I am a staff-level software engineer based in Ontario, Canada, and I have worked full-time remote for US companies since 2021. Here is exactly how that works, so you can check it against your own policy in about two minutes.
Written to be forwarded. If you are a recruiter and the answer is “I would have to ask someone,” this is the page to send them.
I invoice through my own Canadian corporation, so engaging me is a vendor payment rather than a payroll project. There is no visa, no sponsorship, no relocation and no immigration process, because I am not entering the US to work. If you would rather I were an employee, an Employer of Record such as Deel or Remote.com handles that in about a week. I work Eastern time and overlap a full US business day.
Pick whichever fits your finance and people processes. I have worked under the first two and have no preference between them.
I invoice you through GG-Tech Solutions, an Ontario corporation. You process it the way you process any other vendor payment. No payroll setup, no tax withholding, no benefits administration, no state registrations.
Providers such as Deel, Remote.com, Velocity Global and Oyster handle Canadian employment, payroll and compliance for a flat monthly fee. Many US companies already have one in place. If yours does, this takes about a week.
If you already employ people in Canada, I can be hired into that entity directly with no new structure at all.
None of that machinery applies, because none of it is triggered. I am a Canadian resident working from Canada for a US client. Work authorization governs people who work in the United States.
These are the questions that decide it, and they rarely reach me directly. Answers below so whoever owns them can move without a call.
Materially less than with a US-based individual contractor. US classification tests apply to work performed in the US. I am a Canadian resident, working in Canada, and the engagement is between your company and my corporation rather than with me personally. Canadian rules govern my side and I handle them. Your counsel will want to confirm this against your own policy, and the contract can carry whatever representations they need.
You do. A corporation assigns IP by contract exactly as an individual employee does. I sign standard IP assignment, confidentiality and invention-assignment terms without negotiation, and I have done so on every engagement since 2021.
Collect a W-8BEN-E from my corporation, which documents foreign status, then pay an invoice in USD. No 1099 is issued to a foreign entity that has certified foreign status, and services performed outside the US by a non-US person are not subject to US withholding. Practically: it is a supplier record and a monthly invoice.
Not in the ordinary case. Under the Canada-US tax treaty, a Canadian corporation without a US permanent establishment is taxable on its business profits in Canada rather than the US. I do not work from the US, hold no US premises and sign nothing on your behalf. Your tax team should confirm against your own facts, but this is a well-worn path rather than an exotic one.
This is the constraint most worth surfacing early, and I will not talk you out of it. I hold data to whatever your policy requires: VPN, VDI, jump host, no local storage, hardware keys, whatever the standard is. HIPAA itself does not prohibit access from outside the US and a business associate agreement can be signed with a foreign entity, but plenty of covered entities have internal or contractual rules that do. If yours is one of them, say so on the first call and I will not push.
Whatever the contract says. Vendor agreements typically carry a short notice period on both sides, and I am comfortable with the same terms you would give any contractor. There is no statutory Canadian employment overhang for you to inherit.
Eastern time, overlapping a full US business day including Pacific afternoons. I have been on US teams since 2021 and run on their calendar, their standups and their on-call expectations.
This page describes how my own engagements have been structured. It is not legal or tax advice, and your counsel should confirm anything here against your own facts and policies.
If the role requires US citizenship or permanent residency for ITAR, export-control, security-clearance or federal-contract reasons, I am not eligible. That is a real wall and I will not try to argue around it. The same goes for a hard data-residency policy that keeps regulated data onshore. Tell me on the first call and I will thank you for the honesty and get out of your way.
The case worth one question to your finance or people team is the other one: the requisition says US-based because that is what the template said, and nobody has needed to ask whether a vendor invoice would do. In my experience the answer is usually that it would.
I have been embedded full-time on US engineering teams from Ontario since 2021, currently on a telehealth platform serving millions of patients across dozens of hospital systems. The arrangement has been audited, invoiced and renewed. Somebody already took whatever risk you are weighing, and it was uneventful.