Right now it's easy to be a digital nomad or retiree in Thailand. Malaysia has My Second Home: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_My_Second_Home
I expect things will get easier in North Asia as the effects of the aging population hit.
I would love to be able to move to a small town in Japan to live the Totoro life with fast Internet. And no virus problems.
Not all South East Asian countries are welcoming to foreigners as well. I.e., Indonesia. They have too many digital nomads causing trouble and contributing nothing locally.
No skin in the game.
Someone earning $10 a day online from overseas sources is contributing far more than a local worker.
"On July 2, Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Nancy Shukri announced that the MM2H programme has been temporarily frozen until December 2020 for review and further improvement."
I contract from my US C corporation.
That corporation pays me, at my US address.
I pay taxes accordingly. In the US.
Is Estonia trying to horn in on those personal earnings, claiming I earned them while being a tourist in their country? (illegally? gasp) What if I don't pay myself while in EE and just pay myself later?
Are there services I might consume over and above a tourist visa as a remote worker, and those need recouped? Will this remote worker visa get me better access to those services?
I didn't understand their digital citizenship thing a decade ago either.
Befuddled. I love Estonia too, so I want to understand. :)
The actual laws haven’t been updated to officially allow that, though, so you’re operating in a legal grey area; especially if you have some non-vacation days in-country. This makes it unambiguously legal to take an extended vacation where you support yourself by continuing to work remotely.
Parent comment is right, though: it is sort of a legal gray area. If you plan on having a long-standing relationship with that country it's probably worth doing things legally, if possible.
This offers a 1 year residence visa in Estonia, and makes it legal to work remotely while you are there.
Presumably they would also expect some income taxes while you are resident there (and working) during that year.
- No right of citizenship or permanent residence in Estonia or EU - Get to live in Estonia for up to 1 year - Must make more than 3500 eur/mo gross from remotely earned income from sources mostly outside of Estonia
Overall this is very encouraging though, and I hope more countries start to realize the net gain in attracting such people who will contribute to the economy by paying taxes and potentially starting their own companies down the line.
But yeah, I agree. 3500/mo is ~4000 usd/mo or ~48k USD/yr. Lots of traveling freelancers probably won't be able to show a minimum of that sustained for 6 months. I'd bet the bar was set intentionally high though, because they're bound to spend a good bit of that directly into the local economy.
I wonder what countries will follow. I imagine there's got to be plenty of poorer/smaller countries thinking about it... A few people making $4k/mo adds little to a country like India or China but in a tiny country that could easily become a decent sized cash transfusion to the local economy.
