Work in UK pay in Euros

[gigahoe]

Hi all,
I've been contacted about a role based in London, but as it's run out of Germany the pay is in Euros. The rate is fine based on the FX rate today so I'm just wondering if anyone else has done this and if there were any issues/advantages that I should be aware of before proceeding apart from the obvious about the FX rate changing and potentially killing my rate?

[TheFaQQer]

Who is paying the fees to convert the invoice amount from EUR into GBP?

[gigahoe]

Who is paying the fees to convert the invoice amount from EUR into GBP?

Nothing agreed so far. I'd guess me as they're just saying we pay in Euros, but I'll add to my list of things to check with them, thanks.

[northernladuk]

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=pa...ntractoruk.com

[jamesbrown]

Hi all,
I've been contacted about a role based in London, but as it's run out of Germany the pay is in Euros. The rate is fine based on the FX rate today so I'm just wondering if anyone else has done this and if there were any issues/advantages that I should be aware of before proceeding apart from the obvious about the FX rate changing and potentially killing my rate?

No advantages but, other than the FX risk, it's straightforward. When you say "FX rate today", be aware that you won't get the spot rate, but perhaps 1% less through your business bank (much worse with some highstreet banks), but this depends on how much effort you can stand (e.g. opening a Euro account and exchanging via an FX specialist). Other than getting a rate lower than spot, the FX fees should be minimal (perhaps 10 Euros each time).

[psychocandy]

I did this for a few years. Would try to avoid again if I could because of the exchange rate issues and work involved getting it converted.

When I started rate was 1.10 or something, then it went to over 1.20. Like you said, this means your rate, in effect, plummets. Of course, client/agent (quite correctly) don't care. It just worries you every day when you see you're rate being eroded possibly.

Some notes though based on my experiences.

1) VAT. It gets complicated. You have to convert VAT invoice to sterling also. There are several ways to calculate rate to use. Need to read up on it. Some are better than others and can shave a few quid off your vat bill in effect.

2) Get a euro business account linked to your sterling account and get the euros paid into here. If you get it paid into a sterling account (and converted at the time) it'll cost loads and you'll get a CRAP rate.

3) Once its in the euro account you're going to need it in sterling at some point. You could transfer from one account to another but, again, rate is likely to be crap. Easy to do but its not the cheapest.

4) Consider currencyfair. I used them for years. Basically, you upload money to them from your euro account (cost 20E to do this). Then it works like a peer-to-peer swapshop. You offer to exchange 1000E at x rate etc. Or you take someone else up on it. Bit of hassle but you get great rates. Then you basically download it back into your sterling account as sterling (free). Even with the fee to upload to currencyfair I still reckon I saved loads over the year (probably > £1000) doing it this way.
Was a bit worrying at first transferring 10000E to some random company but I never had any issues and they've been around for years.

[TheFaQQer]

1) 1) 2) 3)

[kevpuk]

As others have said, rate change is your enemy....but, then again, the £ is strong against the EURO right now, and I suspect that it would not get significantly stronger, more likely to hold or even drop, meaning more £s in your pocket.
Still, that might be overly simplistic....

[SlipTheJab]

[jamesbrown]

That explains the "crap" conversion rate.