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Korea to welcome 'digital nomads' with new visa starting Jan. 1

227 points by yladiz 3y ago

prepend 3y ago
This seems like a good idea and hopefully becomes more common in other countries. The requirement to work for a foreign company and have an income double the average seems to allay the complaint of taking local jobs and consuming local social services.
- cassianoleal 3y ago
  > seems to allay the complaint of taking local jobs and consuming local social services The fact that the visa doesn't allow application to local jobs is enough to stop the first complaint on its tracks. I wonder how they intend to deal with the seemingly inevitable rise in housing prices that comes with an influx of high earners.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    Increasing rents and house prices is 100% to blame the owner/seller. If you want to destroy your own community for your personal gain you can't blame anybody else. Almost 100% of the population thinks it is right for home sellers and landlords to squeeze out as much as they can. Then blame somebody else for the consequences.
    - nonethewiser 3y ago
      If you increase demand prices go up. Not the sellers fault.
      - thfuran 3y ago
        They're saying that the sellers should just choose to sell for less.
        nonethewiser 3y ago
        Yeah and women should pick mates based off video game skills. It's a human behavior which could theoretically be changed but wont be because it's irrational and unique to one person's perverse interests that none of the rational actors understand. Or maybe we could get the government to enforce this person's interests on everyone.
        thriftwy 3y ago
        There would be insufficient supply on the market then. How is that better? I've heard they show an apartment to 20 competing prospective tenants at once in Switzerland. I can't begin to imagine how much 20 wasted work hours cost there, and number of such previews per deal grows at least linearly, hence the whole thing grows quadratically. I also see how it should destroy one's chances to rent any property if they deviate even slightly from the ideal tenant. A mixed ethnic family? Reject. Small child? Reject. Small business owner? Reject!
        alchemist1e9 3y ago
        This thread of comments is yet another in an endless number on HN where somehow socialists and collectivists come out and to me the most disappointing part is that it’s evidence of deep failure in education systems that they can educate people well enough to be technically literate and engage on HN, but at the same time are fundamentally economically illiterate. It’s disturbing and frankly dangerous. Socialism is the most failed idea in human history yet it continues to persist and in my opinion it’s a bit like not teaching evolution in schools, omitting to educate about some fundamental nature of reality.
        FredPret 3y ago
        I've often wondered about this. I think one reason for this is that the Soviet Union started infiltrating Western institutions about a century ago. This extremely long-ranged strategy is still churning out results, even after they went belly-up. It's the kind of phenomenon that sustains itself - what conservative would ever consider becoming an academic in this environment? And from there it spreads downward. It's also very helpful that the social "sciences" don't have a direct feedback loop to reality, so it's possible for large numbers of them to have completely kooky ideas for decades on end. https://repository.usfca.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=rl_fac https://repository.usfca.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=100... https://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/jul/01/schools.uk https://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/jul/01/schools.uk
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      So home owners are to blame for the massively imbalanced housing supply/demand, and not the government who not just allowed but actively enabled that imbalance to happen in the first place? Interesting thought process. So the local gas station owner is also to blame for the increase in gas price and destroying the community and not the global supply/demand, right? Also the local bread maker, etc.
      - carlosjobim 3y ago
        Landlords do not raise their rents because their own costs increase, unlike a gas station or any other sector of the economy. Landlords put the rent as high as they can get away with and are then very happy if people blame other people for it, for example digital nomads. Home sellers equally sell their homes as expensive as they can and if the local work force can't afford a home then fuck them, they should move away or pay a land lord and stay broke. That's what most people think. But it's ridiculous to then blame the consequences on politicians or foreigners. Businesses on the other hand have their own costs that dictates what they have to charge to remain in business. And they go out of business if they can't balance that. A land lord never goes out of business. A home owner can abandon his real estate for decades without losing it. There's a huge difference to businesses. An example similar to real estate is natural resources, such as oil and gas. They generate enormous profit compared to investments and cost of operation. Some nations chose to let a few interests take those profits, some nations give their citizens cheap or free gas, some nations invest the profits into large funds and et cetera. There are different ways of doing things. Wherever you live right now, people did things differently in the past, especially when it comes to real estate.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >Landlords do not raise their rents because their own costs increase Their cost definitely increases if the property is on mortgage and their rates went up. Also cost in maintenance increase and taxes as well. All those increases for the landlord will directly go into the price of rent for the tenant. They also raise their prices because of supply/demand so someone comes and is willing to pay more. What are you gonna do, say no to more money? The private rental market is still a business and not a charity. Only the public housing is there to cater to the needs of the people and not for profit making. Have you voted for the construction of more public housing?
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      Wealthy immigrants often become the landowners
    - alchemist1e9 3y ago
      Was any market fundamentals or economics covered in the education you received? Topics like supply and demand and price signals.
  - fuzzbazz 3y ago
    The demand in the housing market will fall soon, according to the population pyramid.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      Housing prices (in economically productive regions) are completely decupled from the birth/death driven demographics. I'm from a country with a demographics falling off the cliff, like Germany but worse, and just like Germany, housing prices (where jobs are) have went nowhere but up at a steep rate beyond wage growth, because housing is not a fixed pie for whom now less people are competing due to increased deaths vs births, because for a few decades now, it's no longer just people competing for housing against the other people, but piles of money competing against other piles of money, and the bigger piles are winning(aka investors). If you expect housing to get cheaper because less babys will be born, you'll be in a rude awakening. If you want housing to go down you need to decouple it from investments because otherwise, all the levers will be pulled by the governments and banks to make sure that line only goes up regardless of demographics. "Too few babies are being born? No problem, we'll just market those houses to foreign investors. Problem solved. Line goes up now."
      - laszlojamf 3y ago
        I agree that housing prices are somewhat decoupled from local population trends, but at the end of the day _someone_ has to live on the property for it to be worth anything. In order for the speculation to pay off, somebody, at the end of the day has to pay for it to use it, otherwise it's just a ponzi scheme. It might take a long time, but at some point the chickens will come home to roost. Or roast...
        lifestyleguru 3y ago
        > but at the end of the day _someone_ has to live on the property for it to be worth anything Have you seen the old city center of Prague in Czechia? or any old city center in any major city in Europe. These numbers only go up.
  - KptMarchewa 3y ago
    Few thousands or tens of thousands of people are not something that can move the housing market that much.
    - jimmydorry 3y ago
      It all comes down to how quickly new living spaces are made. The common theme in all of the most expensive cities of the world is the supply of new housing being vastly lower than the demand. 10,000 people may not seem like a lot, but if there are only 5,000 new residences coming on the market a year, this is a problem that will quickly compound.
  - bjornsing 3y ago
    Not sure South Koreans are worried about rising housing prices. They have terrible demographics long term.
- PierceJoy 3y ago
  Unfortunately, it doesn’t allay the complaints of driving up the cost of housing for locals. I’m not sure if this is a problem for bigger cities, but there’s been increasing criticism by locals in ski towns and resort cities of remote workers coming in with much higher incomes than local companies can provide and consequently pricing out locals from housing.
unicornmama 3y ago
Very surprising. Does Korean culture generally welcome foreigners? Can anyone living in Korea comment on this?
- brianherbert 3y ago
  I fit this category perfectly when I was staying in Korea over 10 years ago. I ended up being there on a tourist visa on and off for a few years. I never had any trouble as a white foreigner but did have a hard time making Korean friends, only because my Korean was fairly basic and I didn’t work in an office or go to university. However, everyone I met was very accommodating, whether I was in places frequented by foreigners like Hongdae or Itaewon or in my now partners hometown which is small enough that most Koreans couldn’t place it on a map. I walked into the government office a couple times and tried to find a path to a legitimate visa and was told each time I couldn’t do it. I found that the longer I was staying, the less comfortable I was with my status. If there was a path for me to be a legitimate resident, I may have stayed longer than the 3 years I was there.
- hiatus 3y ago
  > According to a survey conducted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea among foreign residents in South Korea in 2019, 68.4% of respondents declared they had experienced racial discrimination, and many of them said they experienced it due of their Korean language skills (62.3%), because they were not Korean (59.7%), or due to their race (44.7%). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_South_Korea
  - OsrsNeedsf2P 3y ago
    I've been or seen people denied entry to bars/restaurants/stores based on their skin color, but it's very rare and that's about as bad as it gets. It's not like Japan where you can't go into a sauna if you've got a tattoo.
    - ssijak 3y ago
      what is the explanation of not allowing tattooed people in a sauna
ZoomZoomZoom 3y ago
Can we please start calling this kind of visas for what it is? Rich people visas are cool, but don't help actual nomads as simply everywhere they exist they put up a prohibitively high threshold on an income (that you can't even prove documentary half the time).
- shipscode 3y ago
  $66k/yr = rich person?
  - inductive_magic 3y ago
    Outside of the US? Absolutely. In Germany, you’re classified as rich starting at 60k gross income.
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      Define classified? Nobody is going to build rich person wealth at 66
      - debesyla 3y ago
        Just a guess but if they mean anything like in Lithuania - higher taxes. (Here in Lithuania "rich" is earning more than 45k/year.)
        jncfhnb 3y ago
        But… that can’t possibly scale does it? Like maybe you can live a very nice life not worrying about money and having good foods, but you’re not going to get to a place where you have much more than a house and a nest egg, right? The “rich” are just the old money folks with compounding wealth. Right? In the states, ignoring California insanity, it feels like if you can land a $200k+ job you’ll have something that feels sort of rich by the end but just barely. And that’a going to be around a top 5th percentile income for most areas.
  - 3y ago
ninja3925 3y ago
The big unknown are the tax implication? The article should clarify what it means, at least vis a vis Korean tax agency.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  Depends on your home country because if there’s a tax treaty, it would supersede the laws. Sometimes it’s phrased that any income from your home country while you’re in your guest country is only taxable in your home country. Other times it’s just credited against your local taxes (which could cover everything with a lot of paperwork, or could still leave you with an amount owing to cover the gap). Sometimes even locally earned income is tax free, but that’s usually only for students.
  - Detrytus 3y ago
    Comparing to Barbados: they explicitly state in their "digital nomad" visa conditions: "You will not be liable to pay Barbados Income Tax and therefore will not be subject to any double taxation"[1] So they make it easy for you, no need to read through tax treaties. [1] https://www.visitbarbados.org/barbados-welcome-stamp https://www.visitbarbados.org/barbados-welcome-stamp
rthkljlkrj 3y ago
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rayiner 3y ago
> We hope the workcation visa will allow high-earning foreigners to stay in Korea's various regions and vitalize the local economy," the Justice Ministry said in a statement. "We hope the visa will be an opportunity for us to showcase our country and our culture. I love the forthrightness. “Come here, spend your money, then leave.”
- 1-6 3y ago
  And find a partner, and enlist your son in the military while you’re at it!
  - deadbeeves 3y ago
    It's OK. They have mandatory military service, so he wouldn't have a choice on the matter anyway.
    - trompetenaccoun 3y ago
      But almost no kids to join with 0.70 births per woman. They should think of a foreign legion visa. Or maybe the digital nomads could be made to join.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    Oh they don’t want you to marry anyone, then you might stay. Also—on average—Koreans aren’t super cool with marrying foreigners. A close family friend was only able to marry an American on condition of them not having kids.
    - gedy 3y ago
      > A close family friend was only able to marry an American on condition of them not having kids. Koreans aren't having kids to begin with, maybe they don't want to break the trend.
    - rorroe53 3y ago
      It seems South Koreans in aren't comfortable with having kids in general. It's much better to dedicate your life to making shareholders of Samsung, or some other soulless megacorporation richer. That's how you get one of the world's lowest birth rates.
thecleaner 3y ago
Knowing the racism in Korea, no thank you.
- InSteady 3y ago
  There's a comment below this one that is flagged and dead, but honestly it sounds exactly in line with what I heard from a guy who lived in Korea for 12 years, eventually getting married and starting a family. Those were basically his exact reasons for moving away, that and wanting to be able to afford a house with a yard for his kids: Difficulty renting, difficulty with banking, language barriers (he was very self-aware that this was on him for not learning the native language, but still a factor).
  - thecleaner 3y ago
    I understand that my comment was reductive but statistics do point to this problem. People don't say this part aloud for some reason. There was even a sting operation in India about Korean restaurants denying entrance to indians while on indian soil which is actually against consumer laws in india (you cannot deny service). There's videos on youtube about the sort of racism that people experience. You need only search YouTube for "koreans racism against indians" for multiple anecdotes. It is the kind of behaviour that would get people in trouble in places like the US. Granted the US isn't exactly a bastion of equality but much better. So even on a nomad visa I would much rather stay at a western country or go to indonesia.
ryzvonusef 3y ago
> The visa requires applicants to have an annual income double the amount of Korea's gross national income (GNI) per capita for the previous year. > Korea's GNI per capita was 42.48 million won ($33,000) as of 2022, requiring those applying for the visa to have an annual income of 84.96 million won. Today's google forex rate: 84,960,000 South Korean Won = 65,487.17 US Dollar
- smith7018 3y ago
  That's actually surprisingly low. For reference, the median US remote employee makes $63,323[1] per year which means roughly 50% of US remote employees are eligible for a Korean work visa. [1] https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Remote-Salary#Yearly https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Remote-Salary#Yearly
  - h1fra 3y ago
    But it's quite high for the rest of the world
    - smith7018 3y ago
      From a quick Google search, the average monthly remote salary in Europe is reportedly $5.3k - $6.9k[1]. That translates to $63.6k - $82.8k. I can't verify these numbers, of course. [1] https://dynamitejobs.com/continent/remote-jobs-in-europe https://dynamitejobs.com/continent/remote-jobs-in-europe
      - paxys 3y ago
        "Europe" contains both Switzerland and Albania. Trying to average everything out across such a wide economic spectrum is meaningless.
        rmbyrro 3y ago
        I don't think it's meaningless on this context. Even the lower level of the average developer income in Europe would qualify. It shows the visa requirements are quite inclusive.
karol 3y ago
Great news, anybody knows what kind of taxes you need to pay over there?
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  I don't think you'd be a resident for tax purposes.
cddotdotslash 3y ago
In my experience, while these kinds of visas address personal tax liability, many US-based companies are still unlikely to allow W2 employees to participate due to (very real) tax, jurisdiction, and legal concerns (if a W2 employee is working in France, for example, are they required to comply with laws preventing employers from contacting employees on weekends? Maybe not, but even “fully remote” companies are unlikely to want to spend time figuring it out for one employee). I think countries who want these programs to take off for employees who aren’t contractors need to invest in messaging and legal support for employers as well.
- ciabattabread 3y ago
  How does this work practically for a US-based company? Since this is a remote work visa, can they even physically work at a Korea-based office or subsidiary? Also, there's a 17 hour time difference between Korea and Los Angeles.
  - huimang 3y ago
    > The workcation visa doesn't allow holders to apply for a job within Korea. Foreigners will need other working visas to do so. My understanding is there are other visas for people working at a Korea-based office. It definitely won't work for people who need to be on the same working hours though. I've done that with east coast (13 hours ahead) and it was rough.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    Out of sheer curiosity, what's the difference between a 17 hour difference and a 7 hour difference? I guess the day of the week?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - redleader55 3y ago
      It's Friday in US, but Saturday in Korea. On Monday in Korea, you have to wait until the next day for them to work. You only have 1h-2h before the work day in Korea to sync with them in US, only on the West Coast, only 4 days a week.
gumballindie 3y ago
The only incentive they need to give is tax breaks. There's no mentioning of it in the article. Taxation being draconian in countries such as the UK, it would attract plenty of talent.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  You probably don't have to pay tax to SK. For similar visas, for example Croatia, no tax is due. US persons would have to pay tax to the US.
pinewurst 3y ago
How about a North Korean equivalent for those of us making lower salaries? They could call it the “Kim Possible” Visa!
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  No salary required at all. Just check into one of the many hard labor camps. You can enjoy the local cuisine if you manage to catch a rat. If not you don't eat.
  - slaw 3y ago
    Vegetarians could eat bark.
injeolmi_love 3y ago
Just keep in mind that the financial system is very locked down in South Korea. Foreigners have very limited access to Korean bank accounts while crypto exchange accounts are completely banned even for permanent residents.
- huimang 3y ago
  My assumption would be visa-holders will be able to open a bank account. Otherwise it doesn't really make sense.
  - injeolmi_love 3y ago
    You can open a bank account, but the daily limits are low.
    - huimang 3y ago
      Is there a location where these details are being posted?
- make3 3y ago
  maybe a naive question, but do international credit cards not just work? if you aren't getting paid locally, it shouldn't matter too much?
  - victords 3y ago
    I'd imagine not everything can be paid on a credit card. E.g.: Rent.
    - Detrytus 3y ago
      Paying rent by credit card is common in the civilized world. The only exception I know is the US, where I had to use paper checks, as if we're still stuck in 19th century...
  - injeolmi_love 3y ago
k4rli 3y ago
Incredible that countries still haven't learned that American-salary digital nomads are only harmful to local people. Airbnb all the apartments so locals can't afford in cities anymore. While I do enjoy my EU salary nomading within EU, those with >5x local salaries have pretty much ruined Lisbon and Porto.
- plexman 3y ago
  hum, can you explain what 'ruined' means to you?
  - pb060 3y ago
    Don't know that op means but I can relate. Not long ago I was searching for an apartment to rent in my hometown to move closer to my workplace and I noticed that prices went crazy high compared to few years ago, so high that I can't afford them anymore. Students have demonstrated by mounting camping tents near the universities to protest the lack of affordable housing. I'm quite sure it's because owners prefer to rent to tourists than locals (higher income and no taxes, depending on the owner's compliance). Cities like Venice lost their original character as many locals preferred to move out of the historical center to reduce the cost of living. Other cities like Florence don't allow new bed and breakfasts to be registered, to try and control housing costs.
- tim333 3y ago
  Some locals probably also make money by renting out the airbnbs, hotels etc. It's how the tourist trade works.
- ChadNauseam 3y ago
  From the government's perspective it may be a wash. If rents go up, home values go up, and homes are also usually owned by natives, so from that perspective it's a transfer from one group of natives to another. And if home values go up it means the government collects more revenue from property taxes and home value appreciation taxes.
- paxys 3y ago
  It isn't harmful to people collecting rent for those Airbnbs. Or service workers who can demand higher salaries. Or local business that see increased sales. Or the government itself that can collect taxes on all of it. A large amount of foreign income being spent in a local economy may cause temporary disruptions to the status quo but is overall a good thing. It shouldn't really be a surprise that governments worldwide are encouraging it.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rednafi 3y ago
[dead]
a_vanderbilt 3y ago
I'm hoping Japan creates a similar program. Making the move would be much easier if I can do so gradually by living there first.
jdjdjdkdksmdnd 3y ago
im so sad ireland shut down their golden visa program. im looking forward to building a portfolio of passports so i dont have to deal with the shit head border agents anymore.
- sss111 3y ago
  what other countries have you looked at? I'm starting out my career as a new grad in the US but don't see myself getting a citizenship here
  - jdjdjdkdksmdnd 3y ago
    spain
lo_zamoyski 3y ago
They're in the death grip of consumerism, it seems. Consumerism is highly correlated with demographic decline. It shifts the perceived "center of gravity" of value toward the materialistic. Having children is sort of a net loss in the materialist calculus. Imagine a family with 5 children that owns a Honda Odyssey and lives in a modest house, and now imagine a family, with the same upper middle class net income, that voluntarily choose to have at most a single child, but lives in a sleeker house and owns a Maserati and a Porsche. Which looks more attractive to someone steeped in consumerism? Which generates more social approval today? Which is going to appeal more to the careerist? Which is going to look more like Success™? It's obvious. Large families are no longer imagined as a joyful thing, life affirming, a source of meaning, an honor, and the true wealth of a family in the eyes most. No, large families are for poor people who are too stupid to use contraception, an impediment to consuming shit, because everyone knows that consumption is true happiness. So it sounds like Korea may be trying to overcome occurring or forecasted economic decline resulting from the worst fertility rate in the world and without mass immigration and having their culture threatened as a result. But barring a miracle, they're just buying time before their inevitable collapse. I dare say it is virtually impossible for a society to turn away from the religion of consumption once it has captured and corrupted a society. The only way out seems to be through the inevitable collapse, as that is the only way the spell is broken. This is tragic.
- Fripplebubby 3y ago
  I think this is a cynical and fatalistic view which considers only some selective viewpoints. I think you'll find that real people are far less materialistic and shallow than you assume, and choose not to have large families for many reasons. Cultures will adapt! Humans are dynamic creatures. That's not to say we shouldn't consider the consequences of these changes and provide incentives and disincentives to nudge things one way or another, and manage the demographic shifts in order to lessen their shocks.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
paxys 3y ago
If I go ask my employer today if I can work out of South Korea for a year the immediate response from HR/legal will be "no way". I'm sure the same applies to the vast, vast majority of the world's population. None of these visas are worth a damn unless all these countries can also sort out the million employment law and taxation issues that will arise from such an arrangement.
cbhl 3y ago
Folks looking at this may also be interested in similar visa programs offered in east/southeast asia for context: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan. Singapore's requirements strike me as especially conservative in comparison (five years leading a co with $30M raised, and that's just one of the "two of three" reqs). I'd also look at the local tech ecosystem before applying -- Twitch is shutting down in South Korea in 2024 due to sender-pays "network usage fees" in the local Telecommunications Business Act. Also there's legacy technology (esp for online banking) that depends on Internet Explorer and ActiveX due to a home-grown encryption standard built in response to US Export Controls limiting 1990s browsers to 40-bit RC2/RC4, so Windows is still the predominant desktop operating system there.
doix 3y ago
A lot of people are complaining about the income requirements. But it seems fair enough that they are trying to attract people that will spend a lot of money and this contribute more to their economy. They aren't trying to attract people that will live off ramen for a year. My biggest complaint is the application process: > Those who wish to obtain the visa can apply via Korean embassies in their respective country. I don't want to go back to my home country and sit there while I wait for my visa to go through! I'm already in Asia, flying back and forth to the UK to get this visa is a pain. It should be an online application process. I feel like they haven't really thought this through.
plz-remove-card 3y ago
Anyone know where the details of this visa are located or what the official name of the visa is? The article didn't mention it's sources or have any links. The website for the embassy nearest to me just linked to here but I'm not seeing it: https://www.visa.go.kr/main/openMain.do https://www.visa.go.kr/main/openMain.do There's mention of a "Working Holiday" visa here: https://whic.mofa.go.kr/contents.do?menuNo=90&contentsNo=38 https://whic.mofa.go.kr/contents.do?menuNo=90&contentsNo=38 But it appears to be for working part-time in Korea, not as a digital nomad.
tiimbz 3y ago
From the Q&A [0]: >> Can I work with the digital nomad visa? >> No. Travelers visiting under the visa cannot be hired or involved in any profit-making activity during their stay. Isn’t the point of a digital nomad that you are able to work from anywhere? [0] https://www.digitalnomadskorea.com/post/everything-you-need-to-know-about-koreas-digital-nomad-visa https://www.digitalnomadskorea.com/post/everything-you-need-...

227 points by yladiz 3y ago

This seems like a good idea and hopefully becomes more common in other countries. The requirement to work for a foreign company and have an income double the average seems to allay the complaint of taking local jobs and consuming local social services.

cassianoleal 3y ago
> seems to allay the complaint of taking local jobs and consuming local social services The fact that the visa doesn't allow application to local jobs is enough to stop the first complaint on its tracks. I wonder how they intend to deal with the seemingly inevitable rise in housing prices that comes with an influx of high earners.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  Increasing rents and house prices is 100% to blame the owner/seller. If you want to destroy your own community for your personal gain you can't blame anybody else. Almost 100% of the population thinks it is right for home sellers and landlords to squeeze out as much as they can. Then blame somebody else for the consequences.
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    If you increase demand prices go up. Not the sellers fault.
    - thfuran 3y ago
      They're saying that the sellers should just choose to sell for less.
      - nonethewiser 3y ago
        Yeah and women should pick mates based off video game skills. It's a human behavior which could theoretically be changed but wont be because it's irrational and unique to one person's perverse interests that none of the rational actors understand. Or maybe we could get the government to enforce this person's interests on everyone.
      - thriftwy 3y ago
        There would be insufficient supply on the market then. How is that better? I've heard they show an apartment to 20 competing prospective tenants at once in Switzerland. I can't begin to imagine how much 20 wasted work hours cost there, and number of such previews per deal grows at least linearly, hence the whole thing grows quadratically. I also see how it should destroy one's chances to rent any property if they deviate even slightly from the ideal tenant. A mixed ethnic family? Reject. Small child? Reject. Small business owner? Reject!
        alchemist1e9 3y ago
        This thread of comments is yet another in an endless number on HN where somehow socialists and collectivists come out and to me the most disappointing part is that it’s evidence of deep failure in education systems that they can educate people well enough to be technically literate and engage on HN, but at the same time are fundamentally economically illiterate. It’s disturbing and frankly dangerous. Socialism is the most failed idea in human history yet it continues to persist and in my opinion it’s a bit like not teaching evolution in schools, omitting to educate about some fundamental nature of reality.
        FredPret 3y ago
        I've often wondered about this. I think one reason for this is that the Soviet Union started infiltrating Western institutions about a century ago. This extremely long-ranged strategy is still churning out results, even after they went belly-up. It's the kind of phenomenon that sustains itself - what conservative would ever consider becoming an academic in this environment? And from there it spreads downward. It's also very helpful that the social "sciences" don't have a direct feedback loop to reality, so it's possible for large numbers of them to have completely kooky ideas for decades on end. https://repository.usfca.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=rl_fac https://repository.usfca.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=100... https://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/jul/01/schools.uk https://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/jul/01/schools.uk
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    So home owners are to blame for the massively imbalanced housing supply/demand, and not the government who not just allowed but actively enabled that imbalance to happen in the first place? Interesting thought process. So the local gas station owner is also to blame for the increase in gas price and destroying the community and not the global supply/demand, right? Also the local bread maker, etc.
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      Landlords do not raise their rents because their own costs increase, unlike a gas station or any other sector of the economy. Landlords put the rent as high as they can get away with and are then very happy if people blame other people for it, for example digital nomads. Home sellers equally sell their homes as expensive as they can and if the local work force can't afford a home then fuck them, they should move away or pay a land lord and stay broke. That's what most people think. But it's ridiculous to then blame the consequences on politicians or foreigners. Businesses on the other hand have their own costs that dictates what they have to charge to remain in business. And they go out of business if they can't balance that. A land lord never goes out of business. A home owner can abandon his real estate for decades without losing it. There's a huge difference to businesses. An example similar to real estate is natural resources, such as oil and gas. They generate enormous profit compared to investments and cost of operation. Some nations chose to let a few interests take those profits, some nations give their citizens cheap or free gas, some nations invest the profits into large funds and et cetera. There are different ways of doing things. Wherever you live right now, people did things differently in the past, especially when it comes to real estate.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >Landlords do not raise their rents because their own costs increase Their cost definitely increases if the property is on mortgage and their rates went up. Also cost in maintenance increase and taxes as well. All those increases for the landlord will directly go into the price of rent for the tenant. They also raise their prices because of supply/demand so someone comes and is willing to pay more. What are you gonna do, say no to more money? The private rental market is still a business and not a charity. Only the public housing is there to cater to the needs of the people and not for profit making. Have you voted for the construction of more public housing?
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    Wealthy immigrants often become the landowners
  - alchemist1e9 3y ago
    Was any market fundamentals or economics covered in the education you received? Topics like supply and demand and price signals.
- fuzzbazz 3y ago
  The demand in the housing market will fall soon, according to the population pyramid.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    Housing prices (in economically productive regions) are completely decupled from the birth/death driven demographics. I'm from a country with a demographics falling off the cliff, like Germany but worse, and just like Germany, housing prices (where jobs are) have went nowhere but up at a steep rate beyond wage growth, because housing is not a fixed pie for whom now less people are competing due to increased deaths vs births, because for a few decades now, it's no longer just people competing for housing against the other people, but piles of money competing against other piles of money, and the bigger piles are winning(aka investors). If you expect housing to get cheaper because less babys will be born, you'll be in a rude awakening. If you want housing to go down you need to decouple it from investments because otherwise, all the levers will be pulled by the governments and banks to make sure that line only goes up regardless of demographics. "Too few babies are being born? No problem, we'll just market those houses to foreign investors. Problem solved. Line goes up now."
    - laszlojamf 3y ago
      I agree that housing prices are somewhat decoupled from local population trends, but at the end of the day _someone_ has to live on the property for it to be worth anything. In order for the speculation to pay off, somebody, at the end of the day has to pay for it to use it, otherwise it's just a ponzi scheme. It might take a long time, but at some point the chickens will come home to roost. Or roast...
      - lifestyleguru 3y ago
        > but at the end of the day _someone_ has to live on the property for it to be worth anything Have you seen the old city center of Prague in Czechia? or any old city center in any major city in Europe. These numbers only go up.
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  Few thousands or tens of thousands of people are not something that can move the housing market that much.
  - jimmydorry 3y ago
    It all comes down to how quickly new living spaces are made. The common theme in all of the most expensive cities of the world is the supply of new housing being vastly lower than the demand. 10,000 people may not seem like a lot, but if there are only 5,000 new residences coming on the market a year, this is a problem that will quickly compound.
- bjornsing 3y ago
  Not sure South Koreans are worried about rising housing prices. They have terrible demographics long term.
PierceJoy 3y ago
Unfortunately, it doesn’t allay the complaints of driving up the cost of housing for locals. I’m not sure if this is a problem for bigger cities, but there’s been increasing criticism by locals in ski towns and resort cities of remote workers coming in with much higher incomes than local companies can provide and consequently pricing out locals from housing.

unicornmama 3y ago

Very surprising. Does Korean culture generally welcome foreigners? Can anyone living in Korea comment on this?

brianherbert 3y ago
I fit this category perfectly when I was staying in Korea over 10 years ago. I ended up being there on a tourist visa on and off for a few years. I never had any trouble as a white foreigner but did have a hard time making Korean friends, only because my Korean was fairly basic and I didn’t work in an office or go to university. However, everyone I met was very accommodating, whether I was in places frequented by foreigners like Hongdae or Itaewon or in my now partners hometown which is small enough that most Koreans couldn’t place it on a map. I walked into the government office a couple times and tried to find a path to a legitimate visa and was told each time I couldn’t do it. I found that the longer I was staying, the less comfortable I was with my status. If there was a path for me to be a legitimate resident, I may have stayed longer than the 3 years I was there.
hiatus 3y ago
> According to a survey conducted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea among foreign residents in South Korea in 2019, 68.4% of respondents declared they had experienced racial discrimination, and many of them said they experienced it due of their Korean language skills (62.3%), because they were not Korean (59.7%), or due to their race (44.7%). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_South_Korea
- OsrsNeedsf2P 3y ago
  I've been or seen people denied entry to bars/restaurants/stores based on their skin color, but it's very rare and that's about as bad as it gets. It's not like Japan where you can't go into a sauna if you've got a tattoo.
  - ssijak 3y ago
    what is the explanation of not allowing tattooed people in a sauna

ZoomZoomZoom 3y ago

Can we please start calling this kind of visas for what it is? Rich people visas are cool, but don't help actual nomads as simply everywhere they exist they put up a prohibitively high threshold on an income (that you can't even prove documentary half the time).

shipscode 3y ago
$66k/yr = rich person?
- inductive_magic 3y ago
  Outside of the US? Absolutely. In Germany, you’re classified as rich starting at 60k gross income.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    Define classified? Nobody is going to build rich person wealth at 66
    - debesyla 3y ago
      Just a guess but if they mean anything like in Lithuania - higher taxes. (Here in Lithuania "rich" is earning more than 45k/year.)
      - jncfhnb 3y ago
        But… that can’t possibly scale does it? Like maybe you can live a very nice life not worrying about money and having good foods, but you’re not going to get to a place where you have much more than a house and a nest egg, right? The “rich” are just the old money folks with compounding wealth. Right? In the states, ignoring California insanity, it feels like if you can land a $200k+ job you’ll have something that feels sort of rich by the end but just barely. And that’a going to be around a top 5th percentile income for most areas.
- 3y ago

ninja3925 3y ago

The big unknown are the tax implication? The article should clarify what it means, at least vis a vis Korean tax agency.

Scoundreller 3y ago
Depends on your home country because if there’s a tax treaty, it would supersede the laws. Sometimes it’s phrased that any income from your home country while you’re in your guest country is only taxable in your home country. Other times it’s just credited against your local taxes (which could cover everything with a lot of paperwork, or could still leave you with an amount owing to cover the gap). Sometimes even locally earned income is tax free, but that’s usually only for students.
- Detrytus 3y ago
  Comparing to Barbados: they explicitly state in their "digital nomad" visa conditions: "You will not be liable to pay Barbados Income Tax and therefore will not be subject to any double taxation"[1] So they make it easy for you, no need to read through tax treaties. [1] https://www.visitbarbados.org/barbados-welcome-stamp https://www.visitbarbados.org/barbados-welcome-stamp

rthkljlkrj 3y ago

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rayiner 3y ago

> We hope the workcation visa will allow high-earning foreigners to stay in Korea's various regions and vitalize the local economy," the Justice Ministry said in a statement. "We hope the visa will be an opportunity for us to showcase our country and our culture. I love the forthrightness. “Come here, spend your money, then leave.”

1-6 3y ago
And find a partner, and enlist your son in the military while you’re at it!
- deadbeeves 3y ago
  It's OK. They have mandatory military service, so he wouldn't have a choice on the matter anyway.
  - trompetenaccoun 3y ago
    But almost no kids to join with 0.70 births per woman. They should think of a foreign legion visa. Or maybe the digital nomads could be made to join.
- rayiner 3y ago
  Oh they don’t want you to marry anyone, then you might stay. Also—on average—Koreans aren’t super cool with marrying foreigners. A close family friend was only able to marry an American on condition of them not having kids.
  - gedy 3y ago
    > A close family friend was only able to marry an American on condition of them not having kids. Koreans aren't having kids to begin with, maybe they don't want to break the trend.
  - rorroe53 3y ago
    It seems South Koreans in aren't comfortable with having kids in general. It's much better to dedicate your life to making shareholders of Samsung, or some other soulless megacorporation richer. That's how you get one of the world's lowest birth rates.

thecleaner 3y ago

Knowing the racism in Korea, no thank you.

InSteady 3y ago
There's a comment below this one that is flagged and dead, but honestly it sounds exactly in line with what I heard from a guy who lived in Korea for 12 years, eventually getting married and starting a family. Those were basically his exact reasons for moving away, that and wanting to be able to afford a house with a yard for his kids: Difficulty renting, difficulty with banking, language barriers (he was very self-aware that this was on him for not learning the native language, but still a factor).
- thecleaner 3y ago
  I understand that my comment was reductive but statistics do point to this problem. People don't say this part aloud for some reason. There was even a sting operation in India about Korean restaurants denying entrance to indians while on indian soil which is actually against consumer laws in india (you cannot deny service). There's videos on youtube about the sort of racism that people experience. You need only search YouTube for "koreans racism against indians" for multiple anecdotes. It is the kind of behaviour that would get people in trouble in places like the US. Granted the US isn't exactly a bastion of equality but much better. So even on a nomad visa I would much rather stay at a western country or go to indonesia.

ryzvonusef 3y ago

> The visa requires applicants to have an annual income double the amount of Korea's gross national income (GNI) per capita for the previous year. > Korea's GNI per capita was 42.48 million won ($33,000) as of 2022, requiring those applying for the visa to have an annual income of 84.96 million won. Today's google forex rate: 84,960,000 South Korean Won = 65,487.17 US Dollar

smith7018 3y ago
That's actually surprisingly low. For reference, the median US remote employee makes $63,323[1] per year which means roughly 50% of US remote employees are eligible for a Korean work visa. [1] https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Remote-Salary#Yearly https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Remote-Salary#Yearly
- h1fra 3y ago
  But it's quite high for the rest of the world
  - smith7018 3y ago
    From a quick Google search, the average monthly remote salary in Europe is reportedly $5.3k - $6.9k[1]. That translates to $63.6k - $82.8k. I can't verify these numbers, of course. [1] https://dynamitejobs.com/continent/remote-jobs-in-europe https://dynamitejobs.com/continent/remote-jobs-in-europe
    - paxys 3y ago
      "Europe" contains both Switzerland and Albania. Trying to average everything out across such a wide economic spectrum is meaningless.
      - rmbyrro 3y ago
        I don't think it's meaningless on this context. Even the lower level of the average developer income in Europe would qualify. It shows the visa requirements are quite inclusive.

karol 3y ago

Great news, anybody knows what kind of taxes you need to pay over there?

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
I don't think you'd be a resident for tax purposes.

cddotdotslash 3y ago

In my experience, while these kinds of visas address personal tax liability, many US-based companies are still unlikely to allow W2 employees to participate due to (very real) tax, jurisdiction, and legal concerns (if a W2 employee is working in France, for example, are they required to comply with laws preventing employers from contacting employees on weekends? Maybe not, but even “fully remote” companies are unlikely to want to spend time figuring it out for one employee). I think countries who want these programs to take off for employees who aren’t contractors need to invest in messaging and legal support for employers as well.

ciabattabread 3y ago
How does this work practically for a US-based company? Since this is a remote work visa, can they even physically work at a Korea-based office or subsidiary? Also, there's a 17 hour time difference between Korea and Los Angeles.
- huimang 3y ago
  > The workcation visa doesn't allow holders to apply for a job within Korea. Foreigners will need other working visas to do so. My understanding is there are other visas for people working at a Korea-based office. It definitely won't work for people who need to be on the same working hours though. I've done that with east coast (13 hours ahead) and it was rough.
- CPLX 3y ago
  Out of sheer curiosity, what's the difference between a 17 hour difference and a 7 hour difference? I guess the day of the week?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - redleader55 3y ago
    It's Friday in US, but Saturday in Korea. On Monday in Korea, you have to wait until the next day for them to work. You only have 1h-2h before the work day in Korea to sync with them in US, only on the West Coast, only 4 days a week.

gumballindie 3y ago

The only incentive they need to give is tax breaks. There's no mentioning of it in the article. Taxation being draconian in countries such as the UK, it would attract plenty of talent.

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
You probably don't have to pay tax to SK. For similar visas, for example Croatia, no tax is due. US persons would have to pay tax to the US.

pinewurst 3y ago

How about a North Korean equivalent for those of us making lower salaries? They could call it the “Kim Possible” Visa!

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
No salary required at all. Just check into one of the many hard labor camps. You can enjoy the local cuisine if you manage to catch a rat. If not you don't eat.
- slaw 3y ago
  Vegetarians could eat bark.

injeolmi_love 3y ago

Just keep in mind that the financial system is very locked down in South Korea. Foreigners have very limited access to Korean bank accounts while crypto exchange accounts are completely banned even for permanent residents.

huimang 3y ago
My assumption would be visa-holders will be able to open a bank account. Otherwise it doesn't really make sense.
- injeolmi_love 3y ago
  You can open a bank account, but the daily limits are low.
  - huimang 3y ago
    Is there a location where these details are being posted?
make3 3y ago
maybe a naive question, but do international credit cards not just work? if you aren't getting paid locally, it shouldn't matter too much?
- victords 3y ago
  I'd imagine not everything can be paid on a credit card. E.g.: Rent.
  - Detrytus 3y ago
    Paying rent by credit card is common in the civilized world. The only exception I know is the US, where I had to use paper checks, as if we're still stuck in 19th century...
- injeolmi_love 3y ago

k4rli 3y ago

Incredible that countries still haven't learned that American-salary digital nomads are only harmful to local people. Airbnb all the apartments so locals can't afford in cities anymore. While I do enjoy my EU salary nomading within EU, those with >5x local salaries have pretty much ruined Lisbon and Porto.

plexman 3y ago
hum, can you explain what 'ruined' means to you?
- pb060 3y ago
  Don't know that op means but I can relate. Not long ago I was searching for an apartment to rent in my hometown to move closer to my workplace and I noticed that prices went crazy high compared to few years ago, so high that I can't afford them anymore. Students have demonstrated by mounting camping tents near the universities to protest the lack of affordable housing. I'm quite sure it's because owners prefer to rent to tourists than locals (higher income and no taxes, depending on the owner's compliance). Cities like Venice lost their original character as many locals preferred to move out of the historical center to reduce the cost of living. Other cities like Florence don't allow new bed and breakfasts to be registered, to try and control housing costs.
tim333 3y ago
Some locals probably also make money by renting out the airbnbs, hotels etc. It's how the tourist trade works.
ChadNauseam 3y ago
From the government's perspective it may be a wash. If rents go up, home values go up, and homes are also usually owned by natives, so from that perspective it's a transfer from one group of natives to another. And if home values go up it means the government collects more revenue from property taxes and home value appreciation taxes.
paxys 3y ago
It isn't harmful to people collecting rent for those Airbnbs. Or service workers who can demand higher salaries. Or local business that see increased sales. Or the government itself that can collect taxes on all of it. A large amount of foreign income being spent in a local economy may cause temporary disruptions to the status quo but is overall a good thing. It shouldn't really be a surprise that governments worldwide are encouraging it.

deleted 3y ago

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rednafi 3y ago

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a_vanderbilt 3y ago

I'm hoping Japan creates a similar program. Making the move would be much easier if I can do so gradually by living there first.

jdjdjdkdksmdnd 3y ago

im so sad ireland shut down their golden visa program. im looking forward to building a portfolio of passports so i dont have to deal with the shit head border agents anymore.

sss111 3y ago
what other countries have you looked at? I'm starting out my career as a new grad in the US but don't see myself getting a citizenship here
- jdjdjdkdksmdnd 3y ago
  spain

lo_zamoyski 3y ago

They're in the death grip of consumerism, it seems. Consumerism is highly correlated with demographic decline. It shifts the perceived "center of gravity" of value toward the materialistic. Having children is sort of a net loss in the materialist calculus. Imagine a family with 5 children that owns a Honda Odyssey and lives in a modest house, and now imagine a family, with the same upper middle class net income, that voluntarily choose to have at most a single child, but lives in a sleeker house and owns a Maserati and a Porsche. Which looks more attractive to someone steeped in consumerism? Which generates more social approval today? Which is going to appeal more to the careerist? Which is going to look more like Success™? It's obvious. Large families are no longer imagined as a joyful thing, life affirming, a source of meaning, an honor, and the true wealth of a family in the eyes most. No, large families are for poor people who are too stupid to use contraception, an impediment to consuming shit, because everyone knows that consumption is true happiness. So it sounds like Korea may be trying to overcome occurring or forecasted economic decline resulting from the worst fertility rate in the world and without mass immigration and having their culture threatened as a result. But barring a miracle, they're just buying time before their inevitable collapse. I dare say it is virtually impossible for a society to turn away from the religion of consumption once it has captured and corrupted a society. The only way out seems to be through the inevitable collapse, as that is the only way the spell is broken. This is tragic.

Fripplebubby 3y ago
I think this is a cynical and fatalistic view which considers only some selective viewpoints. I think you'll find that real people are far less materialistic and shallow than you assume, and choose not to have large families for many reasons. Cultures will adapt! Humans are dynamic creatures. That's not to say we shouldn't consider the consequences of these changes and provide incentives and disincentives to nudge things one way or another, and manage the demographic shifts in order to lessen their shocks.
deleted 3y ago
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paxys 3y ago

If I go ask my employer today if I can work out of South Korea for a year the immediate response from HR/legal will be "no way". I'm sure the same applies to the vast, vast majority of the world's population. None of these visas are worth a damn unless all these countries can also sort out the million employment law and taxation issues that will arise from such an arrangement.

cbhl 3y ago

Folks looking at this may also be interested in similar visa programs offered in east/southeast asia for context: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan. Singapore's requirements strike me as especially conservative in comparison (five years leading a co with $30M raised, and that's just one of the "two of three" reqs). I'd also look at the local tech ecosystem before applying -- Twitch is shutting down in South Korea in 2024 due to sender-pays "network usage fees" in the local Telecommunications Business Act. Also there's legacy technology (esp for online banking) that depends on Internet Explorer and ActiveX due to a home-grown encryption standard built in response to US Export Controls limiting 1990s browsers to 40-bit RC2/RC4, so Windows is still the predominant desktop operating system there.

doix 3y ago

A lot of people are complaining about the income requirements. But it seems fair enough that they are trying to attract people that will spend a lot of money and this contribute more to their economy. They aren't trying to attract people that will live off ramen for a year. My biggest complaint is the application process: > Those who wish to obtain the visa can apply via Korean embassies in their respective country. I don't want to go back to my home country and sit there while I wait for my visa to go through! I'm already in Asia, flying back and forth to the UK to get this visa is a pain. It should be an online application process. I feel like they haven't really thought this through.

plz-remove-card 3y ago

Anyone know where the details of this visa are located or what the official name of the visa is? The article didn't mention it's sources or have any links. The website for the embassy nearest to me just linked to here but I'm not seeing it: https://www.visa.go.kr/main/openMain.do https://www.visa.go.kr/main/openMain.do There's mention of a "Working Holiday" visa here: https://whic.mofa.go.kr/contents.do?menuNo=90&contentsNo=38 https://whic.mofa.go.kr/contents.do?menuNo=90&contentsNo=38 But it appears to be for working part-time in Korea, not as a digital nomad.

tiimbz 3y ago

From the Q&A [0]: >> Can I work with the digital nomad visa? >> No. Travelers visiting under the visa cannot be hired or involved in any profit-making activity during their stay. Isn’t the point of a digital nomad that you are able to work from anywhere? [0] https://www.digitalnomadskorea.com/post/everything-you-need-to-know-about-koreas-digital-nomad-visa https://www.digitalnomadskorea.com/post/everything-you-need-...