I got my IEC work permit (2 years) secured in January and am planning to go over in August/September. My current UK employer has hinted they may be interested in keeping me on as remote for a few months when I get to Canada. A couple of questions on this:
1) I've seen it's possible to stay in Canada as a visitor for up to six months, and during this time you can work remote for a foreign employer. Could I do this for the first few months and then activate my IEC work permit later on? If so is there some immigration center I have to visit?
2) Does anyone have experience with handling tax in my situation of working remote for a UK company? I think I'll probably consult an accountant on this, but if you have any advice I'd appreciate it.
I plan to apply for PR at some point, so during my IEC I'll be applying to work under a Canadian employer so I can get more points.
1)this is not an uncommon approach where people enter first as visitors where they may or may not get a 6 month stay then they flagpole at US border to get their IEC work permit.
The only challenge with this is you still need to show 2 years travel insurance plus access to 2500 CDN when you flagpole and it can be a challenge getting travel insurance when already out of UK. You will need insurance anyway for the visit stay but the IEC part still needs to be a full 2 years.
As a visitor you can work remotely as long as there are no Canadian clients involved. Once on a IEC you can work for anyone , even UK remotely as well as Canadian employers as that would be an open work permit
Thanks for the reply. When you say "may or may not get a 6 month stay" what can cause it to be less than 6 months?
I'm toying with the idea of going over for 6 months then coming back to the UK for a week, grabbing insurance and heading back over to start the IEC permit.
