Keeping my American Job?

Hi All,

My husband and I are in the process of looking into applying for a Spouse Visa for me, and it's come to my attention that there might be a possibility my employer in the US will allow me to continue working remotely in the UK.

However, I have no idea if this is even legally possible.... What steps would I need to take to make this feasible?

Does your employer have a UK business?

No, unfortunately I don't think so. However, I know they do contract people in the UK for some of our work.

Once you have a spousal visa, you can continue to work remotely in the UK for your US employer... that won't be an issue in terms of your visa.

However, taxes may be a different issue, as you would need to file UK taxes, since you will be physically located in the UK while you do the work. I think you may be required to register as self-employed in the UK for filing tax returns, though I don't know the ins and outs of how it all works and what taxes you pay where. That's something you'd need to look into.

The definition of contractor and employee is quite specific in the UK, so it may not be possible for you to exactly keep your job as it is now. You would have to be a contractor vs employee, and there's a lot of stuff I never understood so I won't pretend to. But if they already have UK contracts they may already know what you need.

This is a place to start:
https://www.gov.uk/employment-status/self employed-contractor

You bill them for your time and they pay your invoice. You pay your tax at the end of the UK tax year to the UK.

You should be paid more than you are now, as you won’t be paid for holidays, sick pay, etc.  They won’t have any obligations for maternity, parental leave, redundancy, etc.

It used to be SUPER desirable to be self employed as you pay less tax in the UK and you don’t need medical coverage in the UK, but they are raising the taxes in line with standard employment so it’s not as desirable.

It’s a great option to tie you over once your visa is approved though!

It used to be SUPER desirable to be self employed as you pay less tax in the UK and you don’t need medical coverage in the UK, but they are raising the taxes in line with standard employment so it’s not as desirable.

Likely to lose their very cheap, £3.05 a week (£158.60 per year) Type 2 National Insurance too: a fraction of what employees have to pay on the Type 1 NI.

The self employed Type 2 NI  doesn't allow contribution based jobseekers benefits as this is only for employees, because they have been paying the expensive Type 1 NI. However,  it seems that during Covid 19,  self employed were asking for money to be given to them from the government as they hadn't taken out insurance policies/didn't put enough savings by,  to cover any time out of work. The Chancellor eventually did this, but gave a hint that the Type 2 NI will end as they were not paying much taxes but had expected the taxpayers to bail them out.