I changed base mid-year — which country taxes my salary?
Both payrolls keep deducting, because each applies its own country's rules and neither sees the other. The crew article has to be reapplied from the transfer date: the employer, the enterprise operating the aircraft and your own residence can each change with a base. Settling that fixes which country taxes which part of the year, and whether the second deduction is credited on a return or reclaimed from the payroll authority. See split-year residency.
Are cabin crew allowances and per diems taxable?
It depends on what each element is under the law of the country doing the taxing, not on what the airline calls it. Payroll applies the rules of the country it operates in; your country of residence characterises the same payment under its own, and the two can differ on one line of one slip. Ask the airline for the scheme rules and the breakdown of how each element is reported, then take the elements one at a time. See how allowances are taxed.
Can cabin crew be tax resident in no country at all?
Each country applies its own residence test separately, so all of them can fail at once — typically where the base country does not tax the pay and the home test turns on ties you no longer have. It remains a conclusion under each country's own law, and the country you left keeps its claim until those ties are shown to have ended. Banks ask for a jurisdiction, so the workable answer is one documented residence and a certificate of residency for it.
My contract is with a crewing agency — who is my employer for tax?
Whichever entity the article points to, which is not always the name on your badge or your payslip. The crew article looks to the employer, or to the enterprise operating the aircraft and where that enterprise is managed; where an agency in one country supplies you to an airline operating from another, those are different countries. The ordinary employment rules add a test of who actually bears the cost of your pay. It is read off the contracts, period by period. See the employment income article.
Do I still have to file at home if nothing is deducted at my base?
Very likely, if you are still resident there. What the base payroll deducts is your employer's obligation under its own country's law; your filing obligation comes from your residence, and a payslip does not discharge it. Where nothing was withheld there is also nothing to credit, so relief has to come from the crew article itself, or from residence having genuinely ended — not from a foreign tax credit. See double taxation relief.
Which country gets my social security contributions as crew?
Not necessarily the one that taxes the salary. Contributions are allocated by a separate social security agreement with its own tests, so the answer can differ from the tax answer — and where the two countries have no such agreement, both systems can charge with no credit between them. The document that proves the allocation is a certificate of coverage issued for a stated period, so a base transfer or a change of employing entity means revisiting it. See social security certificates.
What counts as foreign income, and what is a foreign tax?
Foreign income is income sourced outside the country you are filing in — where the work was done, where the property sits, where the payer is resident, depending on the type. A foreign tax, for credit purposes, is a levy imposed by another country that functions as an income tax and that you were legally required to pay. Consumption taxes, property taxes and most social contributions are not, however real the cost. Sourcing is decided by rule, not by which bank received it. See the foreign tax credit.
What is a double tax treaty and what does it actually do?
It is an agreement between two countries that divides up the right to tax. Article by article it decides which country taxes employment income, dividends, interest, royalties, pensions, property and business profits — and where both may tax, it caps what the source country can withhold and tells the other to give credit. It also breaks residence ties and opens a government-to-government channel for disputes. What it never does is apply itself: a treaty position is claimed. See our treaty work.
