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Barbados introduces plan to allow visitors to work remotely there for a year
- cheeze 6y ago> Mottley addressed the concern: “In terms of broadband, we have two major telecommunications companies, and at the same time we are looking to see how we can continue to boost our national television station and move it from being a broadcasting entity to digital services.” Not... the most inspiring, but maybe the internet is good? That would be my biggest worry. It's an absolute must have.
- nness 6y agoI'd imagine the internet just has to be good enough to have video calls and transfer the occasional large file for 90% of people. I think life on a Caribbean island would be enough reason to ditch our usual high bandwidth vices like gaming and streaming for just a year.
- sneak 6y agoIf the latency is good enough for video calls, it’s good enough for gaming. If it’s broadband of any kind, it can be used for streaming. Even 3-5Mbps is workable for HD, with a bit of upfront buffering.
- dylz 6y agoSome examples: https://discoverflow.co/barbados/broadband/overview https://discoverflow.co/barbados/broadband/overview https://discoverflow.co/barbados/mobile/plans/prepaid https://discoverflow.co/barbados/mobile/plans/prepaid https://www.digicelgroup.com/bb/en/mobile/plans/postpaid-plans.html https://www.digicelgroup.com/bb/en/mobile/plans/postpaid-pla...
- pault 6y agoI lived on an island in Belize for five years while working remotely. I had a 4G dongle that gave me about 100/25 most of the time, good enough for Netflix and video calls. SSH into a server into the states was rough though.
- tom_mellior 6y agoThere are these results which you may or may not choose to trust: https://testmy.net/country/bb https://testmy.net/country/bb These look good on average, though if you click through to "Fastest Cities", some corners of the country look very slow.
- flower-giraffe 6y agoFibre to the home is available in plenty of locations - off island bandwidth is a bit variable but you can get up to 1000/500 for 300 USD https://discoverflow.co/barbados/broadband/overview https://discoverflow.co/barbados/broadband/overview
- altvali 6y agoDoes this apply to U.S. passport holders only? If not, what about taxes? If you spend 12 months in Barbados, will you have to pay your taxes there?
- darrenoc 6y agoIf you're not a US citizen, you won't have to pay income at all due to tax residency rules. only the US is brazen enough to charge non-resident citizens income tax
- PopeDotNinja 6y ago>> only the US is brazen enough to charge non-resident citizens income tax Don't forget Hungary, Myanmar, and Eritrea, too! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation
- tom_mellior 6y ago"Hey, we're doing the same things as Hungary, Myanmar, and Eritrea" is not usually a good argument for anything. Anyway, the Hungary part surprised me since I'm a Hungarian citizen living abroad and have never been bothered about tax. The Wikipedia table says residents of countries with tax treaties are exempt, and that should be pretty much all of them? The PDF link from Wikipedia is broken, which is normal for how the Hungarian government operates.
- noir_lord 6y agoSame for my partner who is Hungarian though in her case it was one EU country to another (well it was at the time, won't be soon, bloody brexit).
- perl4ever 6y agoSince the US has an exemption for foreign income, this seems like making overmuch of a technicality. It reminds me of the histrionics over the US not being officially metric by people from the UK.
- baxtr 6y agoWhat’s the usual rent for a family home there?
- tom_mellior 6y agoLooking at https://www.terracaribbean.com/Barbados/For-Rent/ https://www.terracaribbean.com/Barbados/For-Rent/ just before it went down (I guess others are interested too) the first six prices for 1-bedroom houses/apartments are US$500, US$600, US$625, US$725, US$800, US$800.
- abdullahkhalids 6y agoI am looking here https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/country/barbados?currency=USD https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/country/barbados?c... It says USD4206, but not sure if that is calculated from living in an expensive area or "normal" area. Their total single person expense of over USD2000 also seems to be on the high side. Based on the prices given here, I think you could do it for USD1500.
- jasonv 6y agoThe list of resident services on the OP link lists exclusively "per night" accommodations... which makes the list kind of useless for the purpose of the visa consideration. Guessing there are monthly/annual leases that aren't priced nightly.
- gundmc 6y agoThat's total monthly expenses. If you look further down specifically at housing, it's around $1900/month for a 900 SQ ft 1 bedroom apartment in an expensive area.
- irq-1 6y agoNumbeo has user contributed prices for living all over the world. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Barbados https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?cou...
- tbronchain 6y agoGeorgia just introduced something similar: https://agenda.ge/en/news/2020/2654 https://agenda.ge/en/news/2020/2654
- sk0g 6y agoYou know, it's kinda funny - I am a citizen of both Georgia and the first country on the list of approved countries there, and was thinking about spending a month or two over there since my job went remote only. Yet, due to my ties to Georgia, I can't visit for a few more years, or I'd have to piss away a year in military service. Oh well, not the best of times to be travelling anyway, and doesn't seem like it's getting better for... a while anyway.
- graeme 6y agoDo they have a health insurance option? That’s a big issue for international travel with the pandemic.
- tbronchain 6y agoThey require to have one. I do not necessarily personally recommend it but I know Safetywing is a popular choice for nomads and officially covers Covid. Otherwise you can look at either your countries of citizenship or residency that have international health insurance. IMO it makes sense to get an insurance from the country you would like to get repatriate to if you get in a very bad condition.
- cblconfederate 6y agoInteresting how , in a remote work world, having a passport is a burden . There might be a demand for an "airbnb for passports" in the future
- jonahbenton 6y agoBeing able to use someone else's passport....is not now and even more so in the future will never be a thing. But getting passports from more jurisdictions and choosing which to present- that is and will be even more of a thing.
- cblconfederate 6y agoyeah , but having citizens vet their replacements might convince governments that they can trust to the newcomers.
- jonahbenton 6y agoI hear you. This already happens, but the range of activities a govt is concerned about a visitor potentially engaging in vastly exceeds what an AirBNB host is concerned about. The AirBNB host doesn't really care if you're coming into the country to perform what the country considers to be illegal or illicit activities, just that you don't mess up their property, and that you pay the bill (which is mostly handled by AirBNB). Govts have all sorts of considerations and filters through which visitor applications are considered, both positive (money they're going to spend) and negative (illicit activities they may be partaking in). In terms of reputation systems, most govts have rules around what data their operational agencies are allowed to collect and maintain that are far (far) more stringent than rules that commercial entities are allowed to collect and maintain. So govt agencies have contracts to use certain commercial systems as reputation meters. Don't think AirBNB is one of these. They are not a comparatively useful data aggregator, except of course for law enforcement trying to locate an individual of interest.
- input_sh 6y agoRegarding your second point, there's a couple of dozens of countries that specifically require you to denounce your other citizenship to gain theirs, as well as those whose citizenship is lost automatically if you become a citizen of some other country. I do see the cases of multiple citizenships (and therefore multiple passports) increasing in the future, but I wouldn't hold my breath for it to become a common occurrence within our lifespans.
- GordonS 6y agoThis is really interesting - I wonder if, in our post-COVID world, we'll see other countries doing the same. I'm trying to see any disadvantages for countries that do this, but the only thing I came up with is the possibility of distorting local rental prices. But presumably if enough countries offered such a visa, applicants would be spread over those countries, causing less distortion.
- cblconfederate 6y agothis will become a trend among touristy countries, because the slump in tourism will last for many years (and imho will permanently alter the market)
- throwaway894345 6y agoI would love to work remotely from Europe. I would think it would be in the interest of European countries to make this kind of arrangement because I would be spending my cushy US salary on European goods and services and not taking a job away from a European.
- FpUser 6y agoAnd raising local prices. I saw this happen over the years in some areas of Canada when they became more popular destinations for the US tourists. The result is not good for the majority of local folks.
- throwaway894345 6y agoMaybe, but the cost of living in Europe is already considerably higher than in the US (barring of course the popular but disingenuous comparisons between SF/NYC and rural Europe). I'm not an economist, but I wouldn't expect an influx of Americans to drive up the cost of anything except perhaps real estate. Moreover, I wouldn't expect a significant influx of Americans period--relocating to Europe would only be for the intersection of the very privileged, those interested in Europe, and those who have the flexibility to make the move. I'm sure there's some threshold at which too many people are visiting and it's causing problems; however, I'm only arguing that the current state is suboptimal for everyone (although someone else has pointed out that it may be easier to work remotely in Europe than I'm aware of).
- Proven 6y agoHave to try to make up for the lost tourism revenue. Do they have First World bandwidth for more than 2-3K bandwidth hungry cloud workers? PS: it's always encouraging to see how the overwhelmingly statist HN crowd positively reacts when there's a chance to lower their own taxes... Sadly they still want to increase taxes paid by others...
- tonetheman 6y agoThis sounds really fun. And a good way to spend a year after such a shit year we have had so far.
- 29athrowaway 6y agoRemaining outside the US for more than 12 months may result in a loss of your green card, if you have one.
- nine_zeros 6y agoIt only takes 20 hours to go to the other side of the planet, 10 hours if you're in the eurasian continent. More and more young people want to travel and do business in many countries or live a life in different cultures. Lesser people want a picket fence home with 30 years of slavery. The only thing stopping this is backward legal systems and the bureaucracy around these processes. I imagine a lot of countries will take advantage of this and reduce bureaucracy in the recovery efforts post covid. Island nations and rapidly developing countries will probably pioneer this and young people from developed countries will probably try to escape their own high cost of living to these nations.
- mancerayder 6y agoHow does taxation work for U.S. companies, assuming they allow this? It's an independent contractor's dream, maybe. It's unclear what tax issues exist for W2 people.
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoAFAIK, U.S. imposes income tax on all of its citizens, even those who reside in other countries. IIRC it applies to all earnings above $110k(?). There's also the notoriously difficult hassle of complying with FATCA's [0] reporting requirements. I would imagine that sours the value proposition quite a bit, at least for U.S. citizens. [0] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/corporations/foreign-account-tax-compliance-act-fatca https://www.irs.gov/businesses/corporations/foreign-account-...
- throwaway1777 6y agoYeah, you won’t really save on taxes. The real benefit is if you want to work from an island and go to the beach a lot. Hurricanes are the main issue on that during this season.
- esrauch 6y agoI'd actually have assumed they expect these people to still be paid into their US bank accounts in USD (or your EU account in Euros or whatever), and not pay any income tax to Barbados regardless; effectively a year-long vacation visa, not actually a work visa.
- frank2 6y ago>There's also the notoriously difficult hassle of complying I would've thought that the hassle came when the American switched to a non-American employer or ran a business outside the US. I would've thought that if the American is getting all his or her income from an American employer the hassle could be mostly avoided (even if he or she is residing outside the US) especially if the American is merely continuing to work a job he or she had while living in the US. But maybe I am wrong.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- MrPowers 6y agoUS citizens can lower their effective tax rates by moving abroad, but it's complicated. Expats can take advantage of the foreign earned income exclusion that you alluded to and are not subject to state taxes. The savings can be quite large - email me for more details. FACTA is burdensome if you have foreign bank accounts. You can avoid having foreign bank accounts to sidestep those rules.
- aunty_helen 6y ago"Digital nomad visas" are starting to become more common as countries realise they bring in low impact wealthy online based 'tourists.' Currently, it's very possible to travel on a 3-6 month basis between countries under tourist visas and to work remotely in a somewhat illegal fashion. These nomad visas are an attempt to capture that market offering legitimacy for a fee. Unfortunately, Barbados hasn't really hit the sweet spot here. It's possible to exist in Barbados for 6 months purely as a tourist and do the usual remote working gig where you just don't walk up to a tax official and start telling them you're working in an illegal manner. Or, you can now apply for this visa, stay the whole year, be legit, but you have to meet some conditions and hand over 2k USD which is pretty steep.
- dmitrygr 6y agoPro tip: being lucky and getting away with tax fraud is not the way you want to live in any country. You will eventually get caught.
- dzhiurgis 6y agoYeah seems there needs to be something provided in return. Healthcare probably pays off itself compared to US.
- aunty_helen 6y agoI don't think you're going to save on healthcare with visas like this. You're still required to be fully covered with your own health insurance as one of the visa conditions. This removes the possibility of you being a burden on their public health system, which is common amongst not just these new 'nomad' visas but also the working holiday visas that have been around for decades.
- dzhiurgis 6y agoMaybe. I'm guessing health insurance is still going to be cheaper to buy in any country outside US. A lot of time it's not worth to get insurance at all and just pay out of your pocket (because you aren't ripped off by hospitals). But going back to point - why would anyone get this permit when they can stay on tourist visa. I guess complacency is one reason.
- Nasrudith 6y agoReally this economically seems similiar to "permanent tourists" if taken to the logical extreme and extended indefinitely, their income source isn't taxed directly, they don't take local jobs, but do use local services. Healthcare is probably one of the most significant differences between transient and "permanent tourist" compared to transit costs. Not being seasonal is almost certainly an advantage unless it aligns with another industry's "off season" and the transit income is likely irrelevant to the host country. It brings to mind a future organizational hypothetical of a "modularized citizenship" for work vs residence - unlikely as that may be given the tendency of nations to insist that their rules are the only rules and thus international laws are more like guidelines in practice.
- rhapsodic 6y agoThis article from 1998 is about a guy who set up a facility on Barbados where coders from around the world could work (offshore) for his US clients. https://www.inc.com/magazine/19980101/852.html https://www.inc.com/magazine/19980101/852.html I'm shadowbanned, so if anyone who sees it cares to post the link, please do.
- zanecraw 6y agowell ill be damned. packing my bags as we speak lol