3 - 4 Weeks in Germany for the contract start, am I tax resident ?

[ronkeen]

I live in a European country ( hungary ) and have an engagement working from hungary remotely for a client in Germany.

However they want me on-site in Germany for the first 3 - 4 weeks ? Will staying in Germany trigger local tax requirement.

Further for the duration of the engagement, each month I may need to visit on-site Germany for 1 week or less. Most of the time I will be working outside the Germany. Am I ok to not expect tax requests from DE?

[m0n1k3r]

I live in a European country ( hungary ) and have an engagement working from hungary remotely for a client in Germany.

However they want me on-site in Germany for the first 3 - 4 weeks ? Will staying in Germany trigger local tax requirement.

Further for the duration of the engagement, each month I may need to visit on-site Germany for 1 week or less. Most of the time I will be working outside the Germany. Am I ok to not expect tax requests from DE?

You should be ok as long as you stay in temporary (e.g. hotel) accommodation, so do not rent an apartment for the duration of the engagement, as it will be viewed as, from the point of view of Germany, that you have moved there for the duration of the engagement and only travel to Hungary temporarily for 3 weeks at a time with the 4th week being "home" in Germany.

For the first week, try to travel out of the country every weekend and stay in different hotels each week in order to emphasise the temporariness of that accommodation.

This is all based on the assumption that you are properly self-employed and does not run a company. If you do, then things change.

[Fred Bloggs]

Lots of people have to do this, it's normal business behaviour these days. Providing you are normally employed in Hungary and the visits to the client site are incidental to that work, then you have no problems. I did this for ten years when employed in the UK but would spend a week or two at a time at various European sites.