Becoming Marketplace Creator outside the US sounds problematic! Any experiences?

Hello everyone! I'm interested on becoming Marketplace Creator... but I live in Germany with an EU nationality, so I find filling out a W-8BEN document and a Merchant Agreement rather complicated. My main concern is how binding it is, or how the taxes would work from here (because the last thing I want, is to be accused of things like tax evasion from the US or Germany, because of rules I'm not aware of). So I have mainly two questions. First, is there a Marketplace artist around here working from outside the US, who would like to share his/her experiences with these issues? A friend and me would be very grateful of it. Second, in case I can't become a Marketplace Creator, are there other alternatives? For example, would it be allowed to promote myself in the Forum as freelancer to draw personal content for Roll20 users? Thanks for reading, have a nice day!

I'm in the US but I'll try to point this post out to a few of our marketplace creators who are not and see if they have some insight for you.

Thank you! :)

I would also recommend engaging in a discussion with the devs at <a href="mailto:team@roll.net" rel="nofollow">team@roll.net</a> as they would know the various legal ramifications and what you might need as they deal with all the marketplace creators including those not in the USA.

As an Aussie... it was pretty easy. I have more headaches with Paypal keeping multiple currencies and me mis-using the Paypal App than anything to do with Roll20 and me being in Australia.

I'm Canadian, and wasn't in the US to do any of the work. The W-8BEN was confusing, and instructions online were very conflicting. I needed to redo the forms once, but the Roll20 team was very helpful with it! To be honest, I am not certain how the taxes work on this. The money goes into my paypal, which keeps a record of everything. When tax season comes up, I am planning on speaking with a tax bookkeeper to make sure everything goes smoothly.

I've done some minor marketplace based work, really should ask about the badge again..., and I found the form confusing at first. I would advise emailing the devs directly on <a href="mailto:team@roll20.net" rel="nofollow">team@roll20.net</a> if you need help with it. They'll be more than happy to help as best they can.

Thanks everyone for the help! I will contact with the local job agency for legal and tax information, then certainly contact with the devs for assistance. Thanks again!

And just to be clear, it's <a href="mailto:team@roll20.net" rel="nofollow">team@roll20.net</a> you should email.

Rabulias said: And just to be clear, it's <a href="mailto:team@roll20.net" rel="nofollow">team@roll20.net</a> you should email. Dammit, i did it again... updated my post ;) Thanks Rabulias!

As Gabe said, there are actually quite a few international creators. I know of folks in Sweden, Spain, Argentina Australia, and I want to say Mexico City? I'll also try to point them to this thread. If you do decide to take the plunge, feel free to come say hello in our shared Slack Channel!

I'm in Canada. While I don't know anything about Roll20 and am not making any allegations about Roll20, my experience with writing sites such as Amazon and Smashwords is that they'll bend over backwards far enough to break their backs to prevent a non-US author from collecting any money from them. Also, from experience I'd say that any country that throws truckloads of red tape in the faces of small-business foreign citizens and residents is simply not worth doing paid work within the jurisdiction of.

One-Eyed Jack said: I'm in Canada. While I don't know anything about Roll20 and am not making any allegations about Roll20, my experience with writing sites such as Amazon and Smashwords is that they'll bend over backwards far enough to break their backs to prevent a non-US author from collecting any money from them. Also, from experience I'd say that any country that throws truckloads of red tape in the faces of small-business foreign citizens and residents is simply not worth doing paid work within the jurisdiction of. Jack, complete opposite here. I'm in Australia and I've had minimal issue with dealing with Roll20.