Decided today I’m gonna bounce at some point. Sucks because I’m a weather fiend and Cali is just the nuts but rn I’m actually trapped in Vegas bc pandemic so it matters little. Sick of tax dollars going to the military, 40 percent of the country thinking I’m a terrorist or trying to kill me with covid.
The Spain thing sounds dope. I could do that. Thanks to everyone putting info in this thread I appreciate it.
Costa Rica you can get effective citizenship if you spend $200k or more on a house.
Pretty sure you can keep renewing as long as you continue to meet the savings requirements and then apply for citizenship eventually.
I assume the money has to be in a Spanish bank account?
How hard is that to set up?
I have found setting up foreign bank accounts to be nontrivial. However, with a requirement as low as 26K, I’m sure I’d be willing to jump through all the hoops and then some.
I believe to get the initial visa you can just show the savings in a US bank account as you’d be applying for the visa at your Spanish consulate in the USA anyway. For renewals, I’m guessing you’d probably need to have the Spanish bank account. I haven’t looked into all the minutiae as I’m still a couple years from going through it, but you could check out this video. Also might be helpful using the services of those lawyers as they seem super knowledgeable about the visa.
I’m sure Costa Rica is a fun place to visit, but it doesn’t really scream “great place to raise kids”, which is one of my requirements.
Thanks for the info. Right now my biggest hurdle is getting my wife to leave here, but Spain would be an easier sell, since she has already spent some time there and speaks Spanish.
A couple things to note:
-Visa allows you to live in Spain, but not work in Spain
-As of June '19, the requirement was 25,817 Euros but also 6,454 Euros per each additional family member.
By the time the Feds are done tanking the USD, that might be $100k USD for a medium sized family.
Shit we are leaning strongly to Spain and we can’t speak a lick outside of hola. Being able to speak Spanish would be great and make it a much easier decision. Although I am kind of looking forward to the challenge of learning a new language and culture if we end up doing it.
If you’re motivated enough, you can probably get your Spanish up to a passable level in 6-9 months. I went through that exact process twice before moving to Quebec/France and then Mexico. Spanish is not all that difficult to learn for an English speaker, but most people just goof around and maybe spend 5 minutes a day learning and then say learning a new language is impossible when they’re still a beginner after a year.
You’re working in Mexico, right?
Playing online poker in Mexico.
I presume you’re not on some kind of online poker related work visa.
Trial by fire is probably the best method. If we get to the point where we know we are going we will start crunching, but honestly I expect we will learn 99% after we are there.
Is there such a thing anywhere?
Doubtful.
Mexico is incredibly easy from a visa perspective.
You’ll get 180 days on arrival, no questions asked.
Just leave the country before 180 days, go to the USA for a week or Latin America for a little trip, come back and you’ll get another 180 days no questions asked.
I’m on my 5th separate 180-day tourist visa, but might try to get something a bit more official b/c I’m getting pretty serious with my girlfriend and would probably get married in about a year. Neither of us particularly care about whether or not we’re married, but in terms of facilitating citizenship for the both of us, it might make sense.
There are some digital nomad type visas out there that are essentially like online poker work visas provided you can show consistent earnings over time.
What kind of options are available in Mexico? (Not including marrying a Mexican. I presume that gets you instant citizenship or at least a green card equivalent.)