H1B working from Canada

Moving Here
1

Hello!
I am currently working in the US on a H1B. My company is okay with moving me to Seattle from the Bay Area.

I have a Canadian PR and want to stay in Canada to save my PR and continue to file for my Canadian Citizenship.

  1. Would it be fine to work in Seattle and stay in Vancouver? Possibly do some work trips every month? How long can I do this for? Is there a requirement to stay in the country on H1B? or any restriction to the number of trips being made? My employer doesn’t care where I stay as long as I can produce results at work.

  2. Has anyone done this before?

  3. Would I have to file for taxes in both places?

2

  1. and 2.
    I know many who worked from India for 3-6 months. Based on this I say it should be fine. (As long as you had Seattle address, and bank accounts with that address)

  2. This you have to consult an accountant. Depends on how many months in a year you are in Canada / US.

3

Thanks for your reply!
Is there a limit to how long I have to visit when I visit once a month? I am planning to stay just for one day once a month and travel back to Canada in the evening.

I am in the process of consulting with an accountant.

4

I heard you should technically be only working out of USA. That is you should actually be on the us side while you are working and then go back to Canada after work. This is how folks in the Detroit area do this - as the border cities on Canadian side are super close to Detroit downtown. Kinda hard to do this ok seattle side as it’ll be 90 miles from the Canadian border (not even taking about Vancouver downtown to Seattle).

5

@1q2w3e I am in similar situation and was thinking about moving to canada and working form there while being on H1B. I intend to keep one US address also.

Did you figure out a way or decided on this one?

6

Folks - this situation seems more complicated that what it looks on the surface. See this thread and a response from @panditji here:

Good discussion there.