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> Over 7k USD. I don't think you understand how ridiculously expensive Iceland is. Practically everything has to be shipped/flown in. Just to give you an ide

> Over 7k USD. I don't think you understand how ridiculously expensive Iceland is. Practically everything has to be shipped/flown in. Just to give you an idea, a small completely unremarkable burger at a fast food place will be around $20-25. It will not make you full. 7K a month is realistic. Our vacation was still fantastic despite the cost.

Aachen 4y ago
That's realistic if you are there as a tourist who wants the premium experience on everything. Staying in hotels and eating out daily, we didn't spend 7k when extrapolating our two weeks to a month. Heck, it's still below 7k if you include all one-time purchases like the way there and back, clothing, new expensive hiking boots, etc. I've got a problem with most waterproof fabrics so I didn't have a raincoat, but reading about Iceland, I figured it's worth finding one that works for me, so that's another purchase I count towards my Iceland expenses. All in all still below 7k after extrapolation. (Edit: oh and I forgot that this is for 2 persons. You can't divide by two of course, but some correction factor should be applied.) I fully agree with anyone saying Iceland is expensive, but if you stay in an actual apartment instead of hotels, don't do a number of guided tours every month, don't rent a vehicle for the whole time you're there (and drive around, though fuel was a surprisingly small part of the final expenses), you'll definitely not need 7k per month.
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  They have absolutely no interest in sponsoring visitors. This visa program is intended to bring in well-off professionals who will have plenty of cash to live a comfortable lifestyle and cover a disastrous broken leg or two and still be able to fly back home if they lose their job. That $7k is before taxes, before retirement savings, before health insurance, before your assumed flight home once every month or two...
  - Aachen 4y ago
    That's actually a good point that it's before taxes, I hadn't factored that in. If you live in a low tax country, you would ordinarily have a lot to spend and be rich, and also have enough money to live off of in Iceland potentially, but might not meet that requirement by even half, whereas someone from a high tax country loses roughly half their income on them and would meet the requirement. Not the fairest method but, as you say, this clearly isn't geared toward charitableness in the first place.
    - gumby 4y ago
      > whereas someone from a high tax country loses roughly half their income on them Please, typically those taxes go (not completely) to stuff you’d otherwise be paying for from your after tax cash. One obvious one is health care (which Americans pay much more for than Europeans, just not via their taxes). Less spent on roads: more car maintenance/shorter car lifespan. One can have a reasonable argument over which should be bundled and which should be unbundled, but to say broadly that one “loses” on taxes is either lazy or ideology.
      - triceratops 4y ago
        Ok but if you're from a high-tax country and work temporarily in Iceland you're paying those higher taxes without most of the benefits. You can't access the better healthcare, education, and safer streets of your home country.
        gumby 4y ago
        You’re getting those benefits in general, though not at that instant, but is the tax you pay on march 28th making every street you drive on that day better? No, it’s smeared around spatially and temporally. If you’re in Iceland for six months you might not even owe taxes in your home country for that period.
        Godel_unicode 4y ago
        Americans owe taxes at home forever no matter what*, which tilts the calculus somewhat.
  - leoc 4y ago
    Also, I assume that the Icelanders don't want all that many digital nomads showing up. From their point of view setting a USD7k cut-off limits the inflow and gets them something like the cream of the crop.
mr90210 4y ago
Now ask yourself: Wouldn’t people that fit such profile move to a more comfortable and yet cheaper country? Spain literally weaving its hand.
- aix1 4y ago
  I'd say that people who would find Spain and Iceland appealing for this sort of thing are two different demographics (of course, not without overlap). Much as I love Spanish food, culture and my Spanish friends, moving to Spain for six months holds little appeal. Iceland, on the other hand...
- brewdad 4y ago
  If coming from the English speaking world, Iceland is easy. Everyone there knows English. Spain may or may not be easy depending on where you stay.
markdown 4y ago
> Practically everything has to be shipped/flown in. That's no excuse. Burgers in Fiji cost a quarter of that, and everything is shipped in from far further than it does to Iceland.
- TuringNYC 4y ago
  >> That's no excuse. Burgers in Fiji cost a quarter of that, and everything is shipped in from far further than it does to Iceland. Does the nation subsidize costs? I went to a couple of countries where staples were remarkably inexpensive and later learned that most of them were subsidized by the national government.
  - markdown 4y ago
    Nope, not at all. BUT on further thought, beef at a local burger joint is locally produced. Everything else (wheat, cheese, onions, tomato, lettuce, sauces, etc) is usually imported. Of course at McDonalds and Burger King, everything is imported and they cost about the same (or less) than what a burger costs at a local joint. I believe Iceland also generates its own electricity from geothermal energy.
  - dzhiurgis 4y ago
    > Does the nation subsidize costs? Import is super cheap unless it's something perishable like fresh fish and salad and needs to come over via plane. Local delivery normally costs much more. In NZ right now a kilo of tomatoes is on par with one kilo of chicken.
    - markdown 4y ago
      Tomatoes are $18NZD/kg in Fiji right now. Imported from NZ. We can't produce our own tomatoes in the hot months. Prices should drop massively come July.
- leoc 4y ago
  Realistically, while shipping costs will play a part, the prices are going to have a lot to do with the fact that Iceland's a separate, small national market. It's not even in the EU customs union, though it is in the Single Market. You can be sure that the biggest retailers who do operate there aren't losing money in Iceland. It also seems to be a hothouse economy with incomes and costs driven by high-wage industries related to tech and, apparently, cod. Not completely unlike Ireland or Switzerland but an order of magnitude smaller, and with no membership in a large customs zone. So in some ways it's a really bad place for fully remote workers to choose to live: a bit like moving to Seattle! Or at least it can be said that you'd be using your freedom of movement exclusively as an opportunity to party down (or maybe to raise children somewhere nice) and not at all as an opportunity to save any money. On the other side of the ledger, I suppose that if you really must leave the US and Canada (or can't get in) and you want to live as close as possible to the US Eastern or Central timezone in a nice fully-developed country which is very easy to navigate using only English there aren't many other options. The UK doesn't seem to welcome digital nomads and its Home Office is no fun to interact with, anyway; Ireland might not be that much cheaper these days and it's certainly not as glamorous a playground as Iceland. Honestly I'd look into finding a posh, safe neighbourhood in Barbados first, though. https://www.visitbarbados.org/barbados-welcome-stamp https://www.visitbarbados.org/barbados-welcome-stamp I suppose one other advantage of Iceland might be the chance to network with other people in tech, but maybe you'd have to at least get conversational in Icelandic to really pull that off?
q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
> a small completely unremarkable burger at a fast food place will be around $20-25. It will not make you full. Sounds like they've captured the authentic San Francisco experience.

Aachen 4y ago

That's realistic if you are there as a tourist who wants the premium experience on everything. Staying in hotels and eating out daily, we didn't spend 7k when extrapolating our two weeks to a month. Heck, it's still below 7k if you include all one-time purchases like the way there and back, clothing, new expensive hiking boots, etc. I've got a problem with most waterproof fabrics so I didn't have a raincoat, but reading about Iceland, I figured it's worth finding one that works for me, so that's another purchase I count towards my Iceland expenses. All in all still below 7k after extrapolation. (Edit: oh and I forgot that this is for 2 persons. You can't divide by two of course, but some correction factor should be applied.) I fully agree with anyone saying Iceland is expensive, but if you stay in an actual apartment instead of hotels, don't do a number of guided tours every month, don't rent a vehicle for the whole time you're there (and drive around, though fuel was a surprisingly small part of the final expenses), you'll definitely not need 7k per month.

lazyasciiart 4y ago
They have absolutely no interest in sponsoring visitors. This visa program is intended to bring in well-off professionals who will have plenty of cash to live a comfortable lifestyle and cover a disastrous broken leg or two and still be able to fly back home if they lose their job. That $7k is before taxes, before retirement savings, before health insurance, before your assumed flight home once every month or two...
- Aachen 4y ago
  That's actually a good point that it's before taxes, I hadn't factored that in. If you live in a low tax country, you would ordinarily have a lot to spend and be rich, and also have enough money to live off of in Iceland potentially, but might not meet that requirement by even half, whereas someone from a high tax country loses roughly half their income on them and would meet the requirement. Not the fairest method but, as you say, this clearly isn't geared toward charitableness in the first place.
  - gumby 4y ago
    > whereas someone from a high tax country loses roughly half their income on them Please, typically those taxes go (not completely) to stuff you’d otherwise be paying for from your after tax cash. One obvious one is health care (which Americans pay much more for than Europeans, just not via their taxes). Less spent on roads: more car maintenance/shorter car lifespan. One can have a reasonable argument over which should be bundled and which should be unbundled, but to say broadly that one “loses” on taxes is either lazy or ideology.
    - triceratops 4y ago
      Ok but if you're from a high-tax country and work temporarily in Iceland you're paying those higher taxes without most of the benefits. You can't access the better healthcare, education, and safer streets of your home country.
      - gumby 4y ago
        You’re getting those benefits in general, though not at that instant, but is the tax you pay on march 28th making every street you drive on that day better? No, it’s smeared around spatially and temporally. If you’re in Iceland for six months you might not even owe taxes in your home country for that period.
        Godel_unicode 4y ago
        Americans owe taxes at home forever no matter what*, which tilts the calculus somewhat.
- leoc 4y ago
  Also, I assume that the Icelanders don't want all that many digital nomads showing up. From their point of view setting a USD7k cut-off limits the inflow and gets them something like the cream of the crop.

mr90210 4y ago

Now ask yourself: Wouldn’t people that fit such profile move to a more comfortable and yet cheaper country? Spain literally weaving its hand.

aix1 4y ago
I'd say that people who would find Spain and Iceland appealing for this sort of thing are two different demographics (of course, not without overlap). Much as I love Spanish food, culture and my Spanish friends, moving to Spain for six months holds little appeal. Iceland, on the other hand...
brewdad 4y ago
If coming from the English speaking world, Iceland is easy. Everyone there knows English. Spain may or may not be easy depending on where you stay.

markdown 4y ago

> Practically everything has to be shipped/flown in. That's no excuse. Burgers in Fiji cost a quarter of that, and everything is shipped in from far further than it does to Iceland.

TuringNYC 4y ago
>> That's no excuse. Burgers in Fiji cost a quarter of that, and everything is shipped in from far further than it does to Iceland. Does the nation subsidize costs? I went to a couple of countries where staples were remarkably inexpensive and later learned that most of them were subsidized by the national government.
- markdown 4y ago
  Nope, not at all. BUT on further thought, beef at a local burger joint is locally produced. Everything else (wheat, cheese, onions, tomato, lettuce, sauces, etc) is usually imported. Of course at McDonalds and Burger King, everything is imported and they cost about the same (or less) than what a burger costs at a local joint. I believe Iceland also generates its own electricity from geothermal energy.
- dzhiurgis 4y ago
  > Does the nation subsidize costs? Import is super cheap unless it's something perishable like fresh fish and salad and needs to come over via plane. Local delivery normally costs much more. In NZ right now a kilo of tomatoes is on par with one kilo of chicken.
  - markdown 4y ago
    Tomatoes are $18NZD/kg in Fiji right now. Imported from NZ. We can't produce our own tomatoes in the hot months. Prices should drop massively come July.
leoc 4y ago
Realistically, while shipping costs will play a part, the prices are going to have a lot to do with the fact that Iceland's a separate, small national market. It's not even in the EU customs union, though it is in the Single Market. You can be sure that the biggest retailers who do operate there aren't losing money in Iceland. It also seems to be a hothouse economy with incomes and costs driven by high-wage industries related to tech and, apparently, cod. Not completely unlike Ireland or Switzerland but an order of magnitude smaller, and with no membership in a large customs zone. So in some ways it's a really bad place for fully remote workers to choose to live: a bit like moving to Seattle! Or at least it can be said that you'd be using your freedom of movement exclusively as an opportunity to party down (or maybe to raise children somewhere nice) and not at all as an opportunity to save any money. On the other side of the ledger, I suppose that if you really must leave the US and Canada (or can't get in) and you want to live as close as possible to the US Eastern or Central timezone in a nice fully-developed country which is very easy to navigate using only English there aren't many other options. The UK doesn't seem to welcome digital nomads and its Home Office is no fun to interact with, anyway; Ireland might not be that much cheaper these days and it's certainly not as glamorous a playground as Iceland. Honestly I'd look into finding a posh, safe neighbourhood in Barbados first, though. https://www.visitbarbados.org/barbados-welcome-stamp https://www.visitbarbados.org/barbados-welcome-stamp I suppose one other advantage of Iceland might be the chance to network with other people in tech, but maybe you'd have to at least get conversational in Icelandic to really pull that off?

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago

> a small completely unremarkable burger at a fast food place will be around $20-25. It will not make you full. Sounds like they've captured the authentic San Francisco experience.