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I'm a US citizen. I want to spend about 6 weeks vacation visiting my friends in France, Spain and Italy. However, with taking this much consecutive time off from work my employer would require me to do daily check-ins (email and Skype).

It's also very likely I would have to spend up to 20 hours per week fixing untoward problems. This would require me logging into my company laptop to write and submit code. Any hours that I spend doing company work I would be paid as a normal employee (vs. PTO for the rest of the vacation).

Is this legal as a tourist?

EDIT: I emailed the Spain consulate and received this replay: As a US citizen you can travel to Spain for up to 90 days without needing a Visa. You could also work for your US employer while visiting Spain.

David
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Short answer: no, it is not legal for an US citizen to work in France, Italy and Spain during a visa free stay.

For France it is explicitly stated that US citizens need a work permit.

Long answer:

Almost all work based rules are desided on a country by country base

  • and then often based on the nationality of the person

Unfortunately, the official EU summary is an unwieldy excel table for which the wiki link below has a summary of.

Assume that this may not be up-to-date, check the countries counsulate sites in your country to make sure that nothing has changed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_the_Schengen_Area

look for:

  • Rules regarding paid activity during visa-free stay

the summary above is based on this table.

Mark Johnson
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