permission has no ceiling on the amount of work. Immigration New Zealand's guidance says all visitor visas applied for on or after 27 January 2025 allow you to work remotely, with no limit on how much of it you do. The work has to be for a company, employer or client that isn't in New Zealand. Before that date the answer was different, which is why advice based on 2024 research still gets New Zealand wrong.
The UK's permission comes with a condition attached. Paragraph PA 4(h) of the visitor rules on permitted activities lets a visitor "undertake activities relating to their employment overseas remotely from within the UK, providing this is not the primary purpose of their visit". It arrived in the January 2024 rewrite of the visitor route, and the most recent statement of changes to the rules, dated 3 September 2026, says nothing about remote working. So work fitted around a holiday can be fine. A trip whose real point is to work from the UK is not.
Canada says it most plainly, though on a web page rather than in regulation. IRCC's Tech Talent page says digital nomads working remotely for an employer outside Canada can live and work there for up to six months at a time, with no work permit and nothing more than visitor status. An IRCC committee note gives the reasoning: these workers aren't entering the Canadian labour market.
That reasoning runs through all three permissions. The UK's list of what counts as working covers taking UK employment, doing work for an organisation or business in the UK, running a business, selling to the public and similar — every item is about the UK end of the deal, and none of them about where the visitor physically sits. UK visitors also can't be paid from a UK source for what they do in the UK, apart from seven listed exceptions. New Zealand likewise excludes work for a New Zealand employer, or with a New Zealand business or person in exchange for goods or services.
Move your employer or your clients into the country you're visiting and each of these permissions falls away.
Where nobody has written the rule down
Start with the US, where the rules we could read don't answer the question. The visa regulation for business visitors excludes "local employment or labor for hire" from B-1 activity, but it doesn't define "local" or say whether the phrase reaches work for an employer abroad. USCIS's B-1 page lists things like consulting with business associates, attending conventions and negotiating a contract, and remote work for a foreign employer sits on neither the permitted side nor the prohibited one. The State Department publishes more detailed B-1 guidance, and that is not a document we will paraphrase at second hand (how we source). Treat it as unread, not as a yes.
Europe's entry rules don't mention work either. A Schengen border guard checks your travel document, your visa, your money and whether you can explain why you've come. Work is not on the list. Employment is left to each country's national law, and Germany publishes nothing about remote work for a foreign employer on a short stay, in either direction. In practice the rule that ends most European trips is the 90 days in any 180, not anything to do with work.
Australia's tourist visa says only that the holder must not engage in work in Australia. That is the whole condition, and it doesn't say whose work. Electronic Travel Authority and eVisitor holders get a slightly different version, barring work other than business visitor activity. Work is defined as an activity that, in Australia, normally attracts remuneration. We found nothing in the Australian rules that carves out work for an overseas employer.
What happens if a border officer thinks you're working
None of the governments whose visitor rules we read for this article publishes a penalty schedule for remote work on a visitor entry, and most have no rule about it to break. The risk is refusal under the general entry rules. That happens at the desk, with no appeal you would recognise as one, and a refusal follows you into later applications.
The UK shows how the test runs. Visitors must not intend to work in the UK, and the Home Office's visit caseworker guidance tells officers to weigh how long you plan to stay and "whether a stay of such a length would be financially viable without remote working on an ongoing basis". Officers also check that your main reason for coming is something other than working remotely, and that the arrangement isn't really a secondment to a UK company or to your employer's UK branch.
A fortnight's holiday with some email is not what that test is aimed at. A long stay that only adds up because you keep billing is. Schengen's purpose-of-stay condition is an affordability test too, so have a simple, honest answer ready about why you're there and how you're paying for it.
The UK rule bars work for a business in the UK — not work done from the UK for a business abroad. Photo: © User:Colin / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
How long you can stay before you owe tax
Immigration and tax are separate bodies of law with their own day counts, and the tax line can arrive well before the visa runs out.
New Zealand puts both on one page. The same guidance that allows remote work warns that you may have to pay tax. If your income is taxed in another country or territory, you may not need to pay New Zealand tax when you're there for less than 92 days in a 12-month period, and if you're tax resident in a country New Zealand has a tax treaty with, you may be able to stay up to 183 days before New Zealand tax is due. The page tells you to contact Inland Revenue about your own situation.
Inland Revenue's residence test makes you resident after more than 183 days in any 12-month period, with part-days counted as whole days, unless you're a non-resident visitor. For arrivals on or after 1 April 2026, that status allows up to 275 days in any 18-month period if, among other conditions, you aren't working for or paid by a New Zealand resident and don't sell goods or services to people or businesses in New Zealand.
The UK is the one to watch. Its residence rules make 183 days automatic residence, but automatic non-residence needs fewer than 16 days in the UK. The limit is 46 if you weren't resident in the three previous tax years, or fewer than 91 days if you work full-time abroad, averaging at least 35 hours a week, with no more than 30 of those UK days spent working. So the UK number to carry around is sixteen, not 183.
The US substantial presence test is a weighted formula over three years: at least 31 days this year, and 183 in total once you add every day this year, a third of last year's days and a sixth of the year before that. Spend 120 days a year there for three years running and you reach 180, just under.
Where two countries both claim you, the treaty tie-breaker decides. That's a question to put to a revenue authority in writing, not to a border officer.
Do you need a digital nomad visa instead?
If you're going to New Zealand, the UK or Canada and the trip fits the visitor period, the government has already answered the question for you. A nomad visa mostly buys certainty. In some countries it also buys a longer stay or a clear tax position, but not always more time: Japan's digital nomad status runs six months with no extension and asks for annual income of at least ¥10 million, which gets you no longer than Canada's ordinary visitor stay.
The nomad schemes are drafted around the same counterparty test as the visitor rules. Croatia's permit is for people working for a company not registered in Croatia, with no Croatian clients, for up to 18 months. Spain's teleworking visa lets employees work only for companies outside Spain, while the self-employed may take on work for a Spanish company up to 20% of their total professional activity. You can only put a percentage on something if what you're regulating is the client.
Before you book, find out where the company that pays you is registered and whether anyone at your destination will pay you, hire you or buy from you. If the money comes from abroad and nobody local is buying, look for a published position. If there isn't one, you're relying on silence. For a longer stay, our digital nomad visa tracker lists the open programmes, each checked against the issuing government's own page.
Common questions
Can I work on a tourist visa if my clients are local?
No. None of the countries covered here lets a visitor do paid work for a local employer or local clients, including the three that allow remote work. The permission only covers work for an employer or client outside the country.
Can digital nomads legally work in the US?
The two US sources you can open don't settle it. USCIS's list of business visitor activities doesn't mention remote work for a foreign employer, and the visa regulation excludes "local employment or labor for hire" without defining "local". The State Department's detailed B-1 guidance is the document that would probably answer it, and we haven't read it, so treat the question as unanswered rather than as permission.
Is there a 183-day rule for tax?
Not a single one, and immigration and tax limits are set by different authorities. South Africa's remote work visa notice shows the split: if you're tax resident in a country with a double-taxation agreement in force with South Africa, you register with SARS once you've been there more than 183 days in total in any 12-month period, and if you're not, you register regardless.
Can a business hire someone who is visiting on a tourist or nomad visa?
These rules are aimed at exactly that. UK visitors must not do work for an organisation or business in the UK, and Croatia's and Spain's nomad schemes exclude or cap local clients. If someone is working for your local entity, it's their permission that fails.