🇨🇦 Canada vs 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Digital Nomad Visa Compared
Canada has no visa officially called a "digital nomad visa". United Kingdom has no visa officially called a "digital nomad visa". Every figure below comes from each country's own sourced, dated fiche - compare income, duration, tax, family rules, fees and processing time before you decide.
- Minimum income
- TBD
- TBD
- Visa duration
- 6 months
- 6 months
- Tax regime
- Under 183 days in Canada in a calendar year, without significant residential ties, keeps you a non-resident for tax purposes - taxed only on Canadian-source income, not your foreign remote salary. Reaching 183 days in the year makes you a deemed resident, taxed on worldwide income.
- A visit that stays within the Standard Visitor visa's 6-month cap is not automatically outside UK tax residence: the Statutory Residence Test (SRT) can make you UK tax-resident from as few as 46 days a year if you have strong UK ties, or up to 183 days with none. Nomads working remotely from the UK should count SRT days, not just visa validity.
- Family (spouse / children)
- Spouse + children admitted
- Spouse + children admitted
- Application fees
- 100 CAD
- 135 GBP
- Processing time
- eTA (visa-exempt nationalities): typically minutes, occasionally up to a few days. Visitor visa/TRV (other nationalities): reported roughly 4-12 weeks, varying widely by country of application
- Typically around 3 weeks for standard processing
Canada has no digital nomad visa and visitor status carries no published minimum income - officers require proof of 'sufficient funds' for the trip plus evidence you will leave (ties to your home country), assessed case by case rather than against a fixed threshold.
The UK has no digital nomad visa and the Standard Visitor visa has no fixed income figure in the Immigration Rules. Appendix V requires only that applicants show 'sufficient funds to cover all reasonable costs in relation to their visit without working or accessing public funds' (accommodation, subsistence, and the return/onward journey). Informal guidance commonly benchmarks this around GBP 100-150/day after accommodation and travel are paid, but that is not an official figure, so it is left TBD rather than stated as fact - verify current expectations with UKVI before applying.
Most visitors are authorized up to 6 months per entry at the border officer's discretion (sometimes less, occasionally more); the day you must leave by is stamped in your passport or shown in your eTA/visa record. Staying longer requires applying to extend visitor status from inside Canada before the authorized period ends - not a renewal in the country-hopping sense.
source · verified 2026-07-25
Standard Visitor visa: up to 6 months per visit, not renewable/extendable in-country for this purpose - you must leave and can reapply for a new visit. Remote work must stay incidental to the visit, not its primary purpose, or the visit itself is out of category.
source · verified 2026-07-16
source · verified 2026-07-25
Figure is the Statutory Residence Test's day-count thresholds (46/91/183 depending on UK ties), not a visa rule - the visitor visa itself imposes no tax regime. Foreign income taxed only if UK tax-resident under the SRT; confirm your own tie count before relying on the automatic overseas test.
source · verified 2026-07-16
Spouse and children can accompany you as visitors, but each family member generally needs their own visitor visa or eTA and must independently show sufficient funds and ties.
source · verified 2026-07-25
Spouse and children can accompany as visitors on their own Standard Visitor visas (or visa-free if from a non-visa-national country); each family member is assessed and, where required, pays separately - there is no family/dependant visa tied to remote work under this route.
source · verified 2026-07-16
CAD 100 visitor-visa (TRV) fee applies to nationals who need a visa, plus a CAD 85 biometrics fee (CAD 185 total). Nationals of visa-exempt countries arriving by air instead need only the eTA, CAD 7. Which route applies depends on nationality - confirm on the IRCC eTA/visa-exempt country list.
source · verified 2026-07-25
GBP 135 for a 6-month Standard Visitor visa, effective from the 8 April 2026 fee rise (up from GBP 127). Visa-national applicants pay this fee; non-visa-nationals (many nationalities, including most of the EU, US, Canada, Australia) do not need a visa at all for stays up to 6 months, but as of 2026 they do need a separate Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) before travel - mandatory carrier-level enforcement for all visa-exempt nationalities went live 2026-02-25, and the ETA fee rose from GBP 16 to GBP 20 on 2026-04-08. So a visa-exempt remote worker doesn't pay a visa fee but does now pay GBP 20 for a mandatory pre-travel ETA (2-year multi-entry) - not "nothing" - and the same permitted-activities rules still apply either way.
source · verified 2026-07-17
IRCC publishes current country-specific TRV processing times on its own processing-times tool; the range above is a general reported guide, not a guarantee.
source · verified 2026-07-25
source · verified 2026-07-16
Related comparisons
Figures marked TBD are not yet verified and are never shown as facts. Last full review: Canada 2026-07-25, United Kingdom 2026-08-04.