Currency exchange: rates fluctuate on a regular basis and that makes budgeting a challenge. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose depending on how the currencies move.
Insurance: health insurance by a provider that is outside your country of residence is going to result in some hurdles. You'll have to pay close attention to what your providers rules are for coverage outside of your country.
Visas: as long as you only stay long enough to stay qualified as a visitor then visas are probably going to be a non-issue. Once you exceed the amount of time allowed as a visitor then you have to deal with that countries rules for visas and they differ from country to country.
Cash, check and credit: acceptance of credit cards and checks in foreign countries will very. Banks tend to charge fees for withdrawing money in other countries so be prepared to eat those fees. Often it is easiest to just use cash, so take enough to get started and have a plan on how to get more while you're there, i.e. figure out where the cash machines are, if they accept your cards and what the fees are.
Tax: IANAL nor am I an accountant or tax specialist and I am not sure how it works in the UK. Having said that, the US is a bit odd in that they tax their citizens worldwide, so no matter where I live I will have to pay US taxes. If I am a resident in another country then I'll likely have to pay taxes there as well and then try to get a credit in the US for taxes paid overseas. It's still early for me on this one so I'm not sure exactly how taxes will pay out.
I hope this helps. Basically my suggestion is retain your UK residence and take extended "vacations" in countries you want to visit - it'll be a lot less of a hassle then trying to immigrate.
As for actual experience, I had a great time in Buenos Aires. You get 90 days visitor visa with a US passport and there is a good size population of ex-pats that take a weekend trip to Uruguay when they get close to 90 days, turn around and get another 90. A bunch of them make some cash teaching English and keep it all under the table, which I don't really recommend (I mean they still get you on VAT, but you don't want to mess with any laws in a foreign country if you can help it), but it isn't a bad place to be.
You will want to be very, very careful with that. I'm neither a lawyer nor an accountant, but the tax rules for US citizens are very different from pretty much everyone else. Tax authorities will generally not be happy if you try to pay no tax locally and send it all home. The rule is typically that you pay tax where you spend the most number of days of that tax year. No idea what happens when tax years for natural persons don't overlap (UK has April-April, many countries have calendar years) - in my case I didn't earn any money in the interim so it wasn't an issue.
Within the EU, you'll probably need to register your new residence as the, or one of the company's offices where its business is conducted. You don't need to register it as a business of that country, though, unless you're a sole trader. Any salary or dividends you pay yourself will usually be subject to local taxes, social security, health insurance and possibly other fees. Your accountant(s) will need to tell you where the business pays tax on its profits.
You may also require a permit for operating a business in that country. I did (UK citizen, located in Austria), and although software development is usually not regulated in the way the medical, legal and other professions are, I did require a certificate of any record on the UK Police National Computer, or rather lack of any record. This took almost 2 months and cost 10 pounds. I managed to sweet-talk the bureaucrat in Austria into not requiring an official translation, but the rule is that you do - this will add extra cost and time.
You may also require a residence permit, even within the EU. That too tends to be a mere formality, but usually they want proof of earning enough to sustain yourself. Not a problem if you're a UK limited company, you'll be used to your income being a matter of public record anyway. I didn't need this in Vienna, but a German friend in another State (Lower Austria) got an unpleasant visit from the immigration police.
UK->EU specific, but: you can forget your E111 for anything but emergencies. You'll probably be forced to get local health insurance (in Austria they write to you and bill you as soon as you register the business) anyway.
Hopefully, you'll encounter less hassle - Austria is exceptionally hostile towards the self employed, and taxes are insane.
You're right. You probably want to find a good tax attorney or accountant that is well-versed in the tax laws and treaties of any and all countries you plan on spending time in, especially if you plan on doing business locally.
Indeed many EU startups are officially headquartered in the UK even if they're based elsewhere in Europe for the favourable legal and tax implications.
What I've done is just travel as tourist staying in each country around 3 months.
When I "lived" in Chile I just took weekend 'visa vacations' to Argentina and had my stay extended for another 90 days.
Nothing changed in terms of taxes for me, since I never really become resident of another country.
Earning money online definitely makes things easier since you never have to be paid as a local in whatever country you are at, therefore, not working there illegally or anything like that.
I am not sure how much money your online business makes you, but I usually aim for developing countries, where you can easily live on US $800 - $1200 tops a month. Like bradleyjoyce said I would recommend Latin America. I've lived/traveled/worked in Colombia, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Mexico.
Also, very important, make sure you have someone reliable back home that can help you deal with administrative/misc., stuff like depositing a check, receiving important mail, faxing stuff, and the sort of things you may not be able to do online.
It's incredibly important to have someone you can trust to take care of admin issues at home if you're gone a while though. My parents helped me out, but a lawyer or accountant will also work - but cost you a fortune. Possibly you can hire a temporary admin assistant, but make sure you trust that person to look after everything while you're gone; you never know what will happen.
The only problem that I've found has been getting a reliable internet connection for a couple of months at a time - if you have to work on sensitive things or you want to work on things for a long time, you don't want to work from public hotspots. I'd love to get some advice for that situation myself.
Or can rent a apartment that comes with it's own landline internet connection. The landlords can set it up in their name for you and it would be part of your rent.
The food and transportation is very affordable, and really really cheap if you don't go to the touristy restaurants and instead head to el mercado (marketplace). You can get a full meal with soup, drink and dessert for like US$.60-$1
Now, if you want to meet fellow hackers/entrepreneurs and recruit incredible talent, check out http://limavalley.com the startup/tech community in Peru.
It cost an arm and a leg, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
As for taxes, the rule in my case was that as soon as I spent more than half a year per year in the one country that one became the one where I paid my taxes.
I did create a corporation in Canada in order to have a bigger footprint and to help with the immigration process. Eventually moved back to Europe because the immigration process seemed to take for ever (of course, two weeks after letting everybody go and moving back to Europe we received permission to become landed immigrants).
I wouldn't do it again with the same country, but really, it was a very nice time.
If an opportunity presents itself to move abroad again I'll probably take it (as long as it is not the USA or Canada).
Nothing broadens your horizons and teaches you stuff than moving to different places on the planet.
Asia in 2013? Who knows ;)
Earning money online made stuff considerably easier, it meant that no matter how rotten the local economy was there was always food on the table and transportation.
Health insurance is different per country so you'd better check in to that in serious detail before you make your move, there can be all kinds of limitations and liabilities if you mess that up.
Did you just go to those places as a visitor and lived there while applying for a more permanent residency or did you do a temporary work visa or something else?
These questions coming from an American wanting to immigrate to Canada as a first choice, but is seriously looking at S and SE Asia as well.
As for the process, there are different 'routes', I picked the entrepreneur/investor route through the Buffalo office, I was / am fairly well connected and in spite of all that (and employing a bunch of people and some major investments).
My visum was a temporary work permit until landed immigrant status would be given but I never reached that stage.
Canadian immigration usually was quite ok when dealing with them at the airport (once every two weeks for two years), but I've had my frustrating encounters too, with hours of waiting to be sent on my way within 2 minutes of it being 'my turn'. Road crossings were a mixed bag, sometimes no problem at all, sometimes a big hassle when someone decided to pretend they're guarding Canada from all those Dutch terrorists they've been having lately.
We ended up going back because we had had enough of it. The schools in the area where we lived (rural Northern Ontario) didn't help either and the weather is simply brutal out there.
But again, I do not regret having done this, it gave me a completely new perspective on life and living.
http://britishexpats.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=33
Last I checked it was taking around 9 months if you could make your skillset fit in to one of their priority job classes where Canada is experiencing skill shortages. It's much quicker to get a temporary work permit if you can find an employer to sponsor you, and then apply for residency once you're here (which is what i'm doing).
Enjoy the lively weather, nice friendly community surrounded by. As you raised, health insurance that is one very important thing to consider. In some part of world, the health facility are not upto the mark. So in case of need, there may be some issue. Except that it is wonderful to work where ever you wish to.
The round the world ticket more or less forces you to keep moving as it'll only be valid for 12 months, and so you should be able to get by by just using tourist visas in each country. After a year of hopping around the world you'll be in a position to know whether you want to keep being a nomad, or if there was somewhere you visited that you'd like to go back to a little more permanently.
(Keep in mind that if you turn up to pretty much any country and say you intend to stay for 1 or 3 months as a tourist they'll want to know that you can support yourself - have your bank statements handy!)
But, yeah: go travel. Do it now before you start putting down roots. I once bought a round the world ticket to do 12 months of backpacking. 14 years on and i'm on my fourth country that i've 'permanently' settled in, with a fair bit of traveling thrown in along the way.
Definitely go around the world, but do it by purchasing a single one-way ticket. Travel overland as much as you can and when you hit the end of a continent, buy another one-way ticket to the next.
There's nothing worse than having a date on a calendar. It will mess up your trip over and over again, even if it's months in the future. Avoid dates at all costs. Get to the first place and let things work themselves out from there.
I've done 3 laps now, and the only regrets I've ever had have been things skipped to catch a flight or meet somebody at a fixed time/place.
But I totally agree on the schedule part. Every time I've booked in advance something has come up that has made me have to change plans, and I've regretted it. Buy one-way tickets and no more than a month in advance.
I want to do this as well, but the biggest question for me seems to be who to go with or going alone (and then just trying to meet people everywhere)?
For Japan, I was working there for a Japanese company so it's a bit different...
For visas in Malaysia and Thailand, I just switched between both countries for 2-3 months at a time (but stayed more in Malaysia), so I didn't need a visa for such a short time (as a french citizen). Since, my official country of residence at the time was france, I didn't have to pay any taxes. One word of caution, after one year of doing that it started becoming harder to get in Malaysia... So, it's not a long term solution...
For China, I've been here under a business visa. According to Chinese law, as long as I'm not a permanent resident (stayed more than 5 years with less than 90 days each year out of the country), I don't have to pay taxes on income outside of China.
Regarding health care, I'm using this insurance www.aplusii.com It's aimed at expats, costs 300 euros/months for me and my wife and covers us everywhere in the world except US and Canada (and then it does cover us there in case of accidents). I found them through a broker and would recommend you to consult one just to make sure you are covered in case of problems.
To keep costs low, it's a good idea to try and rent apartments for at least one month in each location instead of going to hotels. You get a better view of how people actually live there and it's much cheaper.
You can contact me if you have any questions (or decide to drop by in Shanghai), my email is in my profile.
I'm sorry, but I have hard time believing that. Since you were still a resident of France I'm sure you have to pay some tax to France in some shape or form.
Contrast that with somewhere like the UK where you're deemed a tax resident only if you've been resident in the country for >= 178 days in the financial year (regardless of visa status). Combine the two scenarios, carefully managed, you can greatly reduce the amount of tax you pay.
It cuts both ways though. Somewhere like Australia which has a different tax year to the UK and it's possible to incur a tax liability in both the UK and Australia. You'd need to submit a return in both places, thankfully they have a tax treaty with each other to avoid paying double but you'll still need to submit returns to both.
But back to the OP, it's exactly this kind of approach wealthy individuals use to avoid paying taxes. Claim tax residence in a country that only wants your money if you're actually living there, live somewhere else that only wants your money if you're earning it in that country.
Also, these countries tend to be really cheap. I know a woman who lived off of blog revenue in Costa Rica; mostly affiliate links to online gambling, which isn't feasible ever since the US government outlawed online gambling.
Btw, the best thing to do for you at this point would be to talk to the tax planning advisor. Pick a big accounting firm with lots of experience and in one hour you will know if you want to do I or not.
Life is generally very cheap here. Overall, you will feel like walking on eggs for the two first years but after that things will be just fine. Culturally, you will need to be able to handle huge alignments.
Honestly, there are ups and downs to this but you will feel alive like never before (this is a general statement about living abroad).
I would advise contacting a good lawyer to help you handle the whole immigration hell (yes, it is). In the IT business there are some shortcuts agreements with the government that can help. I can give you a good pointer on this.
More generally, if you can afford it; do it by all means.
Here's the website in question: http://www.tunisianindustry.nat.tn/en/home.asp It's in English and has lot of useful information. There is a section for online services and they'll answer your email within 24/48 hours. The cost is $100 or so, to form the company.
Life in Tunisia is good but not that cheap. You'll also miss your reliable Internet connection (though Water/Electricity are a lot reliable). The weather and food are good. Public services sucks, so you'll need your own car (for example), private medical care, ...
Northernmost country of Africa Official Language: Arab Second Language: French Population(1st july 2009) : 10.3 million (appox)
Tunisia has an authoritarian regime in the guise of a procedural democracy led by Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who has governed as President since 1987 and has systematically diminished freedom of press and political pluralism while keeping appearances of democracy.
It also has one of Africa and the Middle East's highest per-capita GDPs (PPP)
The US visa system is seriously broken.
If I were the OP I'd stick to the EU, Australia or New Zealand (both of which have fairly liberal immigration policies, especially for UK citizens).
That being said thats really the only grumble I hear, the quality of life (weather especially!) seems to outweigh these issues.
Some useful links...
The irony is I passed on buying a flat in London because I was worried the AUD would get weaker and I wouldn't be able to afford the repayments.
So I lived in India and Italy and Mexico/Colombia for the last year, earning in dollars, spending in rupees and pesos. For americans who have their own web business, it's something to think about....
I do carry a Windows 7 install disc and a 2.5" USB drive with all the various apps I need. (I code for .Net, so do require quite a few installed applications)
Total loss of a laptop while travelling would be a pain, but not insurmountable. Worse would be to lose the install media, but that's recoverable through MSDN, so given a day or two, would be up and running once more.
Would recommend having a virtual machine accessible from anywhere that you can fall back to if needed. That's saved my bacon a couple of times.
"I started freelancing in LAMP development 7 years ago. 4 years ago I started taking camping trips around my own country (Australia) & working via Wifi/3G. I soon started making little overseas trips, which got bigger & bigger. In November 2008 I sold my stuff & 'left'; I haven't been home since. I usually work 1 hour/day thanks to the weaker currencies of most places I visit. In richer countries, I work 2-3 hours. 3G modems & hotel WiFi keep me connected, an Australian SkypeIn # forwards to the mobile of whatever country I'm in at the time, Skype lets me call clients when necessary. I'm currently in Nepal having just got out of Tibet. I'm trying to get from Singapore to London without any planes (southern route --> SE-Asia->China->(Tibet)->Nepal->India->Pakistan->Iran->Turkey->Europe). AMA."
The easiest way to go about it is to maintain your permanent residence in your home country and enter new countries as a tourist/visitor.
This officially means that you can't "work" in the country you are visiting. However, as long as your clients are not local and you get paid to your bank account in your home country, you should be ok.
I would highly recommend you review your tax situation for your country, and especially the country you will be visiting if you want to stay longer than their tourist/visitor visa allows.
I'm going through all this myself and have started blogging about it at http://expatentrepreneur.tv ... A lot of other people blog about the expat digital lifestyle. One I enjoy reading is http://exilelifestyle.com and he has links to quite a few others.
I highly recommend South America to you... it has a fast-growing tech/startup community (Chile, Brasil, Argentina, Peru) and there are tons of expats as well.
If you make it to Peru feel free to look me up!
To avoid UK (and Canadian) residents doing a run around on their tax system with these corporations, any corporation who's 'top management' is majority run by residents in the UK (or in the UK) is taxed as if it is a UK corporation. Since your going to be away from the UK, you can remove your UK resident status (you have to do this properly, they can get you with things like still being registered to the NHS or having a residence in the UK still that isn't purely investment property, etc, etc). Once you loose your UK residence (you still stay as a UK citizen forever, your just not resident) your corporation will not have that tax status in the UK, and you do not have to pay taxes to the UK for your worldwide personal income. I don't know how it works when you move around in the EU, it can be different.
You can then travel the world as a resident of nowhere and be mostly tax free, with the majority of your income staying in your corporation, and drawing a living expenses income from the corporation. How you want to structure that income (being a corporate expense or personal income), and report it to the country your currently in depends on you and what your doing. It being an online business of you and your laptop, practically you'll not get any problems from working online on whatever tourist visa your using, since it's virtually undetectable and you don't really have to interact with their economy locally. Especially if it is only for one or two visa stays and a developing country. How you deal with that is up to you.
If you are going to plan which countries your going to, getting a tourist visa before you leave at an embassy in the UK will be useful, since you can get extra long visa stays vs the stamps you get arriving in the airport. For example you could get a triple entry tourist visa from thailand for free which would get you 3x2month stays in thailand. Your not going to get that from a embassy anywhere near thailand, but somewhere far like the UK would be a lot more likely.
For health insurance you can try to get an annual international travel insurance policy if you want to be covered.
I am not a lawyer and you should do your own research, but I hope this helps.
The only thing I have really found difficult is dealing with payment issues. Moving money in its many forms can be a pain. This is a big subject which is highly personalized for each person, so I won't get into it here. Just make sure you have a plan a, b and c for getting access to money and contacting your family when problems appear.
We're UK citizens, and we've made sure our company has a registered address in the UK (with our accountant). We'll pay all taxes in the UK - as far as the world is concerned, we're working on our UK business while travelling. We're doing everything on tourist visas since we're not performing any work for foreign companies etc.
Our accountant advised us that paying tax in the UK would be a great deal easier than trying to figure out how to pay it in foreign countries. Get a good accountant!
We've been travelling for 106 days now, through France, Spain, Morocco and now Egypt. Every single place we have stayed has had WiFi, though occasionally a little flakey. Working and travelling actually go very well together - we'll work in the morning, explore in the afternoon, then maybe work more in the evening. Makes it much less likely you'll over-work and burn yourself out as well.
For US citizens, you need to be aware of a lot of additional regulations -- US citizens are taxed globally, and if you make more than the $6k or so minimum, you must file a return every year. You have a certain exemption (approximately $95k now) on your income, so if you make less than $95k per year, you don't owe any tax, but must still file.
If you are in a location which has its own taxation, you may need to pay, and then use a tax treaty with the US to deduct foreign taxes paid, avoiding double taxation.
Basically, if you have substantial income or assets, you should use an international tax attorney to handle these matters for you. Only an attorney has attorney-client privilege, and your average US tax preparer (or even worse, H+R Block or something) has no clue whatsoever. If you make <$95k/yr and have pretty much just regular taxes, and are not subject to foreign tax (due to traveling on tourist visas and not really establishing yourself), you can probably file yourself -- you don't have a whole lot of deductions, etc., so it's actually fairly straightforward. If you have your own business, it becomes really complex, and I'd really go the tax attorney route.
There are lots of weird and non-intuitive special case rules built into the tax code, such as a restriction on "controlled foreign corporations", where >50% or so of the equity is owned by US persons, and are then subject to lots of extra US reporting requirements. This prevents a lot of the naive "keep all income in the corporation, pay yourself a trivial salary, expense all your personal expenses through the corporation" schemes, but also complicates legitimate foreign businesses owned by Americans. This is the kind of stuff you want the tax attorney for.
Right now I am personally stuck outside the US for the rest of 2010 due to taxes -- I worked in Iraq until August, making more than $95k, and thus it is a net savings for me of about $20k in taxes by remaining outside the US for the rest of the year, thus keeping my 330 days out of 365 out of the US, than it would be to return to the US. I have 6 days left in the US this year, which I might use for YC interview if I apply.
I plan to do my next startup in the US (maybe in tax-advantaged TX or WA vs. CA, but possibly just in the default of Palo Alto); taxes are annoying, but living outside the US is even more annoying.
The difficulties we have are: - troubles with virtual offce - if you decide for virtual office choose carefuly - its very frustrating if you need to change the address while being abroad - time to actually do any work - there is so much to see in the world and having motivation to keep building your business is tough
Things we thought we would have difficulty but they are fine: - internet connection - all around USA & Canada we had wifi everywhere + I bought Verizon mobile internet + ATT data package for iPhone and so wired 24/7 . Also, in South AMerica - Ecuador, you can buy prepaid mobile internet for good price and its reliable - I thought the business will suffer but so far its doing better than before and it probably helped me to realize that if I want to grow my business - I need to hire good people and trust them to do a good job. - pretending you are in UK - I thought I will have hard time in getting new business / contracts signed - but other companies don't mind - in fact I signed biggest clients while being in a campsite in mountains of Canada. all contracts can be Fedexed etc.. no problem at all
In some countries, merely visiting them for a holiday while being in charge of a business abroad is considered taxable.
Otherwise, Cambodia is a pretty good shout, 1 year business visa costs about $300 (multientry) (no paperwork). That's the best visa I know of in Asia.
Apparently, as long as you can prove a monthly income of at least $650, you can get a visa to stay.
There's nothing like it. You can't really understand a place in less than a year.
Sort out all the paperwork if or when you decide to settle down...in the meantime stay nimble, have fun and travel.
The cost of living is low and the atmosphere is great.