Our Take
The regulatory path exists and is clearing. The actual friction lives in HR policy gaps, team equity perception, and whether your company will actually let people ask for this.
Why it matters
Employees are already asking to relocate for cost of living, healthcare, and residency access. Companies treating these requests case-by-case risk losing people who want the option but see no clear path to ask for it.
Do this week
HR leaders: document your current policy on international remote work (or state that none exists) and meet with your legal and finance teams before the next request lands on your desk.
Spain's visa framework is now predictable
Spain passed its Startup Law in December 2022, creating a Digital Nomad Visa and expanding the "David Beckham Law" tax regime to cover remote employees of foreign companies. The legal infrastructure has matured in the past two years. W-2 approvals for U.S. employees are now clearing with consistent approval rates through the competent authorities, according to practitioners managing Spain-based arrangements. The policy intent is explicit: Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez framed the visa as part of national strategy to attract working-age, tax-paying residents to address population density below the European average and nearly half of municipalities at risk of depopulation.
Italy offers a parallel opportunity. Employees pursuing Italian dual citizenship through descent gain EU residency rights that remove friction from international assignments. An employee with Italian dual citizenship can reside, study, and work anywhere in the EU without applying for additional work visas, and employers with European offices avoid visa processing costs and delays for internal transfers.
The legal box is now checked. Everything else is broken.
Employees are willing to accept pay cuts for the freedom to relocate. According to Expatsi, a mobility consulting firm, workers are willing to absorb sizeable reductions in exchange for autonomy. This creates room for employers to negotiate salary downward, but only if HR has a policy in place to do it fairly.
The gaps most companies underestimate are operational, not legal. Time zone integration between U.S. and Spanish working hours creates scheduling friction. Determining which set of public holidays an employee follows, what in-person expectations are reasonable, and whether the broader team is comfortable with the arrangement all require explicit decisions. "Equity within the team matters more here than people expect," according to practitioners managing these arrangements. One person in a sunnier place on the same money can cause team friction that regulatory paperwork will not fix.
Compensation policy remains unsolved across the industry. The "pay for the role" argument holds that compensation should reflect the value of the work, not geography. Most companies handle requests case by case rather than by policy, which practitioners describe as "the honest answer for now." Without a stated policy, employees considering relocation are often worried that raising the conversation threatens their job security.
Retention is the overlooked lever. By the time an employee formally proposes an international move, they have typically been considering it for months. If they see no clear path to ask, they may leave rather than stay to find out. Keeping remote and international arrangements on the table sends a retention signal that policy clarity sends even more.
Start with people and role fit, not legal compliance
The question practitioners recommend HR leads ask first is not legal. It is whether you have the right person in the right role with the right support and objectives. Get that in place and the regulatory side becomes considerably easier.
Managing distributed teams by outcomes rather than attendance is non-negotiable. Communicating goals clearly and setting much better targets becomes mandatory. This matters even more when a team member is in another country. If your company has not yet built that muscle, adding geography to the equation will expose it.
Document your stance on international remote work now. If you have no policy, say so explicitly and commit to one before the requests accelerate. Employees asking about relocation are not edge cases anymore. They are reading visa announcements and assuming your company either supports them or does not. The longer HR stays silent, the more people assume no and start looking elsewhere.