Filipina working in Germany

Hi again.

There's nothing to stop you from working in Germany and living in Holland; thousands of people do it.  As for income taxes - no, but if you are resident in Holland, I think you'll have to pay the social taxes and Medical Insurance in Holland.  That said, I seem to recall there is a special agreement in place for such workers; it's best to ask in your employer's HR department to see what has to be done.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Cynic is not quite correct above:
If your husband lived in Holland and you get a residence permit there due to being married with him, this does NOT allow you to work in Germany (work permits are still national).
But if your husband moves to Germany (which he can without needing a visa, as EU citizen) and you join him here with a German family reunion visa, then in most cases a work permit is included in that visa.
However, you could of course just continue working in Germany on your current visa, which remains valid when you marry.
Income taxes are usually due where you live and work (thus Germany in your case) - but I don't know the Dutch tax rules, so you should ask a tax consultant there.

beppi wrote:

Cynic is not quite correct above.

Won't be the first time and probably won't be the last.

I find this a fascinating situation and honestly don't think either Beppi or Cynic's responses really answer the questions. But it is also beyond the scope of my personal knowledge. Already working legally in Germany there would not seem to be a problem to continue to do so or to get married. But the tax situation is not clear to me.

As Beppi mentioned, one usually pays taxes to the country you reside and work. But what about when one, like proposed, works in one and lives in another - known as a cross-border worker. Both countries would seem to have a ground to say they should be the one getting the taxes! A general rule is one pays where they reside on all income no matter where it is earned. And there are often provisions that one is exempted from paying tax, or has it refunded, in the country they earn it if they are residing and being taxed in another country. But such exemptions are usually limited to specific periods of time rather than unlimited. There are of course tax regulations in the EU that must regulate this situation since as Cynic mentioned it must be common to a degree. I suspect it depends on a number of criteria so one can not make a blanket statement that it will be one or the other. But in the end, getting double taxed should not happen.

But other considerations also come into play like health insurance. Anyone living in Holland will be expected to be insured through their system. But if one is working in Germany and getting health insurance provided  through their employer then it could be complicated. One is still covered in other EU countries for emergency services at least with German public health plans but for regular on going things like doctor visits it might cause conflicts. From my experience, many bureaucratic conflicts in Germany are due to people not liking to do things other than the most common way. One will often be told something is not possible although it is; the people saying so either not being well informed or not liking to be bothered.

I looked at Google and did not come up with a lot of definite answers. I am posting a link below to a very interesting article (in English) from the Maastricht University about cross border workers since they seem to have many working there. This article also has further links to sites like the SVB which is the Dutch social security system. The linked page below (in German and Dutch) deals with aspects of the social security system for such cross-border workers. The Maastricht article also has a link to the start page of the Dutch tax authoriity site (English version available) but not to an under-page specifically dealing with such situations. I didn't post this link or pursue the subject further but it looked a bit complicated to find needed information without knowing the exact publications, expressions or subjects to look for.

https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/sit … ermany.pdfhttps://www.svb.nl/int/de/bdz/index.jsp

I guess I should have said that "assuming all the regulatory aspects were covered, there is nothing to stop you from working in Germany and living in Holland; thousands of people do it".  I know a lot of people who do it (my wife's father did it for years), I also know some of those do it without any type of German work-permit; further, I also know of one couple that was caught without the correct papers and were retrospectively charged by the German authorities for the 30 years they had been working quite openly on a street market in Munster; the funny thing that came out of it was having paid, they then became entitled to the benefits; one of them is currently on a cure in Munchen and will be entitled to German pensions.

My wife's friend has just bought a house over the border in Germany (with a mortgage from a German bank); she works in Holland, her husband (non-EU) works all over Europe in the music business (staging, sound systems etc); all their kids go to school in Germany and have done for years (with no papers - it was the nearest school, just happened to be in another country).

There are agreements in place for Dutch nationals to receive emergency medical treatment in Germany and vice-versa; the air ambulance flies frequently between Enschede and Munster hospitals.  The Dutch regional Government have opted to restrict Twente airport (NL) so as not to compete with Munster/Osnabruck (D).

What does all this mean; there is lots of stuff that goes on cross-border, there is a zone (I think 10 km either side of the NL/D border) which has been declared a special zone, where "special" bilateral rules apply.

Wow.