International Social Security Agreements
Plenty of Americans work in foreign countries, and many other foreign nationals work in the United States as well. People in any of these two situations could be subject to dual payroll taxation: having to pay into two countries’ retirement systems from the same wages. To minimize the risk, Social Security decided to negotiate agreements with 30 countries that have comparable programs for their retirees.
These pacts usually require workers to pay payroll taxes to only one country’s retirement system at a time. They also let workers covered by the agreements pool the credits they already earned from employment in more than just one country to make sure they qualify for retirement benefits in the country where they claim them.
