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In Germany, if you are a non-EU student, you are not allowed a paid job, and so it's not possible for a non-EU student to freelance in Germany.
However, as a student you are allowed to work certain hours per week and so I'm wondering: can an actual freelancer based in Germany hire a non-EU student to work part-time for them?
As a non-EU student you can work "120 days or 240 half days per year."
(source)
If you're a German citizen concerned with compliance, consider asking the freelancer to incorporate as a business in the US as you would then have a business to business transaction.
I've worked as freelancer remotely for clients based in Germany several times.
They paid me via Paypal and I sent them an invoice for "consulting services" or "web hosting", not sure how they handled their financials internally but most likely along the lines of "business expense".
It doesn't actually matter whether you're a EU citizen or not. You can engage in commercial activities under your own company.
What might be a problem:
you might have to address a few legal topics such as
Also there's the social implication whether the client will accept it. There's no law that keeps you from being a student in Germany and running a company. Get professional tax advise from a German advisor and possibly an advisor from the country where your company originates from.
That being said: Germany doesn't exactly make it easy to get this right but it is not prohibited by any means.
