DIGITAL NOMAD VISAS: Do You Really Need One?

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

Kristin:    00:00:22    Hi everyone. Kristin from Traveling with Kristin here and welcome to another solo cast episode of Badass Digital Nomads. And today we're gonna answer a question that has been trending in the news. Do you need a digital nomad visa? Are visas for digital nomads all that in a bag of chips or are they a waste of time? I'm gonna answer that question for you today, but first I just wanna thank everyone for listening out there, sharing this podcast with your friends and family and coworkers and leaving reviews on all the different platforms. And I wanna give a special shout out to my Patreon patrons as well, Craig, RZ, Tim James, Richard, Fred, Lakshey, Teklordz, Sean, Ann, Walt who are my patrons as of October. You can support the podcast and get access to lots of behind the scenes content, live videos and more by becoming a patron for $5 per month at patreon.com/TravelingwithKristin.  

Kristin:    00:01:33    And I will link to that in the show notes. And also shout out this week to Don from the Netherlands who left a super nice review on Apple podcasts. He says, genuine, there are so many Ponzi scheming digital nomads out there, but Kristin is the real deal. Out of all the fluffed up podcasts in this scene, hers is packed with value from real people living real lives. She's honest about the hardships, which in itself is very rare these days. And if you wanna use badass as your non the Gere, then you need to be worthy of it. She is. Whoa. Thank you Don. That is such a nice review and I really appreciate it and I've always tried to do my best to uh, bring the real story to you guys and um, just be straight with you about the good, the bad and the ugly.  

Kristin:    00:02:28    Luckily the pros outweigh the cons and that's why we're all still here trying to live our best lives. So thanks everybody for leaving reviews and today actually that's a good review to talk about today because we're gonna <laugh>, we're gonna talk about whether or not digital nomad visas are worth getting or are they bullshit? What do you think? So first of all, what is a digital nomad visa? Well, the year of 2020 and the year of the Coronavirus pandemic has brought in a wave of countries announcing digital nomad visa programs or remote work programs or announcing that they're going to have one. So there are a few countries that have already launched them and there are a few that have just said that they're working on them. And so the ones that I'm gonna touch on today are Barbados, Estonia, Georgia, Croatia and Antigua and Barbuda.  

Kristin:    00:03:31    And there are also a few countries like Portugal, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, and even possibly Thailand. And even some local governments like the mayor or the governor of Bali has announced that he wants to have some sort of digital nomad visa program. So we might see more of these coming on in the future, but I wanted you guys to know whether or not you need one. So let's go through what each country is offering and then I'm gonna give you my opinion on whether or not it's worth it and, and who actually does need a digital nomad visa and who can just ignore them? So the first country to officially announce and launch their digital nomad visa program was Barbados. And some of you may have seen my silly video about the Barbados Digital Nomad Visa. If not, check it out on Traveling with Kristin and I'll link to it in the show notes.  

Kristin:    00:04:28    But um, to get the Barbados Welcome Stamp, which is what it's called, it offers a 12 month stay in Barbados. Whether you are an individual couple family, it's for remote workers who are self-employed or have a remote job. So the one defining traits or characteristic of digital nomad visas is that you have to have your own job or your own source of income no matter what. So these countries don't want you just moving there and looking for a job in person there. And this is not a legal right to work in that country or a work permit. It is a right to work on your computer. However, whatever it is that you do on your computer, no judgment. So I was really excited when the Barbados one came out, as you probably can tell from my video. But then the specifics for it came out and the application became available.  

Kristin:    00:05:28    And it turns out that the application fee is $2,000 for one person or $3,000 for a family. And you also have to expect to earn $50,000 per year, but you don't need to actually prove that you have earned that much, which is in contrast to the next country that we're gonna talk about. So basically it's paying the government of Barbados a two or $3,000 non-refundable fee for the option to legally work remotely from your laptop while in Barbados for up to 12 months. Is it worth it? In my opinion, no. Why? First of all, that application fee is ridiculous. It's like a money grab from the government and it's not going to really like attract the right people there. I mean you can go to, depending on your passport, okay, let's say if you have a US passport, you can go to Barbados with no Visa with just your passport for up to six months.  

Kristin:    00:06:41    Now if you wanna stay in Barbados for a whole year and you don't wanna leave, then paying 2 or $3,000 is not a big deal to be able to have that. Because if you go anywhere from Barbados, it's probably gonna cost you two or $3,000 to go somewhere else. Like the flights aren't necessarily cheap, the cost of living isn't necessarily low there anyway. But um, you know, if you have a specific reason that you wanna go to Barbados or you think it's a good fit for your lifestyle and your budget, then it could be worth it. But for the most part, if you wanna be nomadic and you wanna be able to travel more and you wanna do more than just go to one island in the Caribbean for a whole year, then I don't think there's any reason to apply for this visa because citizens of most countries will be able to go there for up to 180 days per year.  

Kristin:    00:07:34    And there's a good chance that during that time period you're gonna be like, you know what? I wanna try a different island or a different country. Let's see what's out, what else is out there? So sorry Barbados, but I don't really think this is that valuable. It's just basically you're paying a few thousand dollars to get an extension on your tourist visa and explicit approval from the government to say you can work on your laptop. Which let's face it, you probably could do, you could do it anyway. I need to give a disclaimer that this is not legal advice, but this is my personal opinion. And then the next country to announce a digital nomad visa was Estonia and they launched it just a couple weeks later and Estonia became very famous a few years ago for being one of the first countries to have an e-residency program that turned out it wasn't all it's cracked up to be, but the concept of e-residency is to be able to open a company remotely in Estonia even if you never ever travel there.  

Kristin:    00:08:39    So it doesn't give you the permission to go to Estonia, you can be in India or Guatemala or Canada and you can online open a company in Estonia so that you can operate it remotely. Um, however, and you can access the European market, you can get a tax id, you can pay taxes there. However, it doesn't guarantee that you can like open a bank account or there's all these other restrictions. So if you wanna learn more about that, check out my video on Estonia's e-residency program and Digital Nomad visa where I explain the differences between those. But basically Estonia's Digital Nomad Visa is also a one year permit to go live and work from your laptop in Estonia and as opposed to two or $3,000, the application fee is only 80 to a 100 euro. So that's obviously a brainer. It's very low financial burden to apply.  

Kristin:    00:09:36    However, you do have to have 3,504 Euro and pre-tax income per month. So you have to have a source of income that exceeds 3,500 euro per month to be able to qualify to get the digital nomad visa. And you have to have either your own company or be self-employed or have a remote job already. You can't go and work for a company in Estonia with this visa. But the benefit of the Estonia visa is that it gives you one year to stay in that country. Whereas typically, depending on what your passport is, if you're a non-EU citizen, the longest you can stay in Estonia is 90 days because it's a Schengen country. And so the Schengen zone is that block of countries where you can stay collectively 90 days in the Schengen zone before you have to leave again. So you can stay 90 days per 180 days in let's say France, Spain, Estonia, Germany combined.  

Kristin:    00:10:44    It's not like you get 90 days in each country. So Estonia is an interesting one because it's cheap to apply for the visa. You can have a home base in Europe for a year and then you could still keep that home base and then go 90 days to another Schengen country in Europe and then go back to Estonia without having to leave the continent. So I do feel that this is a more valuable visa than Barbados because Estonia is very close to many other countries and if you are living in Estonia long term, you can get a really low cost of living. A lot of you have seen my video about living in Estonia and people get really heated <laugh> about the cost of living that I disclosed there because I was only there for about a month. And so my cost of living was extremely high.  

Kristin:    00:11:38    I think it was like 4,000 euro or something for the month because I was staying in an Airbnb in Tallinn. So that's the most expensive thing you can do. But that was the experience that I wanted to have. But if you were to live in Estonia with a digital nomad visa for one year, you can get a local price on a long-term rental and it wouldn't have to be in Tallinn, it could be out in the countryside or it could be in one of the smaller towns throughout the country. So you could really get an affordable cost of living in Europe and still be able to travel around to other parts of Europe lest you get bored. So plus one for Estonia's visa I would consider applying for it. The next one we have is Georgia and they have a program called Remotely from Georgia, which is for digital nomads who want to stay for a minimum of six months up to 12 months.  

Kristin:    00:12:35    There's no application fee and they say that you should have at least $2,000 per month in income. So this is a lot less than than Estonia's for example. And this is a pretty interesting one too, but it's a little bit different because Georgia is in Eastern Europe but it's not part of the Schengen zone. So like Estonia, you could use Georgia as a very even more affordable home base for you on the European continent, um, and stay there for up to a year. And then you could just keep a long-term rental there, use that as your home base, and then travel to other countries throughout Europe and the Balkans and Russia and the Middle East. It's a really cool location 'cause it's kind of right in the middle of everything. And it also has a lot of coworking spaces and a growing digital nomad community.  

Kristin:    00:13:29    So if you're looking for other digital nomads, that is a great place to be, especially to Tbilisi. However, according to visahq.com, and I haven't been to Georgia yet, but I just looked it up and it says with a US passport that you can stay in Georgia for up to one year, which is something that I have heard before. So basically you don't need a digital nomad visa or the remote work visa to go to Georgia for up to one year anyway. So you might as well apply for it because it's free and I don't see if like why they would turn you down, but is do you really need it or is it just cool? Is it just hype to say like we have this remote work visa, maybe that's a marketing plan for them to bring in more promotion and more free press from media sites and to like attract more attention to bring in more remote workers who may not be familiar with that country.  

Kristin:    00:14:31    But you know, technically you could just go with your passport <laugh> and work on your laptop. You don't have to get this permit, but it makes it more official. So there's that. And then the next one is Croatia with which just announced that they are passing what's called the Foreigners Act, which is a 12 month digital nomad visa that's renewable after six months. So if you go for six months and you realize you love Croatia and you're definitely gonna wanna stay longer, it seems like you could potentially stay for up to two years with Croatia as your home base. And like Estonia, this one is quite interesting because although Croatia is not a Schengen country, it's in the European Union and you can only go there also for up to 90 days at a time. So Croatia is a good place to have a home base because of its geographic location.  

Kristin:    00:15:27    It's relatively low cost of living if you're there on a long-term basis, like one or two years and really cheap flights. And also you can drive to a lot of different countries too. So it would be a cool country to base yourself out of and then be able to travel to other European countries on a budget. So I find this one to be quite interesting. They haven't disclosed yet if there's going to be any sort of application fee or what the other requirements will be, but I think that we can extrapolate from the other ones that it's gonna be probably a pretty nominal application fee and like the, the median monthly income isn't so high there, so I don't think that they're gonna put the income requirement super high. They already get a lot of income from from tourism and from yachts and boating and sailing and things like that.  

Kristin:    00:16:21    So I, it sounds like they're gonna keep it pretty accessible and that would be an interesting one to keep in mind because again, you can use Croatia as your home base in Europe for up to two years without having to get a work permit or permanent residency. And you're also outside of the Schengen. So you can go to Schengen countries for 90 days, come back to Croatia, sublet your apartment, whatever. And then the last one we have that was just announced this week is Antigua and Barbuda, which has announced a two year digital nomad visa, which is really similar to the Barbados visa. So it's interesting that these Caribbean countries are kind of modeling their visas after each other. And in Antigua's case it's $1,500 non-refundable application fee for an individual, $2000 for a couple and $3000 for a family. You also have to prove that you make $50,000 a year in income or you have to say that you do at least, and then you can stay there for two years.  

Kristin:    00:17:27    So I guess if you are really into the Caribbean lifestyle, this would be nice, but you also could go with a passport for probably 90 to 180 days. It just depends on where your passport is from. So for example, if you wanna go on your passport for six months to Barbados and six months to Antigua, you could do that and save yourself a couple thousand dollars <laugh>. And then if you wanna go back, you can go back because once you, let's say once you go to Barbados for six months, like you can leave and then you can go back in. So I just noticed that a lot changes in six months and usually people get the itch to go somewhere else and they don't necessarily wanna stay there. And then also in the Caribbean flights to get out of the Caribbean are really expensive. So unless you have a boat, um, or you know you wanna island hop to other places, it's just gonna cost you more to travel internationally from there.  

Kristin:    00:18:30    So I don't see it as being such a great home base. And then right before this podcast went live, we got another announcement from yet a another country with a digital nomad visa and that is the United Arab Emirates. So now there will be a Dubai visa for citizens of anyone in the world. And this is a really interesting visa because the cost is only $287 to apply plus mandatory medical insurance with valid coverage in the UAE. But this virtual working program is valid for one year and previously before the Dubai Digital Nomad visa, let's say if you were a US citizen who was interested in traveling to Dubai or a citizen of most other countries, you could go there with a passport, but you would only get a visa on arrival for up to 30 days. So the Dubai Visa offers a lot of value because it is a low application fee, but gives you a one year period to live abroad in Dubai.  

Kristin:    00:19:44    And so that is a really interesting visa in my opinion. And you also will get access to local services. So this is including telecommunication services, utilities, and even schooling options. So Dubai is taking the concept of their remote work visa above and beyond and thinking of what else they can offer besides just the ability to reside in the country for one year. So if you're interested in this Dubai visa, you can go to visitdubai.com and they say there that applicants will just need a passport with a minimum of six months validity, you'll need that health insurance I mentioned. And you'll also need proof of employment or proof of ownership of a business with a minimum one year contract if you're employed, and a minimum of $5,000 per month salary. So you'll need to prove that you earn at least $5,000 a month through payslips or bank statements.  

Kristin:    00:20:50    Or if you are a small business owner or online business owner, you'll need to provide proof of ownership of that company and an average monthly income of $5,000 per month. So not everybody will qualify for that, but at the same time, I mean Dubai it, it can be an expensive place to live. So the  Dubai Digital Nomad visa might be a good fit for a certain type of digital nomad while you know the other, the one in Georgia might be a fit for somebody else. It just depends on what type of ambiance you want to live in, what type of lifestyle you want, what type of climate you want, what your cost of living budget is. And so you'll be able to choose which visa works for you or if none at all, and you just want to go around with your passport, not apply for anything, move around more frequently and call it a day.  

Kristin:    00:21:47    An added note is that there is no income tax, no individual income tax in Dubai, so that's a plus as well. But if you'd like to learn more about taxes as a digital nomad, then I'll link to some videos and previous podcast episodes that we did about that because for the most part, digital nomads that are traveling around a lot that haven't changed their tax domicile to a specific country probably aren't going to be liable for paying income taxes in countries that they're just passing through if they don't, you know, have a company there or actually work there. So of course I'm not a CPA, this is not tax advice, but I will link to interviews that I've done with IRS enrolled agent Grace Taylor, for example, from Gracefully Expat. And I also have a video on my YouTube channel about the most common tax misconceptions for digital nomads.  

Kristin:    00:22:42    So I'll link to those in the show notes, but definitely watch this space stay tuned because there are a lot more digital nomad visas in the works and we are about to hit a critical mass where if a country doesn't have a digital nomad visa, then basically they're losing a competitive edge in this new global remote marketplace. So who should get a digital nomad visa? Well what, what, what is my opinion on these visas? I think that Estonia is the most legit digital nomad visa, the most practical digital nomad visa at this point. And I think most digital nomad visas are just for show. I think there's very little substance there and there have never been digital nomad visas before, but there's millions of digital nomads and we've been doing just fine for the past 20 years without digital nomad visas. So the problem with digital nomad visas is that a lot of people who don't understand remote work and who don't understand the digital nomad lifestyle are developing them except with the case of Estonia, because that government has such a long history working in this movement and working with online entrepreneurs so they understand it better.  

Kristin:    00:24:04    But a lot of these countries are just trying to hop onto the bandwagon. I don't know who they're getting consulting from, if anyone, but they're doing it wrong basically. Or they're creating something that isn't even worth applying for in many cases because they're not incorporating much value into what it is. They need to increase the value and the perks of these visas if they want digital nomads to apply for them. But it's not all bad. I mean, who should get a digital nomad visa who would benefit the most from them? I think it's people who want a home base, people who want to slow travel, people who want to live more of an expat lifestyle versus a nomadic lifestyle. So people who wanna go someplace for more than three or six months at a time. And that's why the visas in Estonia and anywhere in Europe I think would be really interesting because Europe has been notoriously closed off to foreigners and very hard to live in long term for more than 90 days.  

Kristin:    00:25:05    Um, it's also very expensive to get permanent residency in most European countries because it's high demand. So you usually have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions of dollars to purchase a quote unquote golden visa or citizenship or long-term residency in these countries. Uh, the United Kingdom included. And also you would have to start a business in many cases or basically either find a, a company to sponsor you for a work permit or start your own business with tens of thousands of dollars of investment in a European country. Or you would have to invest in real estate, basically buying your way in. And so if more European countries offer one year digital nomad visas, that's gonna be super valuable because it's gonna allow us to live in Europe without spending thousands and thousands of dollars on some sort of permit or finding someone to sponsor us.  

Kristin:    00:26:05    It's also good for people who want a somewhat normal life. They want to be able to get to know the country that they're in, get to know the culture, become more ingrained and integrated into the local community, into the expat community, and just have like more of a normal life. And until now, the only places where you could do that without having a special visa or work permit were places like Latin America was actually quite good. Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, places where you could go for 90 to 180 days and you would just have to leave across the border and come back in the same day to renew your passport visa. But not every country allows that, but that's the concept of a visa run is leaving a country and coming back in with your passport so that you can stay longer. But some countries have restrictions on that.  

Kristin:    00:26:56    So the visa, the digital nomad visa does solve that problem. It's also good for people who wanna be legal <laugh> or who wanna be official, to use a better word, probably because digital nomads have lived in a gray area until now and some people are uncomfortable saying like, no, I'm not working here. I'm, I'm just a tourist because you're not working there typically if you're just passing through with your passport, but you are working on your computer. But it's like, if you're not working with anyone in that country or for anyone in that country and your business is based in a different country, but you're physically in that country, it can just kind of blur the lines between like, what are you actually doing there? And so, you know, what would the immigration agent think that you're working there if you're working from your laptop or would he consider or she consider that you're just there as a tourist?  

Kristin:    00:27:51    And so this is good for people that want that validation confirmation from the government agency that it's okay that they work on their laptop. And then as I mentioned, it's cheap compared to getting official legal, permanent residency in a country. And it's important to note that these digital nomad visas are not a path to permanent residency or citizenship. They're just temporary for like one year, two years at the most. So if you wanna live someplace for a year or so without investing in legal residency, then this is a really good option. And yeah, really the main attribute is just that you're getting approval to work from your laptop from a country, they're just making it official and they're making it easier for you to stay there longer than you would be able to with a passport. Again, I think Estonia has the most valuable digital nomad visa that's been announced so far.  

Kristin:    00:28:48    And I'm really interested to see what, uh, what Croatia comes up with. Other countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Portugal, there's a lot of, uh, places that have kind of strict restrictions on living there with just a passport that are talking about having a, a digital nomad visa. And for example, Thailand doesn't have a digital nomad visa, but they have this new long stay visa for expats where you can go for 90 days up to a year. And I have a video about that on my YouTube channel if you wanna check that out. But you have to get a lot of testing and things during COVID. Most of these countries are open for tourism, however except Estonia, but you can still apply for the digital nomad visa, even if you're from a country that's not approved to travel to the the EU or the Schengen. You just have to go jump through a few more hoops.  

Kristin:    00:29:46    But I like seeing, I will like to see more digital nomad visas, especially in the European continent that will be of value to us in the future. But let me know, what do you guys think? Hop over to my digital nomad visa videos on YouTube. Let me know in the comments. Do you think these visas are worth it? Or come over to the Facebook group Badass Digital Nomads. Let's start the conversation. Which countries would you like to see a digital nomad visa in? Do you think these visas are just bullshit or a PR stunt, or do you think they're legit? I would love to hear from you. Thanks for listening. And thank you guys again for sharing the podcast with your friends and family and leaving reviews wherever you listen. We'll see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. And remember to leave a review for the podcast wherever you listen and share this episode with someone you think it might help.  

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