Seafarer tax and residency: the questions to take to a real accountant

IMPORTANT: nothing here is tax advice, and nobody on a forum can give you any. Tax depends on your nationality, your residency, where you're paid, the flag, the vessel's trading pattern and your day count. Two crew on the same boat can have completely different obligations. This is a list of questions to take to a qualified accountant who genuinely knows seafarers — not a set of answers. THE CONCEPTS TO UNDERSTAND BEFORE YOU PAY FOR ADVICE • Tax residency is not the same as citizenship, and not the same as where your bank is. • Many countries have a specific seafarers' earnings relief or deduction with strict conditions, often built around days spent outside the country and the nature of the voyages. • Day counting is usually the whole game. Which means records are the whole game. • Being paid gross does not mean tax-free. It means the obligation is yours. • Social security and healthcare contributions are a separate question from income tax, and easy to forget until you need a doctor or a pension. WHAT TO ACTUALLY DO, STARTING NOW Keep a travel log from your first day: dates in and out of every country, with boarding passes and the boat's movements to back it up. Keep every contract and payslip. Retrospectively reconstructing three years of movements is miserable and expensive. RED FLAGS Anyone in a bar who tells you confidently that yacht crew "don't pay tax". Anyone selling an offshore structure to someone on a deckhand wage. Anyone whose advice doesn't start by asking your nationality and residency. WORTH DISCUSSING HERE Which questions caught you out, and what records you wish you'd kept. Not what anyone should declare.