Unknown: The weather, the sunshine. Within 25 minutes, I can
either be in a forest, on a beach or a winery.
Shar Wynter: You'll get a lot of bang for your buck here.
Unknown: The barrier to entry to open a business is super low.
speaker 3: We moved to Portugal to open a restaurant. To offer
our child a better life. To build my happiest life.
HELEN ZHAO: Everyone you just heard from moved to Portugal during
the pandemic. They're part of a wave of expats and digital
nomads, many of whom are millennials, settling here in search of
a better life. The number of foreign citizens living in Portugal
is at an all-dtime high, making up about 7% of the population in
2021. The number of Americans moving to Portugal more than
doubled in 2021. As the pandemic and remote work transform the
way we live and work, people are moving and changing careers
based on what fulfills them most.
Shar Wynter: I have a whole company now.
Margo Gabriel: I transitioned from working in academia to
full-time freelance writing.
Mateusz: Previously, it seemed like Portugal was the destination
to retire. And now it seems like it's a cool destination to just
like start over.
HELEN ZHAO: I've talked to dozens of people who moved to Portugal
in the last few years. They talk about Portugal with a sense of
renewal and hope, like they can finally live the life they always
envisioned. One that was unattainable for them where they came
from. So what is it about this country that holds so much promise
for so many people?
Ready for takeoff. I visited Portugal for the first time to find
out how this small European country became such a hotspot for
expats and digital nomads around the world. You live within
walking distance of here now?
Shar Wynter: Yes, less than five minutes away.
HELEN ZHAO: And this must be so different than Atlanta.
Shar Wynter: Oh, very different.
HELEN ZHAO: This is Shar Wynter, who used to be a consultant
earning about $180,000 a year. But she worked such long hours,
she barely had time to enjoy the money.
Shar Wynter: My dad passed away in 2018. And that was the turning
point when I realized, I don't want to work myself to death.
HELEN ZHAO: Wynter then quit her job to travel the world. In
2021, she moved to Lisbon, Portugal.
Shar Wynter: I had visited about 40 countries, but Lisbon felt
like home.
HELEN ZHAO: Like Wynter, more Americans are finding their way to
Portugal. There were about 7,000 Americans living in the country
at the end of 2021, more than double three years earlier. The
U.S. is the 24th most represented country among foreign citizens.
Most foreigners settle in the Lisbon district, which includes the
capital city of Lisbon, followed by the Faro district, a popular
vacation destination also called the Algarve.
How does living here compare with the U.S.? It does not compare.
I feel like we grow up in America thinking that America is the
greatest country in the world. Absolutely. And I still have that
mindset in a way. So is it hard to make that transition?
Alexandra: No! No! It's liberating, liberating to leave America.
Where can you live in the center of the city in America and look
at the ocean and eat fresh seafood and work in your freelance
entrepreneur lifestyle?
HELEN ZHAO: What draws many foreigners to Portugal is its low
cost of living and high quality of life. If a basket of goods and
services cost $1 In the U.S., it would cost 57 cents in Portugal.
Ricardo Reis: A lot of the costs of the services that you buy are
labor costs. Portugal's poorer, wages are lower. Therefore the
costs of most things that require a lot of labor are cheaper.
HELEN ZHAO: Alexandra Yavaşca and her husband Utku initially
wanted to move back to her childhood hometown of San Diego,
California. But she can't afford to live there like her parents
could on middle class salaries. Because of soaring housing costs.
Alexandra: We needed to think about where could we live where we
wouldn't always feel paycheck to paycheck.
Shar Wynter: My monthly budget is around $2,500 now. Before in
the States, it probably would have been closer to $4,000 or even
$5,000. I pay $1,100 per month for my place. I live city center.
HELEN ZHAO: Foreign residents also have access to the country's
free national health care.
Shar Wynter: That's one of the biggest reasons why I said I was
moving abroad. Because I refuse to be like one medical slip-up
away from all my money going down the drain.
HELEN ZHAO: Portugal is often referred to as the California of
Europe, except you get California temperatures and beaches
without California prices. Now there's natural beauty but also
culture. Expats tell me they haven't had trouble assimilating.
Much of the Portuguese population speaks English and are
generally welcoming to foreigners. Portugal is also safe. The
country ranks as the fourth most peaceful nation in the world on
the Global Peace Index, which assesses things like crime rate,
political stability and involvement in domestic and international
conflict. Racial violence in the U.S. motivated Wynter and her
friends to move to Portugal.
Shar Wynter: Black Americans will normally find that they're
treated well here and won't have the same type of lethal racism
that you see in the U.S. even though racism and like
microaggressions exist.
Diara: I really came here for a lot of healing. From all of the
things that make the U.S. the U.S. and for me as a black woman
doesn't really give me the space to, to thrive and to be my full
authentic self.
HELEN ZHAO: I also spoke to many expats recovering from burnout,
who told me they're finally able to find personal fulfillment
beyond work.
Hiwote: I moved from New York City and it it's so much slower and
so much calmer without being boring.
HELEN ZHAO: In the U.S. we have such a goal oriented culture, and
it's so easy to be a workaholic, especially in the big cities.
Mateusz: The relationship with time that people do have here -
that they've got time for everything. They can open their
business one hour later. You come to some place for your
appointment, and then like no one's there.
Sam Hayden: The things that I thought had to get done today, had
to get done this week, or else I would self-combust, are not that
important.
HELEN ZHAO: Despite the laid-back culture, a lot of people aren't
moving to Portugal to slack off. It's somewhere many expats feel
capable of taking a risk and starting a new venture.
Alexandra: Our small kitchen startup business -
Utku: It's about Anatolian, vegetarian and vegan food.
Alexandra: I wouldn't have started this business in America.
There's food regulations, business licenses, high fees to get
things started.
Ricardo Reis: Starting businesses is quite easy in Portugal. You
can open a business in one hour with relatively limited amount of
paperwork. Even the slogan was that - businesses in one hour.
HELEN ZHAO: Portugal is becoming increasingly known for its
startup scene, mostly concentrated in Lisbon. Funding to tech
startups headquartered in the country grew to over 180 million
euros in 2021. According to one report, a third of founders who
established startups in Portugal between 2015 and 2020 were not
Portuguese.
As more people come to start anew and build their dreams,
Portugal as a country is also undergoing a dramatic
transformation. I saw lots of cranes and construction in Lisbon,
bringing to life the infrastructure necessary to serve the city's
new inhabitants and visitors. In some ways, the city is getting a
whole new lease on life. And in other ways, what makes Lisbon
authentically Lisbon is being stripped away. Tech sales executive
Luisa Pilo has lived in Lisbon on and off for more than 30 years.
She's seen the city transform dramatically in that time.
Luisa Pilo: There are buildings that have been converted of
course into amazing projects. You have an example in an area of
Lisbon that has been abandoned for a long time, a big military
complex.
HELEN ZHAO: Lisbon is investing in transforming that abandoned
land into one of the world's largest startup campuses. It spans
tens of thousands of square feet, comprised of offices,
exhibition halls and event space.
Luisa Pilo: So before the huge influx, it very much a quiet city,
a city in need of a lot of love. This area where we are at was a
dying neighborhood. So the result of foreign residents coming in
is a better city, more mobility, jobs, better housing.
HELEN ZHAO: But not all this change is positive. Many locals and
small businesses have been priced out of the city center due to
rising rents. After all, living in Portugal isn't cheap for those
earning local wages. The monthly minimum wage is about $800,
while the average annual wage in 2020 was about $28,000.
Luisa Pilo: A lot of Portuguese, especially before the pandemic,
where tourism was booming, people were fed up.
HELEN ZHAO: As many build new ventures, it's meant others have
had to close.
Luisa Pilo: An example behind us, we used to have an old jewelry
shop from the 1920s. They were unable to keep up with the rent.
So at the bottom here, it had a traditional coffee shop. There
was a time that we lived outside of Lisbon and you would come to
Lisbon specially to go to Suica to have tea and coffee.
HELEN ZHAO: Oh no. So it's a big loss to the local community?
Luisa Pilo: Definitely.
HELEN ZHAO: Do you think foreigners coming in has a negative
impact on the local population?
Ricardo Reis: Generally speaking, I think it has a positive. Same
way that the United States has benefitted so much from so much
immigration over the years. People that come with high skills,
that come with desire to create businesses, that come with again,
buying locally produced goods.
HELEN ZHAO: Attracting foreigners was all part of the plan to
help lift Portugal out of recession in the 2010s. As recently as
2015, people were not moving to Portugal for a better quality of
life and more opportunity. In fact, they were leaving the
country.
Ricardo Reis: The lack of job opportunities, as well as quite
large increases in taxes to pay for those past debts led to many
young professionals especially to leave the country looking for
jobs.
HELEN ZHAO: Unemployment peaked at about 18% in 2013, while GDP
shrank three years in a row. To help stimulate the economy,
Portugal welcomed immigration. Portugal invited people to move
here in a couple different ways: the tax benefits and how easy it
is to get a visa to live here. The most common visa, the D7,
requires applicants to show monthly income of at least the
Portuguese minimum wage. Portugal is also incentivizing
immigration by giving foreigners a tax break. If I moved here, I
would not pay taxes in Portugal on the income I earn from CNBC
for the next 10 years, as long as I'm being taxed in the U.S.
These incentives seem to have worked. But very few people I spoke
to mentioned them as reasons for moving. It was all about the
promise of a better life. You always hear about people moving to
the U.S. for a better life, to chase the American dream. But now
it seems like more Americans are chasing that dream elsewhere.
Like in Portugal.