LebGeeks

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#1 February 28 2020

sero
Member

Freelancing for a company abroad in Lebanon

Hello

I will be working on a project as a freelancer for a few months for a company in USA, New York.
The company will wire transfer my payment directly to my Lebanese bank account when the project is finished.

Are there any legal procedures that i need to do? Should i pay any taxes for example?
Can the Lebanese Bank refuse this payment/transfer for any reason?

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#2 February 28 2020

TheIlluminative
Member

Re: Freelancing for a company abroad in Lebanon

sero wrote:

Hello

I will be working on a project as a freelancer for a few months for a company in USA, New York.
The company will wire transfer my payment directly to my Lebanese bank account when the project is finished.

Are there any legal procedures that i need to do? Should i pay any taxes for example?
Can the Lebanese Bank refuse this payment/transfer for any reason?

No, there shouldn't be any problem and you don't have to pay taxes. But make sure you can withdraw the money "fresh account".

Good luck!

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#3 February 28 2020

Guitaret
Member

Re: Freelancing for a company abroad in Lebanon

I know this is not related to your question but I advise you to take ~30% upfront

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#4 February 28 2020

xerxes
Member

Re: Freelancing for a company abroad in Lebanon

make sure to talk to your bank before you receive the payment.
and they won't ask about taxes. all you need to worry about is to be able to cash them out

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#5 February 28 2020

Johnaudi
Member

Re: Freelancing for a company abroad in Lebanon

Guitaret wrote:

I know this is not related to your question but I advise you to take ~30% upfront

I second this.
Unless the project is relatively small and take no time to develop, I'd suggest 50% upon approval and 50% once finished.
Several clients take unpaid freelancer samples and show it to other freelancers telling them "I got this done for X dollars, can you do the same for cheaper?"

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#6 February 28 2020

RandomMemory
Member

Re: Freelancing for a company abroad in Lebanon

as someone who does this, i recommend you start a bank account with bank audi. Make a payoneer account and get paid there. You get full USD in cash from the counter immediately when you receive the transaction. All you need are some sort of papers that confirm you work for them. I requested them from my employer and they said no problem and everything is going smooth since a couple of months ago. You can also order a debit card from payoneer and they charge 25$ a year for that. And let's say you get 3000$, payoneer takes around 40$ to make the transaction happen and 15$ to transfer it to bank audi, and bank audi takes 0 fees. I have no idea for other banks but ye make sure to not get scammed and get LBP at 1.5k rate. You should get full USD since it's fresh money

Last edited by RandomMemory (February 28 2020)

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#7 February 28 2020

TheIlluminative
Member

Re: Freelancing for a company abroad in Lebanon

RandomMemory wrote:

as someone who does this, i recommend you start a bank account with bank audi. Make a payoneer account and get paid there. You get full USD in cash from the counter immediately when you receive the transaction. All you need are some sort of papers that confirm you work for them. I requested them from my employer and they said no problem and everything is going smooth since a couple of months ago. You can also order a debit card from payoneer and they charge 25$ a year for that. And let's say you get 3000$, payoneer takes around 40$ to make the transaction happen and 15$ to transfer it to bank audi, and bank audi takes 0 fees. I have no idea for other banks but ye make sure to not get scammed and get LBP at 1.5k rate. You should get full USD since it's fresh money

So why not tell the company to transfer the money directly to Audi and cut your expenses of $55, as Bank Audi will take around $15 for the SWIFT transfer.

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#8 February 29 2020

RandomMemory
Member

Re: Freelancing for a company abroad in Lebanon

They do not want to deal with Lebanese banks. Simple as that. They'd rather do an ACH to a US bank. Also that's how they handle all dev payments, either that or PayPal

Last edited by RandomMemory (February 29 2020)

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