Energy Healers Working Internationally: Legal, Tax, and Ethical Considerations

✏️ Editor’s Note:
Have you thought about taking your healing practice across borders—whether by serving online clients abroad or leading retreats in another country? Or maybe you’ve wondered what legal, tax, and ethical rules apply when your clients live outside your local community?

In this article, attorney Ian Foster reviews the key considerations every healer should know before working internationally. You’ll learn how to protect your practice, navigate cross-border rules, and embrace opportunities to serve clients around the world.

Energy, healing, and love transcend space and time; they are universal.

So they certainly transcend borders. One of the great privileges of our energy industry is meeting people from around the world, as we both serve and learn from them.

Yet while energy transcends borders, the legal, tax, and ethical rules often do not. So let’s provide an overview of the implications of running an energy practice in today’s interconnected world.

Legal Landscape Varies by Country

Unlike the licensed professions (think doctors, therapists, lawyers), energy medicine often falls into gray areas. Depending on the location, there may be no certification or licensing requirements of any kind; there may be safe harbor laws; or, there may be no requirements whatsoever.

In most cases it will be important to check with local laws depending on where you are and where your clients are. My general recommendation is to have a good client bill of rights in place, and concern yourself mostly with the laws in your local jurisdiction.

Consent Forms and Client Agreements

As always, I highly recommend you have written consent forms for all your clients, whether they are paying or not.

When it comes to having clients across borders, things are not that much different. A good consent form still contains clear payment terms, clear rules for confidentiality, and a clear description of your services and any limits on your role.

Don’t forget to make sure the form is written in clear language so that clients feel good about working with you. Some lawyers recommend having different consent forms for each country where you have clients, but my personal opinion is the risk there is low.

From a practical standpoint, you are unlikely to get in trouble in a foreign country simply for having a consent form that does not match some local technicality.

Hosting Retreats, Workshops, and Trainings Abroad

Here is where international work gets tricky, and where it’s important to pay close attention to local rules. If you are running some sort of retreat, workshop, or other training in another jurisdiction, you’ll need to ask questions like:

• Is there a work permit or visa requirement?
• Do I need separate liability insurance for the event, or will my existing insurance cover me?
• Will I have to report income earned from the retreat to that country’s taxing authorities?

Those rules will all be country-specific, so I can’t give you all the answers. But as a general rule of thumb, I do have several recommendations that are broadly applicable:

• Google the work/visa requirements for that country and go to that country’s government website to look up those rules.
• Check with your insurance provider about whether your policy covers the event; often it’s best simply to obtain event-specific insurance just to be safe.
• Remember: your local tax authorities will likely still require you to report income earned abroad.

Tax Implications of International Work

Tax rules can get complicated when working internationally, but don’t let that deter you. If you are called to have international clients, then heed your calling and serve the people who need you.

If you want to run an in-person event in another country, then go for it. The tax stuff can get figured out and the fulfillment from serving your community is well worth it. While the rules can and do differ from place to place, below I’ll give you some general considerations to keep in mind.

First, as I said above, keep in mind that your local tax authorities where you live will want you to report all the taxable income from your healing business, regardless of whether your clients are in your country or they live abroad, and regardless of whether any event you hold is close to home or far away.

Second, as a general rule you will not need to worry about reporting taxable income in a foreign country simply because you have an online client who happens to live in that foreign country. Though, if you hold an in-person event in that foreign country you may have to report taxable income from the event there.

Third, keep in mind that some countries impose sales taxes on services and some do not. This is apart from any income tax rules, and it might be called a sales-and-use tax (SUT), value-added tax (VAT), and/or general-sales or general-service tax (GST). Those taxes all fall under the general category of “sales taxes” and in some places those taxes apply to services, while in other places they only apply to tangible goods.

You’ll want to make sure you are complying with your local sales-tax rules first and foremost, whether it’s the SUT, VAT, or GST. Then if there is another country where you have a significant number of remote clients, check into that country’s sales tax rules as well.

Hiring Internationally

As your practice grows and you serve more people, there may come a time when you’ll find yourself needing some help. And that’s okay!

Many of us are so used to giving and doing things ourselves that it can be difficult to ask for help and trust someone new to accomplish tasks in your business. The reality of this modern world is that often the help we hire is international.

In theory, you need to understand the employment and contracting rules in other nations. In practice, the risk is usually minimal. It’s minimized even more if you can find a good hiring service that takes care of all the paperwork and training for you; often these services have an entire team of people from which they can draw to fill your needs.

Make sure you are treating your staff well and communicating clearly with them, and you will likely not have any issues.

What’s Next: Ethical Considerations

Ethical issues when working cross-border can be quite fascinating. For one thing, we need to be sensitive to diverse cultures which have values and healing traditions that may be quite different from our own.

Give yourself the gift of experiencing new cultures in an inclusive manner and seeing this as an opportunity to learn new ways of healing and looking at the world. Also make sure you are transparent with clients who live in far-off places, letting them know where you live, what your credentials are, and what your own personal views of energy are. Then, allow the clients to share their views in return.

We all know that healing and energy are global…which means we in the energy healing community have global responsibilities. If you can approach the legal, tax, and ethical issues with awareness and clarity, then you can allow your work to serve people around the world while you stay aligned and grounded.

You certainly don’t need to know every detail, but you do need to know the right questions to ask and where to seek support.

✏️ Editor’s Note:
For a long time, the idea of serving clients internationally felt out of reach for many healers, weighed down by uncertainty about rules and restrictions as well as cultural differences.

Now, with a little guidance and the right knowledge, you can approach cross-border work with confidence.

As you explore what global work might look like for you in the future, EMPA invites you to visit our Learning Center. There you’ll find more articles from Ian Foster, along with resources like “Insurance Coverage for Energy Healers: Events, Workshops & Speaking Engagements” to empower you on your journey!

This article was originally published in the November/December 2025 issue of Energy Magazine. As part of the ongoing Laws & Regulations column by Ian Foster, these articles aim to help energy healers navigate legal, ethical, and business challenges with clarity and confidence.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and does not provide legal, financial, or medical advice. The examples are general, and coverage may vary by policy. Always refer to your insurance provider or policy language for specific details, as the policy terms take precedence. For legal concerns related to your practice, consult an attorney.