Can I work remotely from Europe?

[SwissSaffa]

I currently live in Europe but I still have a UK limited company.

Using my UK limited company, can I take on a UK contract and invoice the client as normal using my UK limited company but I will work remotely from Europe (with some trips to the UK).

Is this legal and OK?

[willendure]

I currently live in Europe but I still have a UK limited company.

Using my UK limited company, can I take on a UK contract and invoice the client as normal using my UK limited company but I will work remotely from Europe (with some trips to the UK).

Is this legal and OK?

Yes perfectly legal

[jamesbrown]

I currently live in Europe but I still have a UK limited company.

Using my UK limited company, can I take on a UK contract and invoice the client as normal using my UK limited company but I will work remotely from Europe (with some trips to the UK).

Is this legal and OK?

Is it lawful? Yes. Is it "OK"? That's a bit more open-ended.

You will need to consider the tax implications of running a UK company from overseas, as you've likely created a permanent establishment overseas, which may have complicated reporting and tax implications in your country of residence.

Perhaps more importantly, if you are considering this as a "workaround" for obtaining UK contracts from overseas (which you probably are, because otherwise you would do the sensible/simple thing and register a company in your country of residence), then you should probably be upfront with the supply chain as this may or may not be acceptable to the various parties or consistent with any contract you might obtain. In general, a UK agent won't touch a non-UK resident, for example.

[hobnob]

I don't know much about the tax implications, but you'd certainly need to talk to the client. E.g. they might have geo-filters in place to restrict who can access their on-prem/cloud services. They might also have concerns about their data being stored outside the UK.

[WTFH]

Is this legal and OK?

That depends. (I'm going to slightly disagree with James here around the lawfulness of it)
1. Do you have a legal right to work in the UK?
2. If the client thinks they are signing a contract with a UK resident business with UK staff, and you are not resident in the UK, then you are knowingly signing a contract under false pretenses.

After that, it is up to the client. But that requires you to be open and honest with them and not to act in any way that could be seen as devious, dishonest or withholding of relevant information.

...and that's without looking at the tax implications.

[jamesbrown]

I think the OP is implicitly referring to statute law, which is why I mentioned the contractual agreement, because that is the thing that will catch them out, not legislation, assuming they are otherwise operating their business properly (but that is tangential to the question of residency).

[WTFH]

...assuming they are otherwise operating their business properly...

I remember meeting a South African (prior to Brexit) who had a UK company registered to his friend's house in the UK. The guy physically lived in France. He drove a car that was registered in Switzerland, but didn't officially import it into France and re-register it there. I'm unsure how the car was taxed/insured.
Nothing was straight-forward, and his business/personal tax affairs could be described as a "grey area". He took the attitude that if someone did not ask a specific question in a very specific way, then he could reply in a way that wasn't lying, even if it was not being completely honest.
If you asked him was he operating his business properly, he would confidently reply "yes", because his definition of "properly" was "what I consider to be properly". If you asked was he acting legally, again he would reply "yes", but would be very specific about how certain things were legal.

[NotAllThere]

I'm unsure how the car was taxed/insured.

He may have had a Swiss holding address, otherwise it wasn't taxed or insured. He was also commiting the criminal act known as "smuggling". If you're resident in France, you may not drive a Swiss registered car (without an exemption certificate which is only valid for a short period of time, which is used by car hire companies mainly).

[jamesbrown]

I remember meeting a South African (prior to Brexit) who had a UK company registered to his friend's house in the UK. The guy physically lived in France. He drove a car that was registered in Switzerland, but didn't officially import it into France and re-register it there. I'm unsure how the car was taxed/insured.
Nothing was straight-forward, and his business/personal tax affairs could be described as a "grey area". He took the attitude that if someone did not ask a specific question in a very specific way, then he could reply in a way that wasn't lying, even if it was not being completely honest.
If you asked him was he operating his business properly, he would confidently reply "yes", because his definition of "properly" was "what I consider to be properly". If you asked was he acting legally, again he would reply "yes", but would be very specific about how certain things were legal.

The OP may have a fairly relaxed attitude to all this - if we look at similar questions in the past, I venture that most of those posters were looking to disguise their personal residency status to acquire UK contracts. I think that's basically what you're warning against (both of us are warning against). In itself, this isn't going to be an issue under the Companies Act 2006 - personal residency status is not directly relevant in that regard, providing you have a UK registered office address for the company. The issue will be whether it's consistent with any contract signed and the answer to that is probably not, certainly not if there's a UK agent involved. There's a basic smell test here. Are you willing to disclose your personal residency status during contract negotiations? If the answer is "no", then you're clearly in the category of clueless posters we've seen before asking similar questions. The OP may not be that person.

[sadkingbilly]

I worked in UK from NL and DE for a while, but CH is probably more anal, like it is mostly.
and it was before the idiots voted.