Hi everyone, I was hoping someone could help me answer this question. Currently, I am employed in Germany (full-time, non-freelance, blue card), but since my grandparents are quite old and sick, I would like to spend 2 months in the USA to visit. One month of this time would be vacation, the other I would be working remotely. My team is okay with this, but HR is the one giving me issues.

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My company has rarely dealt with Americans and therefore are unsure about possible fees they might incur if someone were to find out I was working from the US on a German contract. The main issue they see is potentially with the DE-USA social security agreement, but everything I’ve been reading online says that for stays as short as mine, there should be absolutely no issues. Blue card allows me to stay outside of Germany for a year, and according to [ssa.gov](https://ssa.gov), less than a 5 year stay is covered by the German social security system.

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The only real issue I see is that I wouldn’t be covered by health insurance in the US, but my state doesn’t require it and I’ve spent my whole American life avoiding doctors anyways. It’s a personal risk that I take fully, especially since it’s only for a very short time.

Is there anything else I’m not considering? Has anyone else had experience with this? Thanks so so much for the help!

4 comments

  1. > spend 2 months in the USA to visit

    > I wouldn’t be covered by health insurance in the US

    Check if your health insurance offers travel insurance. Mine does. I think it’s common to cover trips up to 8 weeks.

  2. You will be liable for US tax in addition to German tax for the time you spend physically working in the US, but otherwise working from abroad for just a month shouldn’t be a huuge deal

    Regardless of your history of avoiding doctors though, I think it’d be pretty stupid to do this without insurance. You can probably get travel insurance through your Krankenkasse extremely cheaply. I pay like 12€/year to be covered for any trip I take. afaik it covers American citizens visiting America as well.

  3. >The main issue they see is potentially with the DE-USA social security agreement, but everything I’ve been reading online says that for stays as short as mine, there should be absolutely no issues.

    Not quite that simple… the totalization agreement covers *dispatchment* to the US, but strictly speaking, it doesn’t cover you voluntarily going to the US for personal reasons. You’ll notice how the [actual detailed info](https://www.ssa.gov/international/Agreement_Pamphlets/germany.html) specifies an employee being “sent to” the US.

    >The only real issue I see is that I wouldn’t be covered by health insurance in the US, but my state doesn’t require it and I’ve spent my whole American life avoiding doctors anyways. It’s a personal risk that I take fully, especially since it’s only for a very short time.

    Just buy a Reisekrankenversicherung from Debeka or whatever. It costs approximately nothing (I paid €8 a year for mine) and you will be covered for emergencies better than most Americans during your visit.

    >Is there anything else I’m not considering? Has anyone else had experience with this?

    I worked for my German employer from the US for a week once. My boss just asked me afterward to keep it on the DL, because it does kinda entail a lot of HR/legal problems.

  4. Two things to mention:

    * If your job involves dealing with *any* kind of personal data (even if that’s just names of people, whether they be employees, clients, suppliers, etc), then you **cannot work from the US**, as that would be a breach of the [GDPR](https://gdpr.eu/), which guarantees that all personal data will only be transmitted outside of the EU if the owner of the data was explicitly told about this when the data was collected. Your employer would be opening themselves up to enormous liability if they let you work with personal data from abroad.
    * You need to talk to your employer about their workplace accident insurance (*Unfallversicherung*). Normally if you have an accident at work then this insurance covers you (and ensures you get far better medical treatment than you “normally” would), but this may not work if you’re working remotely from abroad.

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