- There's a lot of people who want to live in Mexico,
but because the Mexican government
just drastically increased the amount
of money it takes to get residency here,
a lot of people can no longer qualify.
So in this video,
I'm gonna give you some great alternatives to Mexico.
If you're looking to move outta your home country
for a better quality of life.
Not very long ago
you could get residency in Mexico for as little
as a thousand dollars a month of monthly income.
Well now to get residency here,
you need to be able to prove $2,600 of monthly income.
That number has more than doubled in about four years
and it's probably only going to go much higher from here.
So what other options do you have out there?
Well, one of my favorites is Ecuador.
This has gotta be one of the easiest visas
to get in the world.
So they have this retiree visa and to get it,
you need to be able to prove that you'll have $800
of monthly income for the rest of your life.
So, this has to be like a pension
or a social security or an annuity.
Another option Ecuador has, is a professional visa.
You might want this if you want to work in Ecuador
or live in Ecuador working remotely or something like that.
And to get this professional visa or this residency,
all you need is a university degree or higher, that's it.
So, that's gotta be one of the simplest
if not the simplest residency I've ever heard of.
Let's say you don't have a pension or social security
and you also don't have a college degree.
Well, Ecuador also has an investor visa
and to qualify for this investor visa,
there's one of a few requirements that you need to meet.
One is you can own shares in an Ecuadorian company
that's worth at least $10,000.
Another is you can deposit $40,000 in an Ecuadorian bank.
And a third option is to own a home
in Ecuador worth at least US $80,000.
And compare that to,
if you wanna get temporary residency in Mexico
via home ownership
that home has to be valued at about 350,000 in Mexico.
So Ecuador is so much easier
to qualify for on so many levels.
It's one of my favorite options
for getting residency outside of Mexico.
The next country is Panama and every country on this list,
if you don't know if you want to live there yet,
they all offer a visa free visit,
in the case of Ecuador or in Panama, they're both 90 days,
but they range from as little as 30 days
to as long as a year in one case.
But let's say you want to get residency in Panama.
What does it take?
Well, if you're are a retiree
with an income for the rest of your life, again,
social security, pension, something like that.
Well, then they want to see
that you're earning a thousand dollars a month.
So a little bit more than Ecuador, but still very reasonable
in comparison to Mexico, that requires $2,600 a month.
Panama used to have something
they called a friendly nations visa
where you could start a Panamanian corporation,
put US $5,000 into a Panamanian bank
and then you would get permanent residency just like that.
But they just can continue this program.
And that's a theme around the world.
Like the programs that are very easy
tend to get worse or go away eventually.
So if any one of these residency programs
on this list appeals to you
if it's something you want to pursue, do it now
because there's a good chance it's going to get harder
or eventually disappear.
The only visa in Panama
that's pretty easy to get is that retiree visa.
However, there are a couple other options
that'll just run over quickly with you.
And one is an investor visa.
And with this, you need shares
in a Panamanian corporation worth at least $160,000
or they have an economic solvency visa where you can
either deposit money into a Panamanian bank account
or buy property or a combination of the two.
But the total amount has to be worth at least $300,000.
So it's not insignificant
and it's only slightly easier than it is in Mexico.
So with that, we'll move on to the next country.
Just north of Panama in Central America is Costa Rica
and Costa Rica has a very similar retiree visa like Panama
and they want you to have a thousand dollars
of monthly income
that's going to last for the rest of your life,
but there's an additional stipulation with Costa Rica
and they require you to visit at least once a year.
Now if you don't have a pension or something like that,
they also have another kind of visa
that requires $2,500 in monthly income.
They also have an investor visa.
And with that, you either need to invest $200,000
in real estate or a business.
If you're interested in learning things
like this or interested about my life in Mexico.
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Just south of Mexico, you have Belize.
The first three countries
in this video were all Spanish speaking
but in Belize, they speak English.
Belize has a really unique option for retirees
and you don't even have to be retired.
All you have to be is at least 45 years of age or older
and be able to prove that you have the economic solvency
that you're going to be able to deposit $2,000 a month
or $24,000 a year into Belizean bank account.
And to continue being able to renew this visa
do have to prove every year that you've deposited
that US $24,000.
This visa comes with some really unique tax incentives.
For starters, within the first year
you can import basically everything you own duty free
whether that's household goods, cars, boats
even an airplane.
So, that's pretty cool,
but the tax incentives don't stop there.
If you get this visa,
you get a permanent exemption from Belizean taxes
including income tax, capital gain tax, import taxes.
So that could be huge, so let's say you're coming
from the US, the US taxes citizens
no matter where they live in the world,
however they do offer a foreign earned income exemption
of $112,000.
So, you could come to Belize
and start a business or work remotely from Belize
and not have to pay taxes on your first $112,000 of income
which could offer a really unique opportunity
for a lot of people.
And if you come from most countries in the world,
well then, you don't have to pay tax
in your home country if you're living somewhere else.
So that could be an extremely appealing option
if you're at least 45 years of age
and you want to continue earning money.
One restriction with this visa
is that it prevents you from applying for a work visa.
That doesn't mean you can't work in Belize.
You can start a business there,
you can work remotely, all sorts of stuff.
You just can't get a work visa
to be in an employee role for or another company.
So at the end of the day, that $2,000 a monthly income
that you need for residency in Belize
isn't that much lower than the $2,600 in Mexico.
But with all these tax incentives,
I think that's really a game changer.
Now let's go across upon to Portugal.
Portugal actually has a great residency program.
You only need to prove
that you have income of $800 a month in Portugal.
That's what they consider economic solvency.
And before visiting Portugal, I would not have thought
that they would consider that like enough money
to live there.
However, it was surprisingly affordable like Maddy
and I went to Lisbon a few years back.
And for example, to get an Uber there, it was about half
of the cost that it was in the neighboring country of Spain.
Or I remember going into a grocery store
and looking at the wine selection
and they had bottles of wine for as little as a euro.
And if you were willing to spend three euros on a bottle,
well then, you had a huge selection to choose from.
So yeah, I was pleasantly surprised
by the cost of living there and something cool
about Portugal is once you have residency there,
you can live anywhere in the European Union.
And also this residency program can eventually turn
into citizenship a few years down the line,
but in order to get citizenship,
you will need to be committed
because there are some requirements like for example
you have to pass a language test.
You have to be able to speak Portuguese
at about the level of a five year old if I remember right,
so not impossible
but it will definitely take some effort.
One big downside to this Portugal visa is from what I hear
there is a ton of bureaucracy and a whole lot of paperwork.
So if you ought go through this, just be prepared for that.
If you're going to a foreign country,
everything is going to be new to you.
You're gonna be eating new foods
that you've never seen before.
Everything's going to be in another language.
And at the end of the day
you're gonna be totally overwhelmed.
And you're gonna wanna go back to your hotel
and just go to your favorite websites.
But the problem is you get there
and they're all in Portuguese or Spanish
or whatever the language is of the country you're in.
But one easy solution to fix this is to get a VPN.
A VPN allows you to virtually change your location.
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The next country
that has a really interesting residency program is Georgia.
You might be thinking Georgia, what the heck?
So, Georgia is located in Eastern Europe.
And before you click out, just hear me out.
There's a lot of really interesting things about Georgia.
Number one, you can go there and live a really high quality
of life on not that much money.
Along at the super high quality of life
at a reasonable price, number two is the food.
Something I personally love
about living in Mexico is the food.
I love Mexican food.
It's one of my favorite cuisines in the world.
Well, I haven't personally been to Georgia
but people say that Georgia has incredible food as well
but not only that, also really great wines
some of the best wines in the world.
And in addition to those things, it's very safe.
Georgia's constantly regarded as one
of the safest countries in the world,
right up there with Qatar, Switzerland, Japan,
it's super safe.
And also, it's a beautiful country.
It has lots of nature.
And also, Tbilisi, the capital is gorgeous.
It's a really historic city
with churches dating back like 1500 years.
So in Georgia, you have the high quality of life,
the great food, the great nature, the history, the culture
but you also have great people.
There aren't many problems with petty theft there.
And also it's very, very easy to make friends.
And you might be thinking well, Eastern Europe,
well it's probably gonna be a problem speaking English.
Well, English is getting more and more widespread there.
And the government is working hard
to have the whole population know English.
They're teaching all of the kids English
and they're on pace from what I read in a few years
to make it an official language.
Something cool about Georgia
is if you want to not apply for a visa or anything like that
you can go there and get a year.
You have a year in the country
before you have to apply for a visa or anything like that.
Something really awesome about Georgia
is they have this great program for digital nomads
or entrepreneurs or anyone who's wanting to make money.
So to be a part of this program,
you don't have to get residency or anything.
You can literally go into Georgia.
You get your one year visa of free.
You make an appointment in Tbilisi.
Then you walk into one
of the most efficient government buildings in the world.
You pay $7 and you walk out
with the right to work and earn money at a 1% tax rate.
That's right, a 1% tax rate.
But this only applies
if you are earning less than 500,000 Georgian Lari
or at the current exchange rate,
you're looking at about US $170,000 a year.
If you make more than that,
well then, you get bumped up to a 3% tax rate.
And if you make more than that for a few years in a row,
well then you no longer qualify for that program.
However, Georgian taxes are super low.
So even if you don't qualify for that 1% or 3% program,
you're not going to be taxed that much anyway
and let's face it.
How many freelancers and digital nomads
out there are making more than $170,000 a year?
Not many.
So you could probably work there
for the rest your life and only pay that 1% tax.
Georgia also has a great residency program
for digital nomads, freelancers, entrepreneurs.
You can go there, you can start a business
and you can hire yourself
and you might be thinking, whoa, start a business.
I don't want to go
through the trouble of starting a business.
Well in Georgia, there's very little bureaucracy
and they make it super easy.
So you can start a business and hire yourself.
And as long as you make at least 50,000 Georgian Lari,
or at the current exchange rate about US $17,000 a year,
you can continue to renew that residency.
And then after six years,
you can turn it into a permanent residency.
At which point there's no more income requirement.
And if you continue to live in Georgia for a few more years
you can turn that into citizenship.
But let's say you don't want to concern yourself
with making money or anything like that.
Well, you can go to Georgia and buy a property worth
at least a US $100,000 and you get temporary residency
or you buy one for $300,000 and you get permanent residency.
So personally, for me, Georgia is super appealing
and I wanna go check it out.
I can't say I've been there yet,
but I have a feeling that's going to change soon.
This is by no means an exhaustive list
of all the affordable residency programs that are out there.
But these are just a few that are appealing to me.
And hopefully, it gives you a good place to start
if Mexico is no longer in your budget
or if you're interested in looking elsewhere.
On the screen here is another video I made recently.
So you can click on that until we see you next week.
But before you go, if you found this video helpful,
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