As remote work has given me a lot of time on my hands, I thought to use the time for a second job based out of the USA. As a US citizen I still have access to all of my American bank accounts/info etc. My question is, can this affect my visa? My contract in Japan doesn’t state that I’m not allowed to work elsewhere. I’ve also read online that there are no immediate rules for working several jobs at once as an expat. Before I pulled the trigger I wanted to see if anyone has had a similar experience.
Thanks a bunch in advance !
Edit: My visa is a normal work visa Engineer/Specialist/humanities /Int’l services
6 comments
As long as you pay your taxes on what you earn, you’re perfectly fine doing this.
Side question – so if I’m a PR holder, but unregister from Japan, and travel the world year-long, without a fixed registered address, work for EU company, getting paid to European bank account and travel back to Japan (but don’t register residence), continuing remote work – I’m essentially free of income tax here in Japan?
Fwiw, my HR lady has always said something like, “you cant take another job in Japan. If you work for a US company, get paid in dollars, and get a tax US tax form from them, we have no way of knowing about it. Don’t tell me. Lol.”
[deleted]
Yep it’s fine. You just have to declare it on taxes.
Beware of hidden bad conversion fees when getting your money from banks. Shop around and test small amounts. Some banks don’t charge for inbound wires, or charge very little, but they’ll hit you with an invisible tax of a few points worse exchange rate than a competing bank that has higher fees but fair market rates. A lot of trial an error for this one!
People ask this questions in /r/JapanFinance all the time.
The answer is it’s really complicated, but usually it’s more of a pain in the ass to set yourself up to do this than it’s worth, both for your side gig employer and/or yourself.