ToorCamp8 2024 - RESIDENCY HACKING – TProphet

that is not yours without further Ado this is T profit he travels the world and writes blogs blogs about it on seat 31b decom let's give him a warm welcome thank [Applause] you how you doing tour Camp so who's lived abroad like uh outside of their country of origin country of residence uh cool uh what's the most countries people have lived in outside of their main country just hold up some fingers like uh 1 2 3 multiple hands anyone so we've got oh yeah like uh of course Emerson tan has lived in like you know Infinity countries um so this talk is is about really just how to reboot your life and get some New Perspective and live in different places and I want to be really clear it's not anything to do with you know politics or anything like that I just think travel makes the world closer together and it makes people better to experience other cultures and so part of that is really getting up close and deep and being able to live in a different place and so obviously there's some bureaucracy involved in making that happen uh and so we'll talk a little bit about that so uh here's the agenda today uh introduction I'll tell you a little bit about me uh why I think people should live abroad residency versus citizenship uh some of the common paths to residency abroad and the pitfalls you might run into and uh we'll do a case study as well uh and then some common paths to citizenship abroad and residency and citizenship aren't the same thing uh they do both usually allow you to live in a country uh but I'll get into some more details later so who am I I'm T profit uh I travel a lot I've been to 95 countries and territories so far according to the traveler Century Club list uh oh we got some drone tacos I am absolutely jealous um I've lived in four countries on three continents uh and honestly I'm nobody special like any of you can do this in fact uh there's one guy here who's done more than this so um absolutely uh this is achievable and possible and anyone could do it so why should you live abroad you know it's going to be personal reasons uh you may want to gain some International career experience uh that can be super valuable in your career you might want to learn a new language through immersion uh no better way to do it than to have to use it every day uh you might want to get closer to to your religion and live someplace where that's practiced more uh you might want to be closer to a long-distance partner that happens sometimes life comes at you fast uh so you might want to diversify some of your Investments and depending on what you invest in uh if you in things like real estate and so forth it can be really good to be local because those opportunities are more likely to come to you if you're in the market uh you might want to prepare for global thermonuclear war uh apparently some of us are doing that uh and building bunkers in New Zealand and then finally you might want to avoid some legal issues uh maybe um you have uh you know some reason to not be in the country you're in and you want to be somewhere that you can't be did that's a possibility uh so whatever your reasons uh you don't need citizenship to actually live in a country you can get residency there and so let's talk about the you know some of the differences really briefly residency it usually comes in one of two forms either temporary or permanent now if you get temporary residents there may be a path to permanent residency but there isn't always so you should be really careful in looking at the programs that you're getting into and making sure that that aligns with what your long-term goals are also people's goals can change over time you can get in thinking that something's going to be temporary and then 5 years later you're living there and getting married and a kid's on the way and and so you know again life can come at you fast right uh so it can be temporary or permanent it allows you to live in a country but you don't get any citizenship rights when you are a resident of a country and that means that it's easier to get kicked out too you have fewer legal rights generally speaking uh so if you want to go to a protest well maybe you can do that uh but you might find yourself on the next plane home it doesn't necessarily get you out of citizenship obligations which is kind of unusual but if you come to the United States uh as a resident you actually have to register for Selective Service in the US military that's something that I recently learned that's uh that's unusual that's required for residents not just citizens it's easier to get residency usually than citizenship and we'll kind of go into some of the paths to be able to do that there's a it's it's quicker usually and there's less paperwork involved and then some of these paths with residency can lead to citizenship but a couple of problems right citizenship it's usually hard to get uh it takes time or it takes money or most often both it comes with all of the rights and obligations of being a citizen and so that's awesome until you're being drafted into the military for example in a country where you got a passport uh and then you can't always hold multiple citizenships so some countries are really jealous it's you either have our passport or no other passport uh at all so uh let's talk about a couple of the paths that I've used to live abroad and there are lots of different ways to do this so these are just a couple of the the more readily available paths to somebody who's working in the technology industry uh and these are ones that I've used myself uh so I used to work for Microsoft I was there for 13 years and one of the adventures that I went on of The Many Adventures that Microsoft sent me on uh was to go uh live and work in China and I lived in Beijing for three years and ran it for Microsoft research Asia uh and so uh part of doing that meant that Microsoft did all the paperwork they spent all the money and they sponsored my Visa to live and work in China and so this is a very reasonable option to many people who are here because you two work in the tech industry or do technology things and that's an in demand thing in a lot of places also uh many companies operating in the Pacific Northwest have a global presence and so some of the countries where you might have opportunities include Canada uh Microsoft has a huge office in Vancouver for example uh and another big one in Toronto uh China China is a really really important place in the technology industry there is a massive amount of innovation there uh they lead the world in AI Innovation uh it's a country that graduates more computer science uh phds than any other country in the world and keep in mind there's 1.4 billion people in China so it is uh it's a really uh big place with a huge population and anything that comes along with that is going to come with a lot of opportunities in Industries they concentrate in and and technology is certainly one of those so uh Intel Microsoft Amazon uh even Google have a presence in China Taiwan uh anybody heard of a company called tsmc lately okay yeah so uh obviously semiconductors are a really big thing in Taiwan uh but they do much more than that too there's a ton of software as well and so uh lots of opportunities and technology in Taiwan India uh if you work in it like you know the Indian government or around 20 years ago decided that uh they wanted to take over the world in it and they aligned their entire educational system around training uh people in the it field India like China has a lot of people they have a population of a billion and so they're able to turn out more it Talent than any other country in the world and certainly if you are in that space it cloud computing uh SAS anything to do with that uh India is a really important Place Ireland this is this seems a little odd but Ireland got a foothold in the technology industry uh with a tax dodged that Microsoft was doing through its subsidiary round Island one limited uh and there was this you know complicated tax maneuver called the double Irish uh double Irish and a Dutch sandwich I you can't do that anymore I won't get into that that's like NBA stuff but starting from that uh it turned it turned out that Irish talent in on the technology side is pretty good too and so uh American companies started planting roots in Ireland and now there's quite a few of them operating very quietly in an English-speaking geography in the EU uh finally the Netherlands you know same thing Netherlands uh got uh their feet wet in the tax in the um technology industry through tax Dodges uh they were they have a very generous interpretation of royalty payments and so uh because there were a lot of tech uh tech people there and also people in the entertainment industry because the entertainment industry benefits from the same tax stuff uh that led to uh some offices opening and and now technology uh opportunities on the tech site as well in the in the in the Netherlands so uh these are ways you know these are countries that if you're thinking hey I would like to work abroad uh and look toward where there may be better opportunities for me if you work in software or security or Hardware or just anything technology these countries are are are you know some of the ones that you might want to look at uh with paths to residency through employers you might already be working for education I did an NBA in the Netherlands so that's where I learned about this tax Dodge stuff and you know compensation strategy and all this business stuff that was a big gap in my knowledge uh there's many other educational paths both short-term and longterm should you do an MBA absolutely not never do one it was the it's probably the worst uh thing that I've ever done with time and money in my life I learned a lot but I could have learned it learned way more just starting a startup so don't do an MBA but if you want to learn something you don't already know uh then consider doing that in another country and then you can get that International experience too uh it's always okay to take off midcareer and get some additional education uh so this is a really goofy thing that I learned about living in the in the Netherlands uh it's uh called The Dutch American friendship treaty so did anybody who's an American know that we are such good friends with the Netherlands that you can just move there anyone knew this before okay well I'm going to tell you about it now there's there's one guy here I know because you told oh yeah so Paul knows it because I told him okay so uh here's the path if you're a US citizen and this only works for US citizens there's just this goofy treaty that was formed after World War II between the US and the Netherlands and it was basically the idea was that the Netherlands really wanted Americans to come in and open up businesses and employ the poor War shattered uh War torn Dutch people uh from their country that had been bombed to Rubble uh and this is still there like it never went away um because that's what happens with treaties they get signed and then people forget about them and and they're they're just they just kind of take on a life of their own so if you go invest 4,500 to start any sort of new business in the Netherlands doesn't matter what it is you could open a sandwich shop they don't care um don't open the sandwich shop like it's kind of a Dutch joke they they really like sandwiches in the in the Netherlands I don't know why but um you you could open literally any kind of business you put yeah yeah like for breakfast and lunch and dinner it's like it's yeah sandwiches are very much a thing in the Netherlands um if you if you're wondering why you've never seen a Dutch restaurant um visit the nether ones uh anyway uh €500 into any new business in the Netherlands and you just maintain this investment so what that is is you go up in a bank account put $4,500 euros into it never touch that money you need to be able to show that you've maintained that investment and that the investment is just you put it in a bank account you get a 2-year residency card and then after that you can renew for 5 years and then you can renew it again every 5 years if you have a partner your partner gets a regular Dutch residence visa that's a working Visa um and uh this is one that you can that they they don't need to be self-employed for uh somebody's raising their hand in the back like you you got a question or a comment sorry ask no no no no so this that's a really good question I'll repeat it for the people that are listening on the uh stream uh if I get a Dutch residence car do I actually have to live in the windy cold flat Netherlands below sea level or could I go live somewhere with better weather like Spain and the answer is no you have to live in the Netherlands uh you've got to be there for at least 183 days a year you genuinely have to be a resident of the Netherlands pay taxes there all of that uh because you aren't a citizen yet now if you get citizenship uh you can get permanent residence after 5 years uh and that's possible if you learn Dutch so good luck with that uh it's a very difficult language uh it seems like it wouldn't be but it's just it's it's a really difficult language um I I some people are saying it's not actually all that hard I don't know like uh like having struggled with Dutch and Chinese I think that Dutch is harder but that's that may be just me um anyway if you can learn Dutch uh then you get permanent residents that has a path to citizenship which would then let you live anywhere in the in the European Union uh but if you're a PR like you're if you're a resident in the Netherlands you're expected to live in the Netherlands so this this is an interesting wrinkle your business can include freelancing or remote work contracts paid in the Netherlands so if you're already freelancing here you could just set up a company in the Netherlands uh the tax Situation's actually not that bad there uh and then have yourself paid through your own Dutch company and you're completely golden uh so this is good for self-employment only uh but if you do find a you know say you start doing work for a company and they like you and want to hire you they can change uh sponsor you for a regular employment visa and you can change your Visa type without having to leave and come back so I'm going to start with the like you know stuff that's like less shady and kind of move to the residence types that are more shady during this presentation so um did you know that you can get residency in Mexico and you don't actually have to live there uh you can like it's it's what we call a paper residency so uh this residency is based on uh economic solvency uh is what they call it and so it's one of the easiest uh residencies for US citizens to obtain once you're retired now there's no legal definition of retirement uh and you don't actually have to be drawing a pension or anything uh maybe you just decided that you know you quit your third job and that makes you retired I don't know like they it's just whatever you're whatever you however ever you and the consulate defines retired that's retired uh but in any event um the requirements can vary by consulate because again in Latin America like a lot of things are a negotiation if you spend any time there it's uh you know that uh you know what's what the rules are on paper and what actually happens are not necessarily always the same uh and so some consulate shopping can be helpful to find a consulate that's amable to the situation that you want to set up uh and so these are the current requirements at mcgallen Texas now I mentioned mcgallen Texas for no particular reason uh there are lots of consulates uh Mexican consulates but you know this there just happens to be one in McAllen Texas anyway uh the temporary residency so there's a path to permanent from temporary residency means that you need to have 12 months of proof excluding your gold in crypto so I'm sorry you crypto heads uh you've got to have like actual real money um and your shady bucks don't count either uh 57,6 23 they want to see monthly statements with at least that much for 12 months and then uh the other way you can do it is if you have 6 months of pay stubs or six months of proof of income that's not pay from a job but is from like rental property or something like that then that's $3,458 so that's for temporary residency yeah uh 401ks do count for assets for this yes uh and in case anybody's wondering like uh you know how how most people could qualify based on economic solvency maybe you've been working in the tech industry for a while and you've got a 401k and it's just been sitting there uh if you have a 401K with Fidelity and you talk to the branch office manager of the Belleview branch and you tell them that you're planning to buy property in Mexico and you need to prove to the Mexican Government that you do not intend to become an illegal immigrant in Mexico they will very happily produce a letter with your account balances per month and a wet signature on it from AVP at Fidelity which is what's required by the consulate so temporary uh residency it works for this and so does permanent so permanent residency you want a permanent residency that's got a path to to citizenship so this is interesting if you want a green passport because Mexican passports are green did you know you can go to the European Union with a Mexican passport I'll let you right in uh no problem um it's uh it's it's no issue so uh if you you know so if you happen to be like you know from a country where it's where travels a little bit harder like I don't know Kazakhstan for example uh and it's harder to get a um you know it's hard to get a passport that has better travel this could be a really good path potentially so $230,400 of proof uh you know just like I said with the uh the temporary residency is gets you permanent residency that's just a it's basically the equivalent of a Mexican green card they're peach colored not green uh they used to be green anyway uh the income requirement again 6 months proof 57 uh $ 5,763 and so again like this is a negotiation you can't just meet the requirements uh the console is going to interview you so you're going to sit down with the console in macallen Texas for example uh and they will decide whether they think you're retired enough and uh whether to issue the Visa so uh now you know like we'll we'll kind of you know spiral down to the the shadiest of shady options like a second chance residency so you know you might be thinking you know this all sounds great T profit but I have I'm a felon you know like what do I do you know as far as uh as far as options um and how can I pass a background check well so here's three options for residency in countries that don't do any background checks uh one is Colombia so if you want to live in you know lovely metagene uh then you can get temporary residents for 5 years they do a background check for permanent residents if you're not converting from temporary but if you want to just go in as a temporary residence they don't do any background checks and and then you can do five years of being a temporary resident convert to permanent and then there's no background checks for that to do it you need to be a pensioner so you need proof of regular income or you can be an investor so you actually need to put $150,000 into Colombia uh this can be hard for some felons um but also like they don't really seem to verify stuff all that carefully so um you know and if somebody's aelon anyway they might not really care about forgery I'm not saying you should do that but um you know people looking for Second Chances uh might possibly do this uh Chile so they do temporary residency only and that's for two years but the thing with Chile is you have to actually live there uh they want you they actually want people moving there because it's it's just a really long country uh and they need more population I guess um so in any event you can get in there with no background checks finally uh Mexico so if you meet the requirements for temporary residency they issue this without any background checks or police certificates or any of that requir so there are oddly enough uh two options in Peru and Italy uh but the these are like bureaucracy needles to thread uh there's like very specific ways to get into Italy without background checks and there's very specific ways to get into per without background checks if this applies to you and you're looking for a second chance so let's talk about some other common uh paths to residency it's it's important to note that every country sets their own rules uh and there are a lot of countries in the world so 193 of them so um these are residency types in in this chart that are just offered by a lot of countries and and the most common options but you know whatever it is that you want to do there's probably somewhere in the world that you can make it make it work and some of these have a path to permanent residency or citizenship and others are dead ends so this is important you need to know where it ends up like uh investor or entrepreneur usually you can do temporary or permanent skills based migration uh many people here have skills that are very much in demand around the world uh and so a skills-based migration uh or a government interest Visa may be available to you uh depending on how in demand your skills are family based uh so you can get permanent residency fairly often uh through getting married for example uh religious base tends to be temporary so that's just for like you know religious study only and then they expect you to go home uh retirement visas uh they can be temporary they can be permanent uh just depends on the country Refugee vises the the entire idea with refugee visas are that they're intended to be temporary until whatever is going on in your home country is over and then you can go home uh that's that's the idea anyway uh so there's very rarely a path to permanent residents that through those uh government interest uh so the government of the country just decides that they want you to live there uh and uh they they're going to make you an offer that you can't refuse uh that could be temporary or it could be permanent so um and then digital Nomads so a lot of folks like anybody worked as a digital Nomad before yeah we've got a couple in here uh those visas they're great for what they are uh they let you go hang out in the Bahamas for a year uh and and work for example um you know just work from the beach uh Bahamas is a great example of a country that does this and there is literally no way to turn that into staying there permanently at all uh they want you they want your money for a year and they want you gone so uh this gets into pitfalls right so a couple of the pitfalls are you could change choose the wrong program so maybe you decide that you want to live someplace Forever After you live there for a while but the paperwork that you filled out doesn't actually give you a path to any sort of permanent residence that's a problem uh and you will then need to leave and reapply usually legislative changes so uh you don't actually have any rights so the government can change the rules at any time uh meaning that the time required in the country like they could start to impose some so if you get permanent residency in me for example with the idea that you're going to have it and just not live there well that may continue to work I don't know like but the government could change their mind and say you actually if we're going to give you a residence card you have to live here you can't just use the residence card to set up banking for your offshore crypto or whatever uh tax obligations so you could end up with tax obligations in countries uh that you get um residency in so that is absolutely something to consider uh and here's an example like Dubai said come move to Dubai 0% tax and who believes that any country can continue to have 0% tax forever anybody yeah uh so it's 9% now and Dubai they were they basically changed the rules suddenly just kidding uh and by the way it's like an Emirate like it's ruled by any miror like the Amir said you pay tax now like you're not going you don't have any choice like that's kind of how stuff works there um naturalization processes so the whether or not somebody could you could naturalize and become a citizen well maybe it was an option when you started but they changed the rules and you can't now uh Miss paperwork uh maintaining residency in a foreign country it's usually complicated it could require periodic filing of documents uh tax forms Etc uh and tax consequences note living in Paraguay probably won't get you out of your US taxes even if a bunch of sovereign citizen Types on the internet say that it's totally does and also the weather's terrible there it's hot all the time uh so don't move to Paraguay thinking that you're not going to have have to pay any tax that's just not a thing um so uh for cat why not come up here let's talk about a case study um [Applause] so so uh where are you from rat I'm from Kazakhstan okay so um r from Kazakhstan and I'm from here and uh we're a couple so obviously that is a problem if we want to live together because somebody's going to have to move to another country and we figured out the most efficient way to like hang out and continue traveling together because that's what we like to do uh We've we've kind of spent a few years going to world heritage sites was uh for us to um basically have common residency so how that worked uh was I filed an i129f petition and with that you have to submit a ton of proof of relationship and so I noticed that at bureaucracy this year there's there's no requirements to prove relationships so this is just an idea for next time uh that you know you may want to like actually you know when forms are filed don't just trust what's on there like you know require photographic evidence with GPS coordinates because that is literally what what is required for this um so that's a 6 to 18mon process and and basically it's started by the US citizen partner uh and then after that uh the Department of Homeland Security will issue authority to the state department to issue a K1 Visa if a K1 Visa is applied for like this is this sounds like a bureaucracy process it's actually real life um and so uh as part of that process uh there's a ds160 form that rat filed I had to file a promisory i 134 form which is my promise to the US government to reimburse them for his deportation costs if he runs away to work illegally and then uh there were many other documents that I'm going to let rat talk about because he had to deal with all of this in Kazakhstan Yeah so basically like any other application uh you need your photo photographs and then ID and also just like Robert talked about before you can't uh move here being a criminal so I had to do a poli CER police certificate and uh get my documents apposed so they're recognized in another country and I also had to uh get my birth certificate and uh just to it's not required uh other things like diploma uh I just bring with myself and yeah basic documents like those my passport ID photographs police certificates yeah things like that army army certificate yes exactly army army certificate or if you haven't been in the Army like Army uh book or copy what do you call it uh Army book I records yeah records that you registered so yeah basically and then you get interviewed uh in the at at the embassy oh yeah medical examination so yeah they check your if you're uh healthy enough to move to the United States and then and AR going to spread dirty kazic diseases to the US oh yeah and also uh if you are mentally healthy even though uh in America there are no Mental Hospitals um and yeah uh at the consulate or Embassy uh I got interviewed and got asked questions like how did you guys meet um where have you been together when have you last been together where have you been together and if your family or if his family know me or him that kind of questions I got asked so yeah basically that's it yeah so that's basically where we are in the process right now so it's also we've got another fun piece of bureaucracy that happened uh the embassy was supposed to give him an envelope uh with documentation in it uh when his Visa was delivered but when he but they didn't deliver it because they changed contractors and the new contractor forgot to pick those up from the embassy so when he got here uh it was like 4 hours of Customs trying to figure out what to do with him and they finally let him in for 30 days but he's not stamped in officially so uh this whole box that says marriage if we got married at tour camp before he's officially stamped into the United States then it's a really simple bureaucracy process we just have to refile our entire thing under a different form wait another 18 months and then he could get a different Visa in the Consulate in Kazakhstan so so we're not going to get married this weekend um but uh anyway um the uh after that happens there's an adjustment of status in i485 uh which gets followed uh potentially another medical exam depending on when all of this is done and and when we get it filed and then I have to again promise to the US government on a different form that uh Rat will not uh claim any welfare or food stamp benefits uh and if he does I'll pay for that so anyway uh that's kind of an example of like you know what the path to living in the United States is for people who are coming here uh and so uh it doesn't stop there that gets you a 2-year conditional residency and then uh that's a 6 to 12 month process to get that 2year card after which it's renewable and it becomes a permanent resonance card so uh next on uh Janna was uh raising your hand what's up oh uh yeah do you do you think it's still a good idea to move to the US uh I'm risking it yeah so uh he is fully briefed on the risks and uh you know part of uh one of the risks is you might have noticed where both guys and the Supreme Court is going to Outlaw gay marriage probably or like overturn uh overfell uh so that will then turn into who knows what immigration status is going to be under a you under whatever future Administration we have uh fortunately Mexico uh protects gay marriage in their constitution so that's one option and then the Dutch American friendship treaty uh would allow me to move there and he could get a residence card based on that so we got we have a couple of backup options what's up Emerson so does um R yes yeah um do you qualify for um like an O absolutely not he's an English teacher and uh turns out there's not a lot of demand for you know native cassic speaking English teachers in the US so uh if anybody yeah oh yeah yeah there you go there you go that's true uh awesome so yeah um I'm going to dive into citizenship next so thank you rat uh I'll see you after the [Applause] talk all right so after hearing you know citizenship versus residency you might think you know hey uh this residency stuff sounds is really complicated and annoying and there's all these things I have to continually prove and reprove and I've got to you know file documents and renew it and the rules could change wouldn't it be better to just get citizenship well there are some pros you get a passport that's shiny um you got your passport with you rat oh no it sits in the cabin okay uh he's got a bright blue passport and it's it looks beautiful and I'm totally totally jealous of it um but uh usually comes with right of residence working in government jobs you can even run for public office in most countries if you're a citizen uh you get Consular service and protection worldwide and that can be pretty useful uh it's usually harder to take it away and kick you out than residents if you if whatever you're doing falls out of political favor uh crypto people for example um and uh potential tax advantages as well um that that may be a thing uh but here's some cons if you take the citizenship of Austria for example you might have to go you will have to give up your other citizenships in order to naturalize you get to have one passport if you're Austrian and that's the Austrian passport it may be impossible to renounce so if you read online that hey you can get citizenship in Argentina and then it's got this like Express path to being able to immigrate to Spain through your Argentina passport etc etc well that's all well and good but what could possibly go wrong uh I mean certainly not Argentina invading the United Kingdom or anything anything and getting kicked out you know and argentine's getting kicked out of uh the European Union uh or or you know anything that the UK can influence uh definitely couldn't possibly happen um so uh you are a citizen so you may have all of the obligations of citizenship tax obligations military service Etc and then the foreign consulate where you have your second passport may not be very helpful to you as an English-speaking American in death to America stand or wherever you happen to be uh so you know that Turkish passport might not be as useful for Consular protections as you would think uh so some common paths to citizenship or nationality now most of us acquire citizenship by birth and that's an immediate thing that's Birthright but every country sets its own rules the passport holders in a territory are usually Nationals with slight differences and rights uh these are naturalization types uh offer offered by many countries here on this chart and the most common options but again you know like like with residency countries all set their own rules and they can give citizenship to whoever they want to not all countries allow dual citizenship so uh keep this in mind when acquiring citizenship and that can be really important if you're from China for example uh because you will lose your hooko in China and that can mean you lose the right to own property um you know a lot of really important things to you in China for example if you take a foreign passport and uh Argentina they don't allow renouncing citizenship and uh they have gone on Military adventures in the past that could be incompatible with what you want to do uh with the citizenship so do keep that in mind uh ancestry 12 to 36 months usually um you can get citizenship through ancestry that's a Birthright thing uh the US Visa Lottery is something that's pretty well known outside of the United States but maybe most people here don't know about it uh we've got a special Visa type called dv1 uh the US government wants to encourage people who are from countries where there aren't a lot of their Nationals living in the United States to come here and and that's just to grow diversity of our country and economy uh and create more connections around the world so you can apply for a loty if you're from one of those countries uh for example Kazakhstan usbekistan uh you know any place almost any place that isn't Mexico India or China where we already have a lot of people from those countries uh with very large populations living here um the investment uh citizenship is uh 6 to 18month process and and I'll get into that in the next slide uh you can get citizenship by marriage and that's uh four years to you know seven usually and that's that's going to be a naturalization process uh ordinary naturalization what do I mean by that well that means you come on say a work visa and then you change it to permanent and then you just naturalize like the normal way uh many countries offer this kind of option and it takes anywhere from 5 years to 20 years just depending where you come from and what country you're targeting extraordinary ability um now for most people this is not for you for people here this could be for you uh countries can just decide to give you a passport because you are one of the top people in the world in your field and and you're doing something that that country thinks is important and so they can just give you a passport and say hey we'd like to give you a passport would you come live in our country please and just keep on doing what you're doing uh and you know it could be anything from Olympic athletes on up to people that you know that are that are super accomplished in information security for example uh and then finally government interests so if the government decides that it is in their interest to give you a passport for whatever reason you know like to make you a spy like you know any sort of government reason uh they can do that 0 to 6 months and it's typically naturalization so uh who who has heard about being able to buy a passport like yeah a lot of people yeah exactly so if you if you're ever interested in this topic and you start looking around on the internet then like all of a sudden like these citizenship by investment things pop up and there's all sorts of people in this business I am not launching a company to do this because like all of this stuff is really shady and it there's not a lot of money in it honestly uh it's the most widely promoted solution to a problem that most people and especially pretty much anyone here doesn't have uh so you hear about these a lot online because they require a large investment and so that means there's you know commissions that uh that Brokers can skim uh and so they buy a lot of keywords on Google the most appropriate audience uh for a citizenship by investment kind of scenario is people who are pretty wealthy but they have poor Mobility passports so you know think of a business owner in Pakistan who is really successful with like a leather goods business or something but just had and once to be able to travel for business reasons and just is constantly having to get visas and it's a real pain in the neck uh it could be really worthwhile for somebody like that to buy a passport with better Mobility uh some people do expatriate for tax reasons um there are people like all the way back to cypher Cipher punks one of the first people to do this was Vin Vince kante uh into anguila and you can do that like you can move to another country and renounce your US citizenship after you get a password uh passport from someplace else and you know pay the US exit tax if it's applicable and then you don't you're not a US tax resident anymore right but it's not super easy to do it won't necessarily save you much in tax because you have to pay tax wherever you moved and you're giving up some pretty major benefits by doing so uh does anybody here think that the US Passport isn't going to be useful to have ever yeah probably not yeah so um it can create tax headaches for you having a second citizenship because you have to file taxes in two countries now uh and it can come with obligations either for you or for your children if you take a Turkish passport for example you don't have to serve in the Army but your kids do if they get a Turkish passport and they may not know that until the first time they show up in turkey and get you know drafted uh right when they scan in so popular citizenship by investment countries if this is still something that appeals to you or if you know somebody with you know who's pretty wealthy and has a limited Mobility passport that this could be useful for uh turkey if you put $400,000 in property or $500,000 in a totally solid Turkish bank deposit in a country where there's absolutely like no inflation at all um then uh you could get a Turkish passport uh they're not very good actually but you can do it uh Malta so malta's in the European Union and uh you know most people probably didn't know you can just outright buy an EU passport you totally can uh the mtes will hook you up live there for 12 months on any residence permit and then after that you just make a €750,000 donation to the maltes government and they will you know in exchange they'll give you a passport uh St KET andas uh this is a Caribbean Island uh it's a couple of Caribbean islands actually uh if you give the government $250,000 in a donation or you make an approved property investment An approved development which I'm sure nobody's brother-in-law is involved with uh then you can get a St kitas passport Egypt if you've ever thought you know I really just want to travel on an Egyptian passport I guess if you're from Yemen or like Syria or something like an Egyptian passport is better uh they may be a little bit less selective in who they give these to than Turkey um but it's not a good passport for travel at all uh but $250,000 in donation to the Turkish government or $300,000 in real estate will get you that Turk get that Egyptian passport and then finally uh Dominica Grenada Antigua and Barbuda all have a $200,000 donation program now note that these donations are plus a bunch of fees and that's where these Brokers come in so you can expect to pay 50 to $75,000 on top of that yeah virus what's up Egyptian like that just started yeah it's uh it's like a couple of months old yeah uh oh are there any benefits to having a caribbe Caribbean passport well it depends where you're from right if you are from Cuba like yeah it would be way awesome because you can go to the European Union without a like to the shenen area without needing a Visa right if you're American uh no because like the US Passport can go pretty much everywhere Caribbean passports can except for Russia so some of these passports like they're they've got like really good relations with Russia so if you don't want to get Russian visas and you just want to be able to travel to Russia whenever you want to then then one of these passports could you know help um but a Turkish passport can also travel to Russia so if you're really into Russia like and and you want one of those then maybe a Turkish one you can you wouldn't just outright be paying $200,000 for it yeah where's the money for the where does the money for the donation go in Dominica well Dominica has a sugar retirement fund uh for people that were that worked in the sugar industry in Dominica before it got taken over by corn syrup uh and so like basically their pension fund went bankrupt and this is the way that they continue to pay people's pensions um allegedly I mean that's that's what it what it is on paper maybe it is maybe it actually is I mean the these programs tend to be pretty opaque like you send you wire some money to somewhere that is known for banking that is questionable and then you get a passport that is rapidly diminishing in value because they're selling too many of these uh so popular residence by descent countries this is maybe a little more interesting to folks here because uh you might have some relatives in your family tree that you could claim citizenship based on and so in the upper leftand corner is Italy uh there are I've now run into three people in the last 6 months who've managed to successfully claim Italian citizenship and so if if you have a great grandparent or somebody more recent in your family tree than a than a than a great- grandparent uh so great-grandparent grandparent parent something like that uh you may be able to claim Italian citizenship yeah uh some of them can have language requirements I don't have time in the talk to dig into all of those but uh yeah there there can be some you know understanding history and culture and and language and those kinds of things uh Germany so great grandparent or later descent uh potentially uh and again it just depends on your particular family tree and the programs available to you Ireland uh imanuel Goldstein uh public publicly announced a few years ago that he became a citizen of Ireland he's the the editor of 2600 the hacker quarterly uh and it's because he had an Irish grandmother so he was able to claim that citizenship uh so if you have a grandparent or later uh descent born in Ireland or you have an Irish parent born anywhere in the world then you can claim Irish citizenship now why are these citizenships uh from Europe really useful uh some of you may be starting families have families already have kids be looking at the cost of college and uh it is much much less expensive for European citizens in um in Europe versus here in the United States so it is well worth doing this just to have the optionality on uh on being able to send your kids to college in Europe and it could be good for them too yeah Jenna yeah yeah Denmark uh yeah and again this is just popular so like you know Denmark's a pretty small country that's why I didn't include it but uh yeah absolutely there there are nine countries in Europe where they offer some form of citizenship by descent Denmark's one of them uh laia I think also is yeah grandparent needs to have had their child at your parent before they announce Italian chip otherwise the it's cut you don't qualify yeah there is there are asteris in terms conditions and so it's not just like a show up and you get your citizenship like that when I said that 36-month up to process like there's there's lawyers involved and lots of proving things and you know many many many forms at the at Italian bureaucracy in Italian by the way uh so uh USA if you got one American parent terms Supply uh then that's residence by descent or that's uh that is um citizenship by descent Canada same thing uh one Canadian parent terms apply and then Mexico one Mexican parent no terms apply so uh some folks have a parent from Mexico like but we're born here um doesn't matter how long ago they came to the US you can actually still get Mexican citizenship so uh yeah um thank you tour camp and uh this is now a time for Q&A and ask me anything and it can be anything about this topic or you know some of you know I like to travel or book trips with points or any of that kind of thing uh happy to answer questions until they kick me off stage uh by the way if anybody wants to be Amplified there is a mic up here that you can use uh if you want but uh just yell at me too if you like uh somebody was raising a hand yeah what's up um so from Netherlands your NBA was that tuition free uh so was my MBA in the Netherlands tuition free no I spent uh tens of thousands of dollars on it uh and it was a terrible investment don't ever do that uh yeah in the back you have a straightforward to readen whoes know what aart is okay so somebody uh asked um does the country that invented Bugattis which are the most complicated car to drive in the world have a straightforward and easy flowchart uh for citizenship by DEC um and no it's it's going to be the most complicated thing you've ever looked at because it's immigration and it's in the Italian language and it's Italy it's so they they really like bureaucracy there um hire that's why you hire lawyers so just you know hire a really good immigration lawyer and have them do all the things because uh if you try to DIY it's just going to drive you insane I rarely say don't DIY by the way like I rarely say Throw money at a problem and make it go away like for for this kind of stuff throw money at the problem and make it go away yeah what's up how many people thing you actually know or have encountered who actually do a digital Nomad Visa versus Visas so who's doing digital Nomad visas versus working illegally as a tourist in Thailand for example um and the answer is uh you know it's it really depends uh so what H what's happened is a lot of people were working in Indonesia in Bali in particular illegally as digital Nomads and in Thailand illegally as digital Nomads and doing these like Perpetual tourist Visa Run things and countries have just gotten sick of it because they don't you know they're not getting any tax out of it it's like wrecking their housing market Etc so they're trying to put more controls on it by now having uh some sort of digital Nomad Visa are people still are are people actually doing them well yeah cuz uh Japan launched one and it's it's actually a pretty legit path to to being able to work in Japan so it just kind of depends on the country like you know if it's a country that's more officious with with documentation checks and it's one that is more desirable to be in people are willing to do more work to be able to live there and so Japan would be a good example of that yeah yeah Japan well and that's the thing like on my chart I said hey is there a path to permanent residency of any sort like no there's not like the the deal with the digital Nomad Visa is it's basically an extended tourist visa with the right to work not in that country uh so they're not going to make you pay tax there as long as you're working your job back at home but really what they want you to do is come in and spend money and leave uh and that's what all of these digital digital nads programs are set up for they're fine for what they are uh because they're not actually asking you to pay tax there while you're there working as a digital Nomad and that is that's a good thing cuz like many of these countes have very high tax rates Japan has crazy high taxes uh US taxes look cheap compared to that so if they're not going to take tax from you while you're living there that can be a pretty good deal but the flip side of it is yeah you don't get to stay here a long time uh this is this is a short time yeah oh Taiwan yeah um yeah Taiwan has uh some really good programs for residents uh that's that was not on my list um Taiwan also has some really significant geopolitical challenges generally speaking I think it's better if you want to live in Taiwan and you work in the tech industry to get uh basically to get a job here and be posted over there through your us employer and the reason for that is that you'll get paid a salary that's an international salary as opposed to a local Taiwanese one local salaries in Taiwan are not good at all so if you're getting in on like the the one that will mention um that's they're going to see you already as a local resident and pay you accordingly so uh it's it's absolutely an available option it's one of the best to just live in Asia and it's hard to get into Asia as a permanent resident Taiwan will let you do that but the the flip side of it is low salaries in the back I just ask the German one like I Lally just have to show them that my great grandparents are German they'll just like mail me a passport uh so the question was uh so I just have to approve that I had a German great Grandad parrot and they'll mail me a passport like it that's it's that simple and it's like no uh there are there are it's Germany um there there will be very detailed forms to fill out and a lot of things to prove and uh you'll need to read words that I don't know like does anybody know a complicated German word that's got lots of Grunts and snorts in it because yeah exactly uh so not to make overly make fun of Germans but um it's it's not easy uh but is possible uh oh yeah that's another thing uh Germany doesn't allow two passports they're one of those countries that's jealous you'd have you'd have to trade oh a couple of weeks ago Emerson says they changed it actually kind of I have I have a Russian passport too so I can travel everywhere but but you you're Russia is jealous you you can't really have another passport so what you do is you like you travel to Russia on one passport you travel on to us on another passport so legally you're only citizen one country on on one but you know you actually have so the uh security guard who's just about to kick me off of the stage uh I think that's that's who this is um says uh I have a Russian passport and I have another passport as well and so what I do is I just go into Russia on the Russian passport and I don't tell them about the other one and like a lot of people with Chinese passports and other passports do the exact same thing with the Chinese government it works until you get caught and then you are up a creek without a paddle so better to play it straight usually RP do that oh yeah yeah yeah um yeah like in China they they totally will rip up the other passport in front of you like it's yeah too and the trick with what you're doing is that if you travel back to us they say why your US US Passport is not stamped like they question like what so what I have to do is like I I travel and sometimes put the you know imigrant passport sometimes the chck passport to collect some stem so every day you could be like you know so there's a there's a question there's a comment in there that has a really good point that I think that we'll end on cuz we're really close to needing to end I think or how how many minutes do I have zero two okay I got two minutes so I got time for for one more question after this but um so you need to enter the country uh on the passport of that country so if you have a US passport you need to enter the United States always on your US passport and so yeah like it can be really awkward at Customs sometimes if you go to a country where you have another passport they might say hey why why didn't you why don't you have a stamp like you know when you're from the country that you're coming from in your US passport and here it's pretty easy like we allow dual citizenship so you just say I'm a dual citizen I had enter with their passport and it's easy peasy no problem uh other countries may not have quite as charitable a view like uh you know there are a lot of Us Canada US Mexico dual citizens in North America it's a pretty common thing here other countries it's not nearly so common so uh they can be they can really um it can really create awkward moments for you at immigration uh if you don't play your cards right uh there was one other question I saw uh yeah lawyer so the question is uh what do lawyer fees look like for some of these passports so um the answer is it just really depends on the local geography and how complex your case is just like any other kind of legal situation uh it's generally going to be more expensive the more distant your relatives are because there's the more stuff that you're need to prove and if you're looking at a very high cost country then your lawyers are probably going to be more expensive what I will say is that one thing that can dramatically dramatically impact your legal costs is whether you're working directly with a lawyer or whether you're hiring one through a broker uh so if you uh you know like read you know look on the internet and there's like some you know capitalist Nomads or something like that um not naming any particular firms this is just a generic statement uh they might mark up those Referral Services by 10 to 20 times so um and really not provide a lot of value Beyond referrals so it's if you're going to pursue this uh it's best to find expert attorneys in that geography with really good track records and good recommendations and then it's just going to cost whatever whatever it is in that local market but I wouldn't go through a broker generally speaking you you'll want to work directly through an attorney there's an asterisk on that uh I worked through a broker for uh residency in one country because I don't speak the language there and so uh but I also knew what the lawyer actually charged and how much the broker's markup was and it was you know in the couple of100 range as opposed to the like 20 or $30,000 range right and and that's for for being able to navigate that those language challenges that was totally worth it okay well I think uh I'm out of time so thanks again thank you tour camp