Relocation and govt. ID verification

[time13am]

Political situation in my country (Republic of Belarus) began to deteriorate and some day soon Belarus may face sanctions after which it may be impossible to use Upwork.

* I only own a passport of Belarus
* I plan on relocating to Ukraine and open up business there (so that I can receive payments from Upwork)

QUESTION:
If I move to Ukraine + open up business account there + rent an apartment there — will I still be able to use Upwork if I don't have Ukrainian passport?

Is there an alternative way of verifying the fact of *temporary* residence by a non-citizen in a foreign country? Could any other documents be used instead of Passport if I only have temporary residence in Ukraine?

Thanks in advance!

[luiggi_rosado]

Hi Aliaksei,

You can techincally work from anywhere as long as you have a computer and internet connection and, you don't have to change the address on your account unless you're moving for a long period of time. If you do, the team may reach out to you to let you know of the methods and valid documents you can use to verify your current location, if need be. 

[time13am]

Hi Luiggi,

Let me explain it otherwise.
Back in 2009 Elance.com refused to work with Republic of Belarus due to US sanctions.

This literally means that when I tried to create account in 2013 — Elance website had shown me a message saying I can neither apply to jobs nor receive payments in Belarus.

So, I only have passport of the Republic of Belarus.
Our government messes things up and there's a risk for me to wake up one day and spot message from Upwork saying words to that effect — like, "we no longer work with Belarus due to new round of sanctions".

The only country I can relocate to is Ukraine.

So, with the passport of Belarus I'm unable to verify my account.

But if I register enterprise in Ukraine, or rent an apartment (I'm still a non-citizen) — would it be possible to verify my upwork account, or rather verify my new location using some other papers, like Utility Bills or the certificate of my freshly registered LLC in Ukraine or any other documents?
May I please ask you to share the list of valid documents?

[djondinium]

Hi Aliaksei,

Feel free to submit the documents that you have so that the team can review them and update you on the same matter. 

Thank you.

[time13am]

I mean I don't have any documents right now, because I'm only planning on relocation if things in Belarus start deteriorating sharply.

Rather, I would like to learn what documents can be approved by Upwork.

I see there are 2 documents mentioned:

[1] Passport or Govt. ID

[2] Billing Statement

[1] Again, I plan on relocating to Ukraine, but I'm a non-citizen, I only have passport of Belarus, neighbor country — this means that ID / Passport verification is impossible.

[2] If I just rent an apartment — Billing Statements will bare the name of the person other than me — this verification option is impossible as well.

But if I open up LLC / Enterprise / Company in Ukraine — will it be possible to verify my account using Certificate of my Enterprise?

Also, if I open up LLC this would probably mean I'll have status different from Individual. Rather the Agency. Can converting my account to Agency help somehow in this potential situation?

(Again, I'm not relocating right now. I'm just trying to plan things out and gathering information.)

[waltham01]

Hi, planning to relocate to another country too. Have you received any clarifications/updates regarding the questions above? Also, trying to figure out if opening an LLC is an option or I can continue to work like before, but from another country (Kazakhstan in my case). 

[kochubei_valeria]

Hi Andrey,

I encourage you to check out the responses we've provided here as they're more recent. I hope you find that helpful.

[929a8f30]

I have Action required: Verify your location in order to continue winning jobs on Upwork. Get started.

But I can't pass the Identity Verification's 2nd step because of country list that upwork provides me.

In origin I am from Armenia but I have residence in Florence, Italy and I live in**Edited for Community Guidelines**address more then 7 years. When I opened my upwork account I was in Armenia 2 months to visit my parents and I set my location my Armenian address and provided Armenian passport ad id document.

Today I changed my profile address location to Florence. Now I must verify my locaion but unfortunatellythere there is no Italy in the country list to upload the Italy residence Id card, there are only Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus...Tajikistan
Or upwork say that I must change my Profile location back to country of the document I uploaded before - Armenia
I would like to be able to hange my location to have location verified account.
Please give me an advice what to do I want to be Italian freelancer because I live here.

Thank you very much
Aghasi

[luiggi_rosado]

Hi Aghasi,

I checked and I can see that you should be able to select Italy. Could you please try using a different browser or the incognito mode of your current browser? You may also try clearing your browser’s cache and cookies. Don't hesitate to let us know if the problem persists. 

[929a8f30]

Thank you very much! Now it works, I have uploaded only the part of my id
card where is the photo (please see attachment) So here I am sending you
both the back and front photos of ID Card