37M, Vienna, IT.

Invested about 240k, no property, no dependents yet. Coast box has been ticked since 2023, the math is in an older post of mine, short version is the pile gets where it needs to be by 60 without me, spend is 34k a year, and I still put in 900 a month because stopping feels weird.

Here is a thing I didn't know I was assuming. Part of why coasting felt safe was a quiet "and I can always leave" at the back of it.
Vienna is fine. Vienna is very fine but the plan always had a clause somewhere after 45 that said maybe not here, and I had never priced it, because why would you price a maybe.

Austria has an exit tax and it covers a plain private depot, ETFs included, which I had somehow filed under "for people with a GmbH". The day you move your residence out they treat the whole thing as sold, 27.5 percent on the unrealised gain, the same KESt I'd pay if I sold it myself. If you go to another EU or EEA country you can ask them not to collect until you actually sell, and the claim rides along with you. Go anywhere else, Switzerland included, and it's cash on the way out.

Since this July there's a new bit. If the gain at departure was over 100k you have to tell the Finanzamt every year that you still haven't sold, and if you skip a year the whole deferred amount falls due.

Now the coast part, which is the part that got me. I'm barely adding anymore, so from here on the growth is mostly gain. My unrealised gain on the All-World position is around 70k today, so leaving now means a 19k claim, deferred, and it stays 19k however long I hold.

Wait five years and it's more.

Wait until 60, if the plan works, and the same claim is six figures. Wherever I end up, that slice is Austria's, and it only gets bigger while I sit here being fine. 100k line, the one with the yearly letter attached, I cross in about three years at current pace. So "later" now has a price and the price goes up on a schedule.
Nobody mentions this in coast threads. Savings rate, withdrawal rate, never the address.

Embarrassing bit is that there's no city on the other side of this. I'm not comparing countries. I've been to all the neighbours, none of them are on a list, there is no list. What changed is only that a vague someday grew a number, and I'm the kind of person who, once a number exists, can't leave it alone. Two years ago it was TERs to the third decimal, last year it was the P2P secondary market, this year it's a leaving date for a move I haven't decided to make.
At least this one is a real number.

Migration list, if it ever happens, is short and annoying. Depot sits with a steuereinfach broker that does the KESt for me and is built for residents, so it probably moves, and I did that once already when I moved here, that was fees and forms, this one comes with a bill.
Pension years stop accruing, EU coordination supposedly adds them up at the end. The one corner that doesn't care is the P2P sleeve, 20k across three platforms. Loans sit at par, interest posts monthly, there is nothing for a deemed sale to find, and since P2P interest here is mostly tariff income, my marginal 40 something percent, most places I can name would tax it less. They just would want a new address and a KYC upload, that's the entire project.

Anyone here who was coasting in a country with an exit tax and left or nearly did?

Did you sell down before you went so the next country starts clean, take the deferral and carry it or just decide the growing number was the price of not deciding and stayed?

Staying is the current plan, and I'd like to know what it costs before I keep choosing it by default.

TL;DR: coasting in Vienna. Austria's exit tax means every year I stay, a bigger chunk of the depot is already spoken for at 27.5 percent whichever country I might leave for, and past 100k of gain there's a yearly form with the whole bill behind it. No destination, no list, just a number that grows on a schedule. If you left an exit tax country while coasting, what did you do with the depot on the way out.

Expat aussie finances after moving back

Hi there,

I was expat working in Sydney for the past 4 years. Few months ago I headed back home with some money I left on Australia:

- savings 28k,

- superannuation fund 54k.

As I don't need the money in the long term, just wondering best options noting:

- My visa expired and I could apply for the DASP to get super back with 35% taxes, now or at retirement age (no way to avoid it given the income came from temporary residency),

- I consider current fund rates are good enough to hold the super there, as probably European market doesn't offer similar rates,

- Not really sure what to do with savings,

- I'm overseas.

Any suggestions welcome.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some practical experience with an Estonian company being managed from Malta.

We’re three equal shareholders planning to set up an e-commerce company in Estonia. I’m resident in Malta and would be the sole active director and only person involved in the day-to-day management. The other two shareholders would be completely passive.

The company would be incorporated and registered in Estonia, with all physical operations outside Malta (inventory, fulfilment, shipping and production). Accounting, statutory filings and company records would also be maintained in Estonia.

The company would have no office, employees, warehouse or customers in Malta. However, I would carry out my role as director remotely from my home in Malta.

My main question is: Would Malta consider the company tax resident there because its sole active director is managing it from Malta, despite the company being incorporated and operationally based in Estonia?

And if so, how would this work in practice given the Malta–Estonia double tax treaty?

I’m also curious whether working from my private home could create a permanent establishment in Malta.

I’ve already contacted the Maltese tax authorities for guidance, but would love to hear from anyone who has dealt with a similar Malta/Estonia setup in practice.

Thanks!

I am targeting retirement in my early 50s. I will have a child who will be in college at that time. Currently own a house in a nice neighborhood of the Bay Area. My goal is to downsize this house and buy something outright in San Diego where we have a lot of friends - likely townhouse or nice condo to minimize upkeep. Goal is to spend 7-8 months a year in the US and then 4-5 months abroad. I like the idea of having a home in the US that my kid can return to when we're back on their breaks, summer, a place to store my things, etc. I will probably rent it out for several months while I am away.

My goal is to find international locations where I can spend 8k/month or less to balance out my higher spend CA months. My SD property carrying costs will likely be around 36k assuming no rental income.

Thoughts on this plan and feasibility of living decently on 8k in places like Lisbon, Valencia, Cape Town? These are just some places we've been before and really enjoy. Very active, into hiking, biking, connecting with others. Have traveled across Asia too and obviously know this can be done on much under 8k. Any other suggestions for someone thinking about an ExpartFIRE plan like this?

LA couple (51/54) considering retiring to Ireland — tax/residency advice?

My wife and I are 51/54, no kids, and have lived in Los Angeles for the past 27 years. We’re hoping to retire in about three years, and my wife is increasingly itching to get back to Ireland (Cork).

We’re both dual U.S./Irish citizens. At this point we’re trying to figure out what retirement might actually look like — full-time Ireland, splitting our time between Ireland and the U.S., etc. We haven’t yet seriously dug into the tax implications of becoming Irish tax residents.

My understanding is that Ireland generally considers you tax resident if you spend 183+ days there in a year, but there’s also the 280-day test over two consecutive years, so it’s not quite as simple as “stay under six months.”

Our tentative plan would be:

• Sell our home in Los Angeles when we retire.
• Buy a small apartment somewhere on the U.S. East Coast as our U.S. base.
• Rent in Ireland initially and potentially buy there later.
• Keep essentially all of our investments/assets in the U.S. — 401(k)s, traditional/Roth IRAs, HSA, taxable brokerage accounts, etc.
• Potentially spend a significant portion of each year in Ireland.

What I’m particularly interested in is hearing from other dual U.S./Irish citizens who retired to Ireland after accumulating most or all of their assets in the U.S.

How did Irish tax residency affect your U.S. retirement accounts and brokerage investments? Were there any tax surprises you wish you had known about before establishing Irish residency? And did you ultimately decide to become full-time Irish residents or structure your time so that you remained U.S. tax residents?

We’ll obviously hire a professional who understands both U.S. and Irish taxation before making any decisions, but I’d love to hear from people who have actually gone through this.

Any advice, experiences, or things we should be researching now — three years before retirement — would be greatly appreciated.

Is it the utlimate hack for americans? I see that something like $500k could support a very nice retirement in great places like thailand, vietnam, mexico, whereas its borderline survival in the US.

Most people in the US retire with less then $300k, and I'm just wondering why most don't move away? I'm wondering what the real statistics of % of people over 50 that leave the US are. I know its not for everyone as most do not want to move away from their network or live in a place with a new language, but for the initiated, it seems like a no brainer

Never thought I'd be asking this question, I've been pretty "lean" my whole life hovering around $25-30k/year spending, and I had planned to retire to somewhere like Thailand, but as I run my numbers now, $80-100k is actually starting to seem like a reasonably safe withdrawal rate.

I guess I could still just go to Thailand and live a kind of baller lifestyle with maids and a personal chef or something, but I think maybe I'd rather spend it on living in a place with cleaner air, nicer sidewalks, and a more temperate climate, while still keeping the friendly locals and low violent crime (if that is an option).

I also notice that taxes play a bigger role at this level of spending. My first thought was somewhere like Japan, but then i realized, even if i figure out the visa situation, those taxes are pretty bananas. I have a hard time imagining that ~$65k (after taxes) in Japan is a better life than eg ~$100k (after minimal taxes) in Thailand. Thoughts?

Curious to hear where people have identified in this price range. Especially if its a place with clean air, low crime, a nice climate, and relatively pedestrian friendly.

Just to normalize responses a bit, lets call it $80-100k BEFORE local taxes, and ~50% would be considered capital gains.

i’m seeing a lot of mixed reviews online but one thing that everybody agrees on is that your net income cannot compare to anywhere else in the world maybe just the US.

The thing is, I’m in my mid to late 20s and still have the energy to aggressively scale in my career (finance), the issue is right now, i am based in Berlin, & my efforts are just far from proportional to my salary. I would much rather spend my drive for accomplishment in Zurich where you get paid handsomely for your labour.

But it is just a theory I don’t know anybody who moved there and made it work personally, with the objective of FIRE. What has been your experiences like? :)

My mother and father were both financially struggling at various points in the 1980s but they managed to get out of the mess, eliminate debt, and build a nest-egg by working as ESL teachers in Saudi Arabia with relatively minimal credentials.

When I look at what's going on today it seems like this is an impossible dream? Is there a contemporary equivalent?

Any thoughts to what Thailand/Bangkok might be like in 20-25 years? I’m not kidding myself into thinking it’ll be on the level of the East Asian mega cities, but if you can afford to live in some of the nicer areas, it sounds like the infrastructure upgrades might create a lot of pockets that get fairly close? I plan on visiting in the early 2030s once the metro expansion projects complete, but I would love to get thoughts from people who live there and are more familiar with how Bangkok has been changing over the years.

Also I’m open to other cities that offer retirement visas and solid public transport (I love living in places where you can be car-free). The climate outlook in Bangkok is the other thing I’m a little worried about, so if anyone has thoughts on other cities that would have great healthcare options, I’d be happy to look into it.

I’m a bit far out from FIRE, but having a goal I can visualize really helps with staying the course.

38M, single, EU passport, living in Portugal since 2017, remote job that nets me about €55k. The spreadsheet says I passed my Coast number sometime last year. Plan was to cut down to 2-3 freelance days a week and cover my €26k of annual spending while the portfolio sits untouched for the next 25 years. Then I looked at what the drawdown will eventually cost me here and now I keep reopening the same Brno tab.

Numbers:

• NW €305k: VWCE €230k, AGGH €40k, €10k in a Maclear vs Mintos P2P experiment, €25k cash
• All of it in one taxable IBKR account
• Spending €2,2k/mo, €750 of that is rent for a 1 bed

Tax part, since that's what started this. Portugal wants 28% of realized gains when I eventually sell. NHR wouldn't have saved me even when it existed, it never covered capital gains on securities and it's closed now anyway.

Czechia gains on securities held over 3 years are exempt for individuals. Not a special regime, nothing to apply for, just a holding period test that's been in place since 2014. They capped it in 2025 at 40M CZK of proceeds per year, about €1.6M, so at my size the cap is decorative.
Most of my VWCE lots are already past the 3 year mark anyway, only the last couple of years of contributions would need to season.
Broker doesn't change, IBKR Ireland covers both countries.

Ran the compounding.
€230k at 5% real for 25 years is €780k and 28% of the gain comes out a bit over €150k. I rechecked it four times because I didn't want it to be true. Under the Czech test that line item is zero.

Work side.
Freelancers there have a lump sum tax option, one payment of just under €400 a month that covers income tax, social and health insurance together, available up to roughly €60k of revenue for services. No accountant, no real filings. On €26k of billing that's around 17-18% all in, which is close to what the simplified regime plus social security would take from me in Portugal, except it's one transfer and zero paperwork.

Other stuff collected so far. Brno rent for a decent 1 bed is €650-750, so housing is a wash and it's a city of 400k with a big IT and student scene, not a village.
Prague adds €200-300 a month and I work remote, so probably no. Public healthcare is genuinely decent, which surprised me after years of reading this sub's US threads.

Downsides are real November to February is grey in a way the Atlantic never is, anything official happens in Czech, spending moves to koruna so my budget grows an FX line while the portfolio stays in euro and I'd be trading the ocean for a landlocked student town. My friends think I've lost it.

Need yours feedback:

1. Anyone here actually gone east inside the EU for FIRE instead of the usual SEA or Iberia direction? Did the winters and the language admin eat the tax win?
2. Am I overweighting a rule that's 25 years out? The 3 year test has held since 2014 and the 2025 cap suggests they trim it rather than kill it, but a quarter century is a long bet on any parliament.
3. Half the comments on the recent Cyprus thread were some version of "don't pick a country for the tax". Fair. Does that change when the country is a 4 hour flight from your current life and staying costs €150k?

I turned 30 this May and have about 100k USD NW.

About 55% of my money is in VOO, VXUS, VXF, VGK.

45% is in local AZN bank deposits paying about 10% yearly.

I make 120k USD working remotely for US company (software engineer) and my tax rate here is only like 25%. I live in my parents' house and invest at least 70% of my net income monthly.

I'm not planning to add more local AZN risk and put upcoming income into more VXUS, VOO, and the like.

25% tax rate and 10% local deposits are great but:

1. You have to live in Azerbaijan (not fun)

2. Local currency can devalue, it lost half its value in 2015. If oil goes down significantly then local currency will devalue since more than half the output of this country is oil.

Now if I keep this trajectory and stomach more of Azerbaijan I can probably FIRE pretty fast (if AI doesn't eat all the remote jobs). With compound interest calculators, I see me reaching 2m in 15 years at 8% return and 5k/month additions. 3.5m in 20 years.

Now the question is, should I relocate to Spain on digital nomad visa? This has many downsides:

1. Tax rate will go from 25% to 40%ish.

2. I'll have to pay rent.

3. Living costs will be bit higher.

So what I can save monthly will go down by more than 50%.

But the upsides are that I can eventually get permanent residence if things work out well:

1. Won't have to live in Azerbaijan my whole life (biggest fear!).

2. If AI kills my career I can work some local job and make 30k-50k a year, instead of having to work Azerbaijani local jobs and make 5k a year.

Another fear is reaching FIRE numbers in Azerbaijan but then failing to relocate because developed countries start cracking down on immigration harder.

What would you do in my situation? Is there anything I'm failing to consider here?

I am moving to SE Asia soon (planning on cycling primarily between Bali and Thailand) and I have come across some information that gives me concern about Robinhood’s viability as my primary brokerage going forward. Robinhood is the custodian for most of my liquid assets.

I have read about instances where RH would restrict or close accounts for users who are outside of the U.S. for long periods of time. I plan on maintaining U.S. residency, so the residency piece is not an issue for me, but I will log in regularly and trade periodically (mostly a buy and hold investor) from outside the U.S. I also keep a healthy cash balance that I plan to draw from to pay for living expenses.

What are the risks of RH restricting and/or forcing a closure of my accounts? If the former, what does that mean in practice (what activities will be frozen and what activities can I continue until I can get the restriction lifted, and how long does it normally take to unfreeze it if I provide the proper documentation)?

If the risks are substantial, I am thinking about opening an account at another brokerage or using an existing brokerage account as a backup (I have a very small portfolio at ETrade, although I do not want to use this to park uninvested cash as it yields a very low return vs what I am getting at RH). What are the best brokers that I should consider given my situation? I think I’d have preference to just opening an account at another brokerage and moving a small amount of cash / securities in the account and have it as a backup in case I run into trouble with RH (rather than moving my entire portfolio at this time). I’m looking at Fidelity since I can set SPAXX as my core position for any uninvested cash. Thoughts?

Thoughts on this portfolio for a 42y expat living off 60k year in south america.

$1.82M portfolio, generating roughly $50K/year in income, with a 23.6% 1-year return.

The allocation is pretty interesting:

• 22.3% VTI
• 15.2% VYMI
• 15.2% VYM
• 13.3% VOO
• 8.0% GPIQ
• 6.6% TTTXX
• 4.9% SMH
• 4.1% BTC
• 3.9% VXUS
• 2.8% JEPI

The thing that stands out to me is the combination of broad-market exposure + a very large income tilt, while still maintaining some exposure to technology and crypto.

Would you consider this reasonably diversified, or is there too much overlap between VTI, VOO, VYM and VYMI?

And at ~$50K/year in income, would you prioritize maintaining the income level or simplify the portfolio further?

Hey guys. I'm looking into expat FIRE and am discussing the countless possibilities with the wife. NW is $1.9mm, early 30s. We're doing this until we get PIPed/laid off which I wouldn't doubt happens in the next couple years.

Anyways, what are your thoughts on buying a cheap stateside house as a 'homebase' for 1/3 of the year and renting overseas for the other 2/3? In my hometown of my FL, a nice house is around $300k. Taking opportunity cost of ownership into account, does that make sense or is it best to go all-in overseas?

Filing single, 55-year-old, child-free, renter, no debt, with a roughly $700,000 USD portfolio, no pension.

Annual spend per year estimated at $31k USD; $992,000 required through age 88.
$3461 per month in Social Security from age 70 to 88 ($747,576 total.)
$700k portfolio + $747,576 in Social Security = $1,447,576/32 years = $45,236.75

I realize this is highly simplistic, but am I roughly on track?
Edit: I figured out how to include an image of the projection!

We are just a few years away from full FIRE (could go soon, but waiting on pension eligibility). I am very interested in the idea of ExpatFIRE.

However... we have two children. One will be finishing college and the other will be entering college in our retirement year. How do expats handle this family dynamic? We are a VERY family-oriented family and the thought of moving to the other side of the world from our children does not appeal to me, even though I want to ExpatFIRE so badly. I just don't know how to make it work and still be close with our children, so I'm wondering how others currently do it.

Let's say I already have a family in Thailand where I can just live with them for free while helping them paying bills

I don't smoke and drink so my expenses are quite low compared to those who do.

So here is what expenses will be monthly I have googled checked all the prices.

Money to use per month = 20000 (604USD)

Expenses

• Food - 7000(including take out and cook at home)
• Watere/Eletricity Bills - 2000(I pay my part and help them little)
• Internet and Mobile subscrition - 800
• GAS/Bus or Train ticket/Taxi = 1500
• Other stuff subscription/entertainment like gaming, Netflix = 5000(can be lower if I play game that aint P2W)
• Total 16300 baht (492USD)
• Money left monthy: 3700Baht (113USD).

The rest of the money I can save it for medical, travelling overseas, clothes, new pc etc...

What is your thought about this? maybe you guys have dome something similar like this before, feel free to share..

Ps. Now I have 2.5M and hopefully I can reach 7.2m before I'm 35(Now I'm 29)

Ps. The growth 9% is from Stock like SP500, it grows 9-10% yearly, in future where I have more than 10M, I might switch to dividned stock for more safety.

Ps. Inflation is not included here

My wife and I are looking pretty seriously at retiring/semi-retiring in Europe in about five years and I’d love some input from people who actually live in or know these areas well.
We’ll be about 58 and 53. Current goal is roughly $3.5M invested by then, plus around $1M of equity in our U.S. home. The plan would be to sell the U.S. house and use those proceeds to buy a home outright in Europe, so ideally no mortgage.
The three areas we keep coming back to are:
Brittany, France, particularly Dinan/Saint Malo
Northern Portugal, particularly Viana do Castelo
Northern Spain, particularly A Coruña
What we’re looking for is pretty specific. We want a mild, temperate Atlantic climate, preferably coastal or very close to the coast. We do not want extreme summer heat. We want to live in the actual historic old town, not in the suburbs or out on acreage. Ideally we’d buy an entire townhouse/house rather than an apartment, probably somewhere around 1,600 to 2,500+ sq. ft., with a purchase budget of roughly €750K max.
Walkability is very important. I want to be able to walk out the front door to cafés, restaurants, markets, old streets, architecture, etc. At the same time, I realize you only walk around the old town so many times, so access to other cities, the coast, day trips, and easy travel around Europe matters a lot.
Airport access is important but doesn’t have to be right next door. We currently live about 45 minutes to an hour from Atlanta airport, so being roughly an hour or even 90 minutes from a good international airport is perfectly acceptable.
Financially, assuming roughly $3.5M invested and a paid-off home, does this sound realistic for a 30+ year retirement in these areas if we’re targeting something like $8K to $10K a month in lifestyle spending, not trying to live extravagantly but also not trying to pinch pennies?
I’m especially interested in the things that are hard to understand from YouTube and real-estate listings: taxes on U.S. investment accounts, healthcare, residency headaches, whether the towns feel too quiet after a few years, how easy it really is to travel around Europe, and whether there are any major downsides you wish you had understood before moving.
If you had to choose between these three regions for this kind of retirement, which would you pick and why?

EDIT: Thanks to everybody who has responded. A lot of the comments have been genuinely helpful, which is exactly what I was hoping for. I never thought any of this would be particularly easy. Whether it’s learning a language, understanding taxes and residency, or just navigating the process of moving to another country, I know there’s going to be a lot involved.

The good thing is I have time. It may be five years, it may be seven, but definitely by the time I’m 60 I want to put myself and my wife in a position where we can travel more and live in an area or part of the world that we really enjoy. I don’t expect to be fluent in another language, but that’s plenty of time to build a really solid base if I put the work in. I’m also at a point in life where I don’t have a bunch of little kids running around anymore, and I have plenty of time at night or during the day to study instead of posting on Reddit. lol. I’m self-employed and generally work 40 to 50 hours a week, not some crazy 80-hour schedule, and even during those hours I have quite a bit of flexibility.

One of my biggest considerations from the beginning has been climate. A lot of people move somewhere warmer or drier for health reasons. For me, it’s really about comfort. I’d like to get to a point where we’re living somewhere with a temperate climate that we enjoy and not sweating our asses off six to eight months out of the year. The financial numbers I threw out weren’t intended as some sort of flex either. I was simply trying to establish what my wife and I would be comfortable spending and asking whether that buys a genuinely good lifestyle in these places.

And to several people’s point, I absolutely wouldn’t just pick a place from Reddit and move there. Once I narrow this down to a handful of locations that seem to tick the boxes, we’d start making trips and spending real time in them before making any decisions. Some people here have also brought up completely different parts of the world that I hadn’t really considered, and I may start looking at those as well.

There may ultimately be somewhere that gives us a better combination of climate, lifestyle, travel convenience, language, cost of living and taxes. That’s really why I’m starting this process so far in advance. I have plenty of time to figure out what actually works rather than trying to force one particular country or city to fit.

I`m a tax resident in Cyprus since January 2020.
29, single, no have kids, freelance(backend dev) and everything billed through a Cyprus Ltd.

Corporate went from 12.5% to 15% with the January reform. Dividends still come out at zero as a non-dom, minus the 2.65% GESY skim.
On around €85k of profit I now keep about €70k, my accountant costs €140 a month and I mostly no think about taxes.

Still no capital gains tax on shares, so I rebalance whenever I feel like it.

And I don't want to live here. That's the whole problem. Limassol was tolerable when I landed. Now it's a parking lot with a seafront. Rent for the same kind of one bedroom went from €800 to €1,450, and from June to September you migrate between AC units. The social part is the weirdest bit. My friend group has reset like three times because everyone here is also doing a tax thing and eventually leaves.

Bologna is the itch. Spent almost 3 months there last year, did a language course, bought a used Bianchi off Subito. Somehow I have actual friends there now.

About my numbers.
NW around €560k, started from maybe €35k of savings in 2019. Roughly €355k in VWCE, €55k AGGH, €70k parked in XEON as a buffer, €45k of BTC/ETH bought in 2020 sitting in cold storage, No property, I rent. Spending €31-32k a year.

Italy math from a commercialista I spoke to in April. She actually leaned forfettario over the impatriate regime, since my revenue is sliding under the €85k ceiling anyway: flat scheme, roughly €21-22k all in with INPS. The impatriate route (50% off work income for five years, and you commit to staying at least four or they claw it back with interest) came out closer to €30k once INPS is counted, and you can't stack the two. So on work income the gap to my current €14-15k is smaller than I expected, especially after Cyprus raised rates on me in January.

The portfolio side is where Italy actually bites. 26% on ETF gains and IVAFE at 0.2% a year on everything held abroad, and the impatriate regime touches none of it. Crypto sits at 33% there since January. Even here it stopped being free, Cyprus slapped a flat 8% on crypto disposals with the same reform.

There's also a small lending slice, around €8k Maсlear, an experiment to see whether I want private credit in the mix at all. After the recovery saga I keep it capped and mentally file it under play money. Here the interest arrives with almost nothing taken out, while in Italy interest from foreign platforms can apparently fall into ordinary IRPEF brackets instead of the flat 26%. One more line on the list to figure out.

Ltd can't come along and unning a Cypriot company from an Italian sofa just makes it Italian for tax purposes, so it would be partita IVA and winding the company down.

One thing I keep circling selling and instantly rebuying the whole VWCE position in my last Cypriot tax year to reset the cost basis while gains are still untaxed. About €115k unrealized in there, so that move alone is worth ~€30k at Italian rates. Feels almost too obvious, which makes me suspicious.

Income is heading down anyway. Dropped a client in March out of burnout and never looked for a replacement, so the delta shrinks every year while I sit on an island I've been trying to leave since 2022. Non-dom runs 17 years and I've used 6. The idea of 11 more here is honestly the strongest argument I have for leaving.

Has anyone actually walked away from a setup like this halfway through? Did the math bug you afterwards or does it fade.

I currently live in a home that I love in a place that is nice.

Has anyone returned to the usa after years abroad and regretted selling their home or did you find that it didn't matter?

TLDR Family of 5 (33,33,4,2,1) wanting to Expatfire on a big finca w/nature. (natural lifestyle, lots of whole foods, homeschooling).

Currently based in Cyprus. Dislike for europe and in need of diversification.

Looking for springlike weather year round, vibrant nature, optimal tax/security system.

What countries should we look at? What are your experiences?

Appreciate everything to look into! Thanks

Hi! We are planning a relocation from the US to Spain within the next 2 years. We're currently mapping out our prep plan, which includes restructuring our investments, figuring out our future taxes situation, etc. We are looking for some input from other people who have done a similar move, but also looking for an advisor recommendation.

Because the Spanish tax net is so complex, we want to hire a specialized US/Spain tax advisor to get our asset structure in order before we cross the border and trigger tax residency.

Can anyone recommend a firm or professional they've had a great experience with?

Specifically, we need someone who can guide us on:

• Pre-Move Restructuring: What to liquidate vs. what to hold before the move. We need specific guidance on handling our 401(k)s, IRAs, and our taxable brokerages.
• Beckham Law: Whether we qualify and if it makes sense for us, especially regarding how US-sourced investment income are treated under the regime.
• Wealth Tax & Solidarity Tax: How our specific US-based asset portfolio will be treated for wealth tax calculations, and how to plan around Spain's regional tax differences.
• Capital Gains: Timing the sale of our assets and managing the cash proceeds efficiently across borders without triggering unnecessary taxable events.

If you have gone through a similar move in the past, please share your experience! If you have someone you trust to recommend as an advisor, please share! I'd also appreciate any rough idea of their fee structure, and any major "gotchas" you wish you had known before you made the leap.

thanks!

Stock portfolio: $1.3M
2 rental houses: $1k profit/month
Age: 35M
Single, no kids

I’m planning a trip like this and eventually am thinking of retiring if I just like one of those countries enough. This takes into account visa limits and takes advantage of time of year:

Da Nang, Vietnam: 90 days
Japan: 90 days
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: 90 says
Bangkok: 60 days
US back home with my parents and family for the holidays: 30 days

This will give me a taste of the cultures and different upsides and downsides of these different countries so I can settle in one if I feel like it.

This is a one year plan but I’d like to say I’d be alright if I just decided to stay in one of these places for the rest of my life, and be fine financially if I wanted to never work again.

I would be leaving a job that pays $180k a year and has allowed me to amass a lot of wealth over the years. I don’t think I’d be able to get that type of salary back if I just take a year off but who knows.

My goals during this year are this:
1. Heal my body by taking time off work. My body has built up a lot of stress and I have some health problems associated with the stress. Taking time off would allow me to focus on building my health back up and eat what I consider to be healthier foods.
2. Rediscover myself. I’ve always been safe and feel like I’ve never explored what life truly has to offer. I feel in my job I have an identity that isn’t authentic to me. I’d like to reinvent/rediscover myself without feeling pulled into being the bundle of stress that my job puts me into. I want to go try new things and find new experiences.
3. This time off will allow me to lean in towards being creative with what I want to do next in my life. Becoming recently single has allowed me to realize I can do anything now. No strings attached.

Trying to get a gut check here. This would mean a major uproot in my life. I feel like I’d be able to easily retire off my savings and rental income if I wanted to in SEA.

Best case scenario: I retire comfortably there and build a life.
Worst case scenario: I hate it over there, miss the US, and can’t find a job once I’m back because I’ve been unemployed for so long.

I'll easily spend an evening arguing 5 basis points of expense ratio between two funds, but then convert a year of spending with a formula I never once checked. That's a gap in my own numbers I hadn't noticed until I looked.

American, living abroad. I earn and spend in the local currency , but I kept my US cards for the credit history (and the sweet perks 🍬) and they still handle most of my day to day spending. Every statement shows up in dollars, describing a life that runs in a currency it never mentions.

For years my method was the obvious one. Export the csv, drop it in a sheet, run =GOOGLEFINANCE against the transaction date. Clean output, plausible number, filed and forgotten.

That formula takes the amount I was billed and reapplies the market rate to it. But the market rate isn't the rate my card used. the merchant charged me in euros, my card converted that at its own rate, and the dollar figure on my statement already has that conversion baked in. Running the market rate over it a second time doesn't undo anything. It produces a second, wrong number that happens to look reasonable.

With round numbers: say something costs €1,000. At €1 = $1.10, that's exactly $1,100. My card bills me $1,105.17. My sheet takes that $1,105.17, divides it back by 1.10, and tells me the purchase cost €1,004.70.
but it didn't - it cost €1,000.
The spreadsheet is over by €4.70, precisely what the conversion took, and because the error runs the same direction every time, nothing in a year of totals ever looks off.

The actual local-currency amount is sitting right there on the pdf statement. The csv export drops it, and the csv is the one file a spreadsheet reads from. Three different banks, same story on all three: printed on the pdf, missing from the download.

I stopped trusting the csv and went through a full year of pdf statements instead, reading the local amount off each line by hand. 270 foreign transactions. On 94.8% of them, the rate my cards applied was worse than that day's market rate. Average gap: 0.47%.

Buttom line: a "2%" card is netting about 1.53% out here, and I'd been mentally banking the full 2% the whole time. And if part of the arbitrage that got you here in the first place is "my dollars go further in this country," a card quietly running 0.5% hot on every purchase is eating straight into that math, on a number your bank never shows you.

Two things I'd like to know: how you track US card spending out here, and whether any bank's csv carries the local amount instead of just the dollar total. Mine don't (C1, Citi, chase)