Contract work in the USA

[kthesen]

I am a Canadian living in Canada and I am doing some contract work and now have businesses in the USA wanting some of my services. Not sure what I need to do to be able to do contract work in the USA. I would be traveling to the USA during the time of the contract and it could be as little as 1 week of work at a time. Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated in this area.

Thanks

[Reba]

Are you self employed or do you work for a company that has US offices or clients that you'd be working with?

[kthesen]

I am self employed.

[Steven]

Depends on what the work is, do a web search for "B-1 NAFTA entry" and read the regs.

What you can do (and this is typical) is to be self-employed in Canada and directly employed in the US, e.g. on TN-1 and go on their payroll. You can't be self-employed in the US unless you're on an E visa.

From a tax standpoint though being directly employed by them is by far the easiest, even if you had an E visa doing US payroll for one person who is only in the US temporarily is a major headache.