Germany
Working Remotely on a Tourist Stay
Last verified August 7, 2026
Written for U.S. passport holders
Working on a Tourist Stay
- As in the rest of the Schengen Area, Germany's visa-free entry is conditioned on 'no economic activity being pursued.' Remote work for a U.S. employer or clients isn't authorized by the plain 90-day tourist stay.
Tax Residency: The 6-Month Rule and Its Carve-Out
- Under §9 of Germany's Fiscal Code (Abgabenordnung), a continuous stay of more than 6 months is automatically treated as your 'ordinary residence' (gewöhnlicher Aufenthalt) for tax purposes.
- There's a specific carve-out: a stay of up to a year taken exclusively for visiting, recreational, health, or similar private purposes doesn't count toward that 6-month trigger. Working remotely during the stay is exactly the kind of activity that could disqualify you from that carve-out, since the stay is no longer 'exclusively' private.
- Separately, simply maintaining a 'Wohnsitz' (a home available for your own use) in Germany can establish tax residency on its own, regardless of how many days you're actually present.
The Gotcha
Germany's tax law has a genuine carve-out for stays under a year taken purely for private/recreational reasons, but that protection is specifically for people who aren't working. If you're logging into a U.S. job the whole time, that's exactly the kind of activity that can knock you out of the private-purposes exemption and pull you into the standard 6-month residency rule instead.
Sources
This page was drafted from the primary sources below. Rules change, so check the linked page directly before relying on any of this.
- Schengen Visa (Business/Tourism): 'provided that no economic activity is being pursued' (Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt), German Missions in the United States)
- § 9 Abgabenordnung (Gewöhnlicher Aufenthalt) (Bundesministerium der Justiz (gesetze-im-internet.de))