As a greencard holder, can I do freelance work overseas while traveling?

[vision-quest 0]

My wife and I have been green card holders for just under 2 years, and have been living in America during that time. We are photographers, and are traveling to our home country for a couple of months. Are we allowed to work for companies in that country doing freelance work while we are there? We will not be there more than a couple of months.

Thanks!

Edited November 22, 2016 by vision-quest

[Penguin_ie 5,994]

Sure, as long as they are short trips; if they are so long that they think you may live abroad, that could be an issue.

[vision-quest 0]

Sure, as long as they are short trips; if they are so long that they think you may live abroad, that could be an issue.

Thanks so much. One of the immigration people at the airport said something to us as we were going to Australia about not working there, and we were shocked because we had never heard anything about this. We didn't really believe them, so I did some research and never saw such laws. I just wanted to double-check.

[Mounat 74]

Thanks so much. One of the immigration people at the airport said something to us as we were going to Australia about not working there, and we were shocked because we had never heard anything about this. We didn't really believe them, so I did some research and never saw such laws. I just wanted to double-check.

Hmm. Was this at a US airport? Unlikely you'd run into immigration when leaving the United States. Unless the CBP person was on a break or off duty.

Among the limitations on permanent residents are durations of trips abroad, which is not an issue in your case. Of course, the IRS is also keenly interested in income earned outside the US.

Good luck.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Mounat

[vision-quest 0]

Hmm. Was this at a US airport? Unlikely you'd run into immigration when leaving the United States. Unless the CBP person was on a break or off duty.

Among the limitations on permanent residents are durations of trips abroad, which is not an issue in your case. Of course, the IRS is also keenly interested in income earned outside the US.

Good luck.

I should specify. I am currently in Australia now on travels. I have been here for 6 weeks. A few weeks ago I flew to Hawaii for business (1 week in duration). During their routine questions at immigration, that is when it came up and we got a surprise. We are now back in Australia until January, but it looks like I will be entering the US again VIA Hawaii for a week in a couple of weeks. I'd just love to be able to take freelance work while I'm here in Australia until January.

Edited November 22, 2016 by vision-quest

[Villanelle 4,122]

I think the problem is or what the person who told you that was talking about is that you guys are Australian Citizens right? You never gave up your citizenship for there. You are only perm residents in the US. So you are going to Australia. You are citizens there. You are going to be quote "living there" in a way because you are going to be physically present there but you are not actually living there because you are claiming to be still living in the US as perm residents and just going to Australia to visit. You cant work as a visitor.

The USCIS defines where you "live" as the place where you are physically most of the time. Its where you get your mail, where you have your toothbrush, most if not all of your belongings, your drivers license, your insurance, etc. You can only have one residence. You chose to have the US as your residence- hence your permanent residence cards.

So if you enter Australia as a visitor (a US perm resident) and not an Australian Citizen; you can not and should not work there. You have no rights to work as a visitor entering as GC holder from the US if you were anyone else. Because you are citizens in that country you do have the necessary docs to work, however by doing so you can be accused of establishing residency back in Australia. You would be physically present there and working there. To USCIS that can mean you set up residency there and arent visiting but are living there.

Do you understand what Im saying? The rules about working as a visitor are complex and will vary from country to country and when you throw in things like freelance it just makes it more complicated- but were just going to focus on your specific situation which is YOU and your country/citizenship and the GC...

So you have to be careful. If you work in Australia you will need to file a tax return there right? That could mean you reside there. Not sure. I believe the USCIS only allows for certain classes of perm residents to work overseas with out being accused of abandoning residency. This includes those working for American companies, religious workers, media companies, government etc.. https://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartD-Chapter5.html

[vision-quest 0]

I think the problem is or what the person who told you that was talking about is that you guys are Australian Citizens right? You never gave up your citizenship for there. You are only perm residents in the US. So you are going to Australia. You are citizens there. You are going to be quote "living there" in a way because you are going to be physically present there but you are not actually living there because you are claiming to be still living in the US as perm residents and just going to Australia to visit. You cant work as a visitor.

The USCIS defines where you "live" as the place where you are physically most of the time. Its where you get your mail, where you have your toothbrush, most if not all of your belongings, your drivers license, your insurance, etc. You can only have one residence. You chose to have the US as your residence- hence your permanent residence cards.

So if you enter Australia as a visitor (a US perm resident) and not an Australian Citizen; you can not and should not work there. You have no rights to work as a visitor entering as GC holder from the US if you were anyone else. Because you are citizens in that country you do have the necessary docs to work, however by doing so you can be accused of establishing residency back in Australia. You would be physically present there and working there. To USCIS that can mean you set up residency there and arent visiting but are living there.

Do you understand what Im saying? The rules about working as a visitor are complex and will vary from country to country and when you throw in things like freelance it just makes it more complicated- but were just going to focus on your specific situation which is YOU and your country/citizenship and the GC...

So you have to be careful. If you work in Australia you will need to file a tax return there right? That could mean you reside there. Not sure. I believe the USCIS only allows for certain classes of perm residents to work overseas with out being accused of abandoning residency. This includes those working for American companies, religious workers, media companies, government etc.. https://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartD-Chapter5.html

Thanks so much for your detailed response. Yes, we are Australian citizens, but now live in the United States. We are just visiting family in Australia for Christmas because our apartment lease ran out giving us that opportunity. We have a lot of stuff in storage back in Colorado, as well as a PO Box where our mail is being sent.

So we are not allowed to do freelance work here? It's not a full-time job, or part-time, we are self employed and file taxes in the United States. The work we would do will be for US clients.

Also, does this mean we are not allowed to go overseas for work a client sends us on? IE I'm a photographer and pitch a job to a US client, but the photographs are taken in Iceland or New Zealand for example. Is this allowed?

Edited November 23, 2016 by vision-quest

[EM_Vandaveer 2,408]

I think the problem is or what the person who told you that was talking about is that you guys are Australian Citizens right? You never gave up your citizenship for there. You are only perm residents in the US. So you are going to Australia. You are citizens there. You are going to be quote "living there" in a way because you are going to be physically present there but you are not actually living there because you are claiming to be still living in the US as perm residents and just going to Australia to visit. You cant work as a visitor.

The USCIS defines where you "live" as the place where you are physically most of the time. Its where you get your mail, where you have your toothbrush, most if not all of your belongings, your drivers license, your insurance, etc. You can only have one residence. You chose to have the US as your residence- hence your permanent residence cards.

So if you enter Australia as a visitor (a US perm resident) and not an Australian Citizen; you can not and should not work there. You have no rights to work as a visitor entering as GC holder from the US if you were anyone else. Because you are citizens in that country you do have the necessary docs to work, however by doing so you can be accused of establishing residency back in Australia. You would be physically present there and working there. To USCIS that can mean you set up residency there and arent visiting but are living there.

Do you understand what Im saying? The rules about working as a visitor are complex and will vary from country to country and when you throw in things like freelance it just makes it more complicated- but were just going to focus on your specific situation which is YOU and your country/citizenship and the GC...

So you have to be careful. If you work in Australia you will need to file a tax return there right? That could mean you reside there. Not sure. I believe the USCIS only allows for certain classes of perm residents to work overseas with out being accused of abandoning residency. This includes those working for American companies, religious workers, media companies, government etc.. https://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartD-Chapter5.html

I'm sorry but this doesn't make any sense. As Australian citizens, they are legally allowed to work in Australia. As long as they include the income earned on their US tax returns and don't spend more time in Australia than they do in the US (and no trips longer than 6 months to Australia) I don't see a problem. Edited November 23, 2016 by EM_Vandaveer

[Villanelle 4,122]

I'm sorry but this doesn't make any sense. As Australian citizens, they are legally allowed to work in Australia. As long as they include the income earned on their US tax returns and don't spend more time in Australia than they do in the US (and no trips longer than 6 months to Australia) I don't see a problem.

Of course they are allowed to work in Australia. Thats not the problem. The problem is when you are a LPR and you leave the US and work (while outside the US) you can be accused of abandoning your residency. The only people protected from this, meaning allowed to work with no chance of being accused of such, are the ones listed in the links above. So thats government workers, religious workers, etc.

Taking on employment outside of the US is a strong indication that you abandoned your residency. Generally, for purposes of inspection, a lawful permanent resident returning to the United States after an absence of 180 days or less will be treated as if he or she never left the United States. So they are not grilled but the Officer will look at the intent and specific facts of the case. If they feel so they will refer you to court...

If you took a job in Australia from an Australian company and used your Australian tax ID number, that would be you, saying you are a resident of the US, going to Aus, and working there under your Aus tax ID number as a resident of Aus. You can not be a resident of two places. Unless you are able to file your Aus taxes as non resident? Is that possible? Because you can not file your US taxes that way...

if the work is US based work being done in another country- thats technically YOU a US perm resident doing US work (being done under your US SS tax ID number) in a foreign country. This is a weird area of the law. You would need permission to do such work in the country you are going to. Like if you went to China as a visitor China might have rules if they allowed you in as such (a visitor) as what kind of work you could do there under visitor status. In the US if you are admitted as a visitor (B class) they have specific things that you can do as a business visitor.

Its extra tricky when you have dual credentials. Both US perm residency and Aussie citizenship. The citizenship means you dont need special permission to work in any circumstances- so the Aussie gov wont care what you do and wont say you violated any of their laws- where as if you were in China they might have an issue if you didnt have the right permissions for what you were doing depending on how you were admitted. You do have to worry about how the US views your activities though. So for the US to be satisfied you have to realize they are viewing it as you were admitted as a visitor. As a visitor you must follow the visitor requirements even though you have the ability to surpass them and do what citizens can. (just because you can, if you do you will be overstepping and perhaps abandoning residency) So you must act like a visitor because you are one. You just happen to be visiting your home country.

Australia seems to have the same basic "B" class visa as the US does which allows for general tourists to be either sightseers or business folks working for their overseas companies coming to the country for business. This would be you. Its kind of weird but you have to look at it like- You would be (in Australia) a GC tourist from America working for a foreign (US) company/employer while there temporarily. There shouldnt be any problem with this. However in the first post it was written they were looking to work for companies in that country doing freelance work while there... Thats not the same thing as doing work for US client/employers while you are there.. Do you see the difference? Companies in that country are Aussie co's. Work for US employers are US co's.

Work for Aussie companies is going to cause you an issue because that would generally have to be done under your Aussie tax number, so you wouldnt be a visitor anymore (unless you can do that taxes as stated above). Work for a US company or individual is okay because its done under your SS #. However the USCIS can still give you grief about it if they choose to. You can attempt to minimize this by keeping good paperwork. Document the jobs showing specific start and end dates. That they were temp limited jobs. Have strong proof that you did not under any circumstance abandon residency. Do not vote or participate in government things while at "home". Do not buy property or stuff like that that would give the impression you were setting up shop there. You can always choose to just not do the work, but I dont know. I dont know how many people have an issue with things like this.

It would most likely come up during naturalization in the future if you go that route when they review your travel history and tax info. If they want to make a big deal about it they could deny you due to gaps in residency and it would give you a wait applying again. Less likely would be that it would be an issue when you attempt to re-enter the US at the conclusion of your trip (right now) because somehow it comes up at CBP what were you doing there and you say taking pictures for work and they say whoa hold on a minute and you get dragged into immigration court to prove you didnt abandon residency. IMO this is very unlikely to happen, but stranger things have happened. You could end up losing all the money you earned there in court proving you didnt abandon your GC when you went there. That would be a darn shame.

I cant give you any assurances that you wont be accused of that. Odds are very high that you wont, and if you are odds are also very high that a competent attny will be able to fix it for you. But this is a section of the law that is open for interpretation- so that means if you are questioned/suspected- it has to go to court to be settled. This is not a black/white issue where I can say well its clear cut the rules say working for the government or religious org is 100% allowed so you have NO worries and they can not hassle you because its not laid out like that.

So you can work overseas as LPRs. You can also be accused of abandoning residency. Your employment may qualify as temporary. Depends on how you do it and the evidence you have. I wish I had a crystal ball to tell you what to do..

Out of curiosity- what laws did you research OP?

You are going to have to decide for yourselves what you think is best.

https://www.quora.com/I-have-a-U-S-Green-Card-Can-I-go-abroad-for-a-few-years-without-losing-abandoning-my-permanent-resident-status (quoras not really official but eh

http://www.seyfarth.com/dir_docs/publications/AttorneyPubs/ImmigrationLawHomeAwayfromHome.pdf

[Villanelle 4,122]

hmm I also guess if you have two tax ID numbers you could technically choose which to use? I dont really know. Like if you were in Aus could you go to an Aus co and be paid as an LPR under your US SS# and not your Aus Tax ID number? I mean logically I dont see why not....

[EM_Vandaveer 2,408]

They are not taking up employment with an Australian company. They plan to freelance while visiting Australia.

[Villanelle 4,122]

The whole freelance angle makes it more complex to be honest. Anyone thats self employed (in the US at least) knows it causes issues with every kind of paperwork. It really shouldnt- just like being a perm resident shouldnt cause people issues in employment or at the DMV but it does because its 'different' and when a worker is present with something 'different' then the norm they can get all confused and not know how to proceed and tell you inaccurate things or have to call in management... But anyway-

Theres the issue of self-employed freelance, and the issue of the specific type of work that adds another layer of complexity. As a freelance photographer he does a specific job. It has various tasks. Some are in the field, some are in an office, some can be done remotely with the technology available. He may not have a brick and mortar studio with a black room to physically develop pictures like they did in the old days. I dont know. People that can do their job 'in any location' are very lucky and have a lot of freedom. It adds a layer of complexity and debate when you get into that- where and when were you working. How is he billing his time etc. Its almost like the discussions on the people who are in the process of adjusting status but havent adjusted yet that are working in the US remotely for a foreign company. (And how that area of the law is grey and hasnt been flushed out yet).

I do want to be extremely clear here- since going back and reading my postings I might have given off the wrong impression. Your Greencard gives you no travel permissions to other countries. The point I was trying to make was that you have to understand when you enter another country under your citizenship (and in possession of a US GC) you have to abide by that countries rules of how you were allowed entry (whether as a visitor or as one of its citizens) AND you need to have the mentality of "I am a US resident" no matter where you are.

This means engaging in activities that may be permitted there like work can be viewed by the US as you abandoning your residency. If challenged, it is going to be up to you to prove these were temporary work activities unless they qualify under one of the exceptions.

Personally I would consider who it was that said such a thing to the OP. People dont just randomly say things to travelers. I mean they can, but it would be odd. Usually they have some sort of reason for their comments. Perhaps he had quite a bit of his equipment with him as carry on items. Perhaps he made comments about what he did for a living. It just strikes me as odd for such a comment to be made randomly. Usually theres a precipitating factor. Theres also the angle to consider where the comment was made. If it was at the place they plan on re-entering in... well...perhaps they know that the Officers there take a dim view on working overseas. They are suppose to evaluate each case individually. Could they simply refer everyone who states they worked to court? Maybe. Would they get in trouble for that or get retraining for that? Maybe. Could they delay you and put you in secondary for a long time. Yup. Thats abusive and hard for individuals to prove. There are watchdog groups though that try to monitor stuff like that.

You shouldnt NOT do things in life because youre afraid of the worst case scenario otherwise youll never do anything. And its not really nice for people to throw out random warnings with out the full explanation- which is what the person did to him. She couldnt explain all the technical details because no one can, its a case by case situation. Depends what you do and how you do it. She wouldve been better off saying dont work in a way that will make you lose your residency! not dont work (at all).

[vision-quest 0]

Thanks so much everyone for your responses. Truly appreciated. It seems this is an extremely tough situation... and there really is no right or wrong answer. Any freelance work done while here would be very short duration (1 week max campaign/project), just for clarification sake. I would have a paper trail (emails) from clients that would back this up. Luckily I re-entered the US on work duties for a US company 2 weeks ago, and I'm going back to find a new apartment in the US at the end of January... so the 6 months time limit of being out shouldn't be an issue. We have an honest explanation, being here in Australia to visit family over the Christmas period, and to attend the birth of a nephew.

I'm really hoping none of this will be an issue!

Edited November 24, 2016 by vision-quest

[Villanelle 4,122]

when you say find a new apartment- I hope you dont mean that you gave up your old one before you left? I mean everyone has different living situations. I know there was one couple on here that had no physical address as they owned an RV and were driving around the US because they number one could afford to and number two chose to and that is their right. You have the right to live how you want and the government cant infringe on that. You do however have to abide by the terms of your GC card, and if you do things like give up your apartment and then go on vacation overseas - and then come home and find a new apartment--- well it may make sense financially, but it can cause you issues if the gov decides it wants you to prove the events/intentions. So its can be a balance of doing what you want and doing what wont raise flags.

[vision-quest 0]

when you say find a new apartment- I hope you dont mean that you gave up your old one before you left? I mean everyone has different living situations. I know there was one couple on here that had no physical address as they owned an RV and were driving around the US because they number one could afford to and number two chose to and that is their right. You have the right to live how you want and the government cant infringe on that. You do however have to abide by the terms of your GC card, and if you do things like give up your apartment and then go on vacation overseas - and then come home and find a new apartment--- well it may make sense financially, but it can cause you issues if the gov decides it wants you to prove the events/intentions. So its can be a balance of doing what you want and doing what wont raise flags.

Yes, we gave up our apartment (didn't break the lease, it was just up for renewal and we didn't renew it) due to the fact that it didn't make sense financially to pay rent if we were going to be gone for a number of months. We do have a PO Box address where we have our mail being sent to. I didn't even consider this would be an issue, we always just thought that as long as we came back within 6 months we would be fine. We have 100% intentions of finding a new apartment and not coming back to Australia any time soon after our family member has their baby in January.

Edited November 25, 2016 by vision-quest