The Future of Remote Work: Digital Nomads and the Implications for Immigration Systems
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Highlights
More than 25 countries offered digital nomad visas by mid-2022, but most immigration systems remain ill-equipped for remote work and need reform, including to tax and social security systems.
- COVID-19 rapidly accelerated remote work: before the pandemic, about 7.9 percent of workers worldwide worked from home, rising to 17.4 percent in the second quarter of 2020.
- Most immigration systems are built around full-time, employer-sponsored, in-country work, leaving remote workers and freelancers in a gray area on tax, labor, and visa rules.
- By June 2022, more than 25 countries had launched digital nomad visas, but data on uptake are limited and it remains unclear whether these schemes meet the needs of remote workers and host countries.
- Governments should adopt cross-portfolio strategies for remote work, including clearer visa categories, rules for short-term remote work on tourist visas, and bilateral agreements on tax and social security.
The pandemic spurred a rapid shift in working practices. In the decades leading up to the COVID-19 crisis, technological advances had allowed a growing number of people with jobs not tied to a specific location to work remotely, particularly in high-income countries with robust technological infrastructure. But the social-distancing and lockdown measures implemented in early 2020 accelerated this trend, with many people working remotely for the first time and some “digital nomads” seeking to do so internationally.
These changes in the world of work have important ramifications for immigration systems worldwide, most of which are poorly attuned to remote work arrangements. Finding ways to adapt immigration policies to keep pace with remote work trends is likely to remain important even as the public-health threat recedes in many places, as there are signs that many employers will continue to demonstrate far greater flexibility about where their employees work—both as a means to streamline operations and to attract and retain workers who are increasingly demanding the option to work remotely.
This report examines the challenges that remote workers and their employers face when navigating immigration systems, and analyzes opportunities to introduce greater flexibility into immigration, employment, and tax policies to accommodate the rapid rise of nontraditional working arrangements. In the immigration sphere, it identifies options for adapting existing immigration pathways to accommodate remote work and discusses the new digital nomad visas that have sprung up in countries around the world.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Remote Work: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities
A. Remote Work and the Pandemic
B. The Challenges and Opportunities of Remote Work
C. The Future of Remote Work
3 Rethinking Immigration Systems for an Era of Remote Work
A. Adapting Existing Immigration Policies to Accommodate Remote Work
B. Standalone Policies for Remote Workers
4 Conclusions and Recommendations
About the Global Skills and Talent Initiative
Anchored in the premise that immigration policy must be part of a broader skills and talent strategy, the Initiative has a particular focus on employment-based immigration and the supports that can help immigrants apply their full range of educational and professional skills.
About the Global Program
The Global Program bridges policy advice, research, and candid dialogue to design effective migration policies, drawing on global evidence and anticipating the forces reshaping how people move.
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