Governing Digital Nomad Employment Under International and Comparative Law: From Regulatory Models to an Interdisciplinary Governance Framework

Abstract

This article examines digital nomad employment as a cross-border legal issue in the labour market of the digital economy. Rather than describing Vietnamese law in isolation, it analyses how selected legal systems and international institutions are addressing this form of work through the principal regulatory axes of determination of employment status, platform and algorithmic management, visa and residence rules, taxation, social security, applicable law and dispute-settlement mechanisms. Drawing on the experiences of the ILO, the European Union, the United States, Japan, Estonia, Thailand and selected digital nomad visa regimes, the article argues that the governance of digital nomad employment cannot be based solely on the traditional territorial logic of labour law. It must instead be framed as an interdisciplinary regulatory architecture combining labour law, migration law, tax law, social security, data governance and private international law. Vietnam is used as a reference case to assess the selective transplantation of international experience and to suggest a suitable governance direction for developing countries in the context of digital integration.