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For the first time in history, more Americans are moving to EU than vice versa
- tosti 5mo agoI, for one, welcome our new American fellows.
- BoumTAC 5mo agoAmericans enjoying their huge American salaries while working remotely from poor European countries
- the_70x 5mo agoMaybe during Covid. Now many companies are making employees RTO
- garbawarb 5mo agoIn practice almost no companies let you do this. If you know of one that does and is hiring, please share...
- BoumTAC 5mo agoI don't know how they do this, but Paris is full of Americans living there. I think they stay for a few months. Maybe they just don't tell their company and the company still think they are working in the same place.
- crote 5mo agoVisa-wise, they are probably just committing fraud by staying on a tourist visa.
- rbanffy 5mo agoAt least Europeans won't send them to labor camps in El Salvador. edit: burn karma burn
- dminor 5mo agoFrench immigration is currently allowing remote workers on the one year visitor visa, so long as your company doesn't have a presence in France. Basically, as long as you are not doing business in France or taking a job from a local they are fine with it. However, it's difficult to proceed to a residency permit in this situation, and you can't join the national healthcare system.
- jbstack 5mo agoVPN. Simple as that. Most companies aren't bothering to check anyway, most that do aren't detecting VPNs, and for the few that do that, there are ways to circumvent detection if you are really determined.
- coreyh14444 5mo agoIt is also the EU Countries and Visas. Before I moved to Denmark I just assumed they'd just welcome Americans with money but you can't just have any job, you have to be paid by a Danish company, over a certain level or found a startup with very specific requirements, etc.
- optionalsquid 5mo agoDanish immigration laws are also very strict. Most of our political parties have been competed to further tighten those rules over the last couple of decades. We literally have people advocating to leave the convention on human rights, since it’s getting in the way of that
- rbanffy 5mo ago> In practice almost no companies let you do this. And, if they do, they might have legal issues brewing they are not aware of.
- officialchicken 5mo agoQoL is more important than hustle culture to most people
- kolinko 5mo agoWith 6-9h timezone difference? Even if a company will allow this (and few will), it's very hard to pull off, and your social/family life will suffer big time. I know people who manage to do this, but it's difficult, and not really worth it unless you have a seriously amazing job.
- aqme28 5mo agoMost remote jobs don't require you to keep the exact same hours, but rather to have some overlap. So it can effectively only feel like ~3h timezone difference.
- rbanffy 5mo ago> and your social/family life will suffer big time Not sure about family, but you can get new friends here. When I go to the office, on my walk back home, I often pass by some very nice pubs overflowing with extremely happy and friendly people, and that is when I leave at 17:00. You'll also get nice things like the metric system. And, in Ireland, one of the sanest political systems on the planet. It's so sane it's almost boring.
- aianus 5mo agoYeah, pretty much. You can make enough money in 10-15 years in tech in America to last a lifetime in Europe, even without the remote job.
- rbanffy 5mo agoYou still might need a resident visa.
- afpx 5mo agoWhere is the Frisco, TX of Europe?
- crote 5mo agoWhat makes you believe you'll be able to do so? Most European countries have surprisingly strict visa requirements - and those apply to Americans as well. Unlike a short holiday trip, you can't just move because you feel like it! The most likely path for the HN public is probably a "highly-skilled worker" visa, but that requires you to have a sponsoring employer in Europe - which means you won't be getting that fancy American salary. And you'll also have to pay local taxes...
- rbanffy 5mo agoI'm always surprised by how many American tourists have to turn back because they thought they wouldn't need a visa.
- triceratops 5mo agoWere they wrong? American tourists mostly don't need a visa to be tourists in Europe. Working is a different matter.
- amarcheschi 5mo agoThe community note gives more information on the comparison
- fragmede 5mo ago> The chart compares permanent green cards issued to Europeans moving to the US with first-time residence permits (often temporary, for work/study) issued to Americans moving to the EU, which are not equivalent metrics. For those that don't have Twitter.
- shaky-carrousel 5mo agoA classic example of mistaking the finger for the moon. There's a trend there, no matter what.
- Isamu 5mo agoFairly steady trends since 2000 with a drop during covid, America becoming less popular for Europeans and Americans
- garbawarb 5mo agoIs a green card the equivalent to a first time residence permit in Europe? It's notoriously hard to get a green card: it'll take 3 years for a normal skilled worker who's already in the US and that's assuming nothing goes wrong in the process, and something always does. Plus many visa categories don't even have a path to a green card. "Long term stay visas issued" might be a better comparison.
- comrade1234 5mo agoJust depends where and where you're from. Even though it's the EU each country has its own rules.
- sidewndr46 5mo agoCan't you basically buy citizenship through "investment" in one of the countries?
- comrade1234 5mo agoI think more than one. I think Portugal's program is over but you can still do it in others (Greece? Romania? I can't remember). You can do it in the USA too.
- thefounder 5mo agothe golden visas were banned in the EU last year https://amp.dw.com/en/eu-citizenship-no-longer-for-sale/a-72416965 https://amp.dw.com/en/eu-citizenship-no-longer-for-sale/a-72...
- sidewndr46 5mo agoWow, that's rich. Literally. So even money can't get you in anymore. You'd need money & influence.
- archagon 5mo ago
- comrade1234 5mo agoSurprisingly, the vote on limiting Switzerland's population to 10 million may actually pass. Usually votes for things that will hurt the economy don't come close to passing but right now the limit is a few percent ahead.
- sidewndr46 5mo agohow would that even work? mandatory contraception or something?
- ceejayoz 5mo agoImmigration and naturalization restrictions.
- esperent 5mo agoSo if they hit ten million do they start kicking people out for every native baby born?
- thefounder 5mo agoNo, they just stop accepting immigrants.
- crote 5mo agoSwitzerland's fertility rate has been below the replacement rate of 2.1 babies / woman since the 1970s. There is zero chance of births pushing it above the 10M count. If anything, immigration is the sole reason the Swiss aren't going extinct.
- sublinear 5mo ago[dead]
- idiotsecant 5mo agoI suspect there are a lot of American hegemony trends that look like this. The US is burning good will and soft power that took centuries to accumulate in days or hours. This was a long term trend but the current American government is really stepping on the gas. The american century is over, but I'm not sure what comes next will be better, we will see.
- chneu 5mo agoAgreed. The US, as a result of basically a conservative tantrum for 60 years, has undone most of the progress after the WWs.
- sleepyguy 5mo agoMy kid moved from the US to Vienna for work. Loves it, says there is no reason to come back...I know a few more folks whose kids left after Uni to work in the EU and have no plans on returning. For a young person who values working to live more than living to work, the EU is very attractive.
- ramesh31 5mo agoIt's an infinitely higher quality of life if you're not in the 90th income percentile in the US already. You'll never make that much, but you'll never have half the worries we do here for lower income people.
- rbanffy 5mo agoI'd say even if you are on the 99th percentile, the quality of life will be much better. You'll make less money, but you also won't have to spend on things like health insurance, good schools, and so on. Your house might be smaller though, unless you opt to live further from urban centers, which will demand a car, but it'll be a safer and more efficient one.
- sleepyguy 5mo agoDon't know why you were junked, you're not wrong. My child’s situation is somewhat different from many others in the U.S. He never has to worry about money because he benefits from the security of multi-generational wealth. He simply finds Europe and its values to be culturally superior to the United States.
- agentcoops 5mo agoIn my niece's (relatively rural) US high school class several students decided to attend university in Europe with no family ties to the countries in question. It was pretty common in my generation to see, as you note, kids moving to Berlin etc after their studies, but this strikes me as relatively new. Anecdata that seems supported in some of the public numbers [0]. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2025/07/21/record-numbers-of-us-students-are-applying-to-colleges-in-the-uk/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2025/07/21/reco...
- irishcoffee 5mo agoI had an issue at work, stuck all night on the phone trying to get a license activated. The first fellow I talked to was Australian, great guy. Really helpful, patient. He discovered the issue was indeed on their end. I took a nap at my desk for an hour (the license was needed on an airgapped system sneaker-netted over via an encrypted drive so I couldn't do this from home and the deadline had arrived). Woke up and called back, different fellow, European. Every answer, in perfect english, was about 3 words long on average in a very dismissive tone. I'd rather move to Australia.
- gdhkgdhkvff 5mo agoThat’s quite a takeaway from an interaction with only 2 different people.
- irishcoffee 5mo agoOh, well I guess you can just read this forum to see how Europeans feel about Americans too, the Australian guy was the interesting one. I wasn’t surprised by the European.
- touwer 5mo agoso all Europeans suck, eh?
- irishcoffee 5mo ago
- pjdkoch 5mo agoNotice that a lot of the graphs count people from the Americas. Not USA.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- comrade1234 5mo agoI'm American and moved to Europe (Switzerland) 17-years ago. Sometimes I laugh to myself when I think how whatmy long-dead immigrant grandfather (from Vilnius to Midwest USA) would think of my reverse move. Growing up we always thought my grandparents were the weirdest people. They roasted and ate whole chickens, not cut up chicken parts from the grocery store. They drank tea and ate weird Russian tea cake cookies. They made their own sausage. They hunted ducks and deer. They ate raw beef. Since moving to Europe I buy a lot of my food from neighborhood farms, roast whole chickens, make tartare, make cheese and sausage... hunting and fishing isn't so easy here though - I can do that when I visit relatives in the USA though.
- rmind 5mo agoIronically enough, Vilnius is now a very beautiful, safe and high quality of life city that is a better place to live than, probably, quite a lot of American cities.. How times have changed..
- ceejayoz 5mo agoWhen I was a kid, "starving children in Ethiopia" was a reason to eat your whole dinner. My formerly Swiss grandma once said "starving children in Europe" and I was very thrown for a moment.
- josefritzishere 5mo agoAside from the authoritarian problems, the US is also clearly sliding into some kind of severe economic recession. I'm just envious of people who have that ability, really.
- rbanffy 5mo agoI'd even go as far as saying the authoritarianism has a causal relation with the impending recession, the acceleration of the de-dollarization of foreign commerce, and the unavoidable collapse of the "Pax Americana" that came after the fall of the Soviet Union. Moving to Europe is a smart move, but, having complete freedom, I'd think about someplace in the southern hemisphere. I believe Chile and Brazil will be stable for the next 20 years or so and have good overlap with US timezones. And both are quite far from most of the impending clusterfuck happening in Eastern Europe.
- tardedmeme 5mo agoThe US has put a certain country in charge of a certain oil strait, and also banned that country from using dollars. So anyone who wants to pass the strait has to pay using a Chinese bank transfer in Chinese yuan. This is speedrunning the end of the petrodollar.
- thesmtsolver2 5mo agoWhat? The gap between US and Europe is increasing at a faster rate. If anything, economically Europe looks bleak compared to not just the US but growing countries in Asia. Even by PPP, US looks better. https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-the-economic-gap-between-europe-and-the-united-states-increased-in-the-past-decade https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-the-economic-...
- queenkjuul 5mo agoThe gap between the US GDP and the economic reality for its citizens is also very wide
- aqme28 5mo agoI moved to Berlin a few years ago. Anecdotally, my friends and family back home are jealous.
- haght 5mo ago[dead]
- hylaride 5mo agoI am jealous of the lifestyle of most of Europe, but not the rigid labour markets and lower salaries. I wish we had more people-oriented cities in North America, though. I don't want to be anti-automobile, but the hostility to the "15 minute city" idea was quite depressing to me.
- bergie 5mo agoThe salaries are indeed lower, but you get so much more for the money. Better healthcare, better food, livable cities. Lots of major cost items like a car (or three!) are things you can simply skip.
- chneu 5mo agoMy good friends moved to Germany before they had their kid. They are extremely happy with their decision. Everyone I'm aware of who moved because of Trump/Republicans are happy with their choice.
- geremiiah 5mo agoAlmost all of these are 1st or 2nd gen European diaspora, or the spouses of such people, who 1. still have financial ties to the European country from which they originate through inheritance of assets from their parents/grandparents 2. have citizenship through descent. The amount of "unaffiliated" Americans who move to Europe is probably negligible.
- sebastiennight 5mo agoWouldn't this (unsubstantiated claim, but let's play along) be more troubling though? It would be one thing if people who are "unaffiliated USA citizens[0]" moved to an imaginary place where the grass is greener. You could argue they don't know about all the problems of that place. It's maybe more concerning if the people who flew Place A, because of all the problems of Place A, looking for greener grass in Country B, are looking around and going "hey you know what? Place A wasn't so bad after all. The grass only looked greener because it's plastic!" and then go back. [0]: let's acknowledge we're just talking shades of the same color, when referring to a country that's 250 years old. Nobody's "from there" really
- rbanffy 5mo agoDoing research prior to moving is extremely important. At the time I moved to Ireland, I learned a vicious gang war was happening in the northern regions of Dublin. Up to April 2016, when I arrived, four (four!) people had been murdered in that unprecedented violent event.
- rbanffy 5mo ago> Nobody's "from there" really I once had a Native American on one of my teams. That, and a lot of my fellow Brazilians here are at least partly of the original people. Which came from Asia, through an ice bridge between Asia and North America a couple ice ages back, so, in the end, I guess we are all Africans.
- crote 5mo agoYou'd be surprised. I personally know plenty of American LGBT+ people who are at least considering moving to the EU, simply because recent political developments has made the US an increasingly-unsafe country for them to live in.
- danayfm 5mo agoI've been pulling it off, but I have dual citizenship with EU/USA but still get paid in the US because it saves me 2k a month in taxes. There are also workarounds in avoiding paying the higher EU taxes.
- hyperpower 5mo agoSo you want to take advantage of European quality of life, social nets and infrastructure, but you don't want to help pay for it? How very American.
- piva00 5mo agoI've met a few Americans living like that in Portugal, there are communities that formed in some villages away from the main cities where real estate is very cheap since most villagers had died or moved out. They were proud of not paying Portuguese taxes, I couldn't understand how you can be proud of taking advantage of a society while not contributing financially to it to support the services you enjoy. It's hard for me to understand this mentality...
- Supernaut 5mo agoThe real question is why the Portuguese government is allowing this to happen?
- hellcow 5mo agoNHR (the tax scheme that the parent is discussing) ended. If you didn't already move to Portugal under it, it's no longer available to you, so your question should really be in the past tense. NHR 2.0 offers much reduced benefits and in a much narrower scope.
- danayfm 5mo agoOnce you get used to paying less taxes you don't want to go to paying more and getting the mostly the same. Healthcare costs is different. Also there's the high EU VAT taxes which are taxes already.
- ineedaj0b 5mo agothe inflow to the US is historically low, and this increase of US to EU immigrants is a very good thing imo - the US should be more US, the EU more EU, China more China etc etc.
- rbanffy 5mo agoIsolation breeds difference, but not diversity.
- sublimefire 5mo agoIMO metrics are not well represented when looking into chart, eg european resident/student permits are not the same as green cards, they had to include students in us as well. another thing is the use of eu+uk+switzerland would it not be better to use eea instead (think about iceland and norway)? it is an interesting stat, but it might be good to understand the diff among US folks getting passports vs residence permits vs studying
- lava_pidgeon 5mo agoIf you look up the graph this is a 20 years old trend . One thinks of course about Eastern Europe which had a decent economic growth. Compare to many American HN Readers thinking, "Europe" in General tried to make a place better for living. What it means is of course very dependent on person, but consider thinks like better health care, no war (that's the EU for), better indro, but also economics but to certain percentage it worked out! Though I can't say about American but health care and guns are still a problem. Compare to Europe which hadn't a start up 20 years ago and "Europe" tries to fix t.
- giardini 5mo agolava_pidgeon says >"Though I can't say about American but health care and guns are still a problem. Compare to Europe which hadn't a start up 20 years ago and "Europe" tries to fix t."< What? health care is great in Europe and, if you want a gun, just register as a "hunter" in whatever country and take to Joe Biden's advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-mztxHgYQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-mztxHgYQo Non-music(but less fun) version: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=joe+biden++DOUBLE+BARRELED+SHOTGUN&&mid=FC69B155A234298740A7FC69B155A234298740A7&churl=&FORM=VRDGAR https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=joe+bid... Stay on for timely warnings how "Americans could be killed by a drone."
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- hellcow 5mo agoI'm moving from California to Portugal this week. I get to retire much earlier with low-cost healthcare and a cost of living lower relative to CA, and the Portuguese people I've met have all been wonderful. The food is great too! I'd rather be on the side that supports Ukraine, clean energy, and stable trade agreements. I don't feel safe in the US anymore.
- schnitzelstoat 5mo agoAre you going to have a Portuguese salary or an American one?
- hellcow 5mo agoI'm retiring alongside the move, so neither. I'll still be working on projects and companies but money doesn't factor into what I choose to work on.
- NalNezumi 5mo agoI know a guy that worked for good UK salary (fintech) that moved to Portugal(Lisbon) almost a decade ago. It seems to be a lovely place, he also happily tell me how much he manage to save and how early he will be able to retire. He got many friends there too, but mostly expats. If I'm to believe my Portuguese friends however, the extreme influx of digital nomad types have really changed Lisbon. There's almost no authentic Portuguese thing there anymore, just thing LARPING as it. The rent is too high for any local young Portuguese to pay for, while the landlords are super happy for these influx of wealthy expats, so the young either move out of the city or move all together. In a very utopia like set up, there's something depressing about that reality. When I asked about to my expat friend living there, he acknowledged it, shrugged, and said "don't hate the playa, hate the game". Anyway, enjoy the game!
- hellcow 5mo agoI'm not moving to Lisbon, but my experience in that city aligns with your friends'. Other cities offer much better value for money and hold a lot more of the Portuguese culture intact. There are beautiful cities and towns all throughout the country.
- keiferski 5mo agoI think this is probably useless information considering that legal restrictions largely limit the ability of people to move from one to the other. Speaking as an American that “accidentally” moved to the EU a decade ago, my impression is still that ambitious EU citizens, particularly those in tech or finance, would move to the US in a second if it was possible to. That said, I don’t personally plan on moving back anytime soon, although I do miss certain aspects of the American identity and experience constantly.
- schnitzelstoat 5mo agoYeah, given that it's much easier to get a visa to work in the EU (albeit still not easy) than in the US, the default position ceteris paribus would be that more people would move from the US to Europe than vice versa. The fact that wasn't the case before just goes to show how big an impact the economic disparity has.
- DougN7 5mo agoWhat aspects and experiences do you miss? Which country did you move to? I know I romanticize moving to Europe so would love to hear some balance.
- JKCalhoun 5mo agoFor myself (American), I think I would miss the natural wonders and open road. But I really enjoy roadtripping.
- keiferski 5mo agoToo many things to fit in a HN comment, but basically I miss the optimism and can-do attitude of Americans, as well as the general future-orientation of the culture. Europeans generally situate themselves in terms of the past and aim at a comfortable, quality life. America on the other hand is more of a wildcard with space for crazy ideas. Being an entrepreneur with a dream or a freelancer, for example, is infinitely more socially acceptable in America than in Europe. This is a nerdy reference to make, but I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of the Sprawl in William Gibson’s trilogy. There is something very American about it (and it’s situated in America) but that kind of chaotic dynamic culture-mixing space could never really happen in Europe. I moved to Central Europe btw, but I’ve spent a lot of time in France and Germany as well.
- schnitzelstoat 5mo agoIf they can work remotely and keep their American salaries then they can live like Emperors here. If not, I imagine they will get tired of the low salaries and high taxes and move back to the US. It might be better here for artist types etc. who can benefit more from the social welfare systems than they have to pay in. But for engineers, it makes little sense - you are the one who has to pay for the party.
- chneu 5mo agoYes and no. American salaries are great but our cost of living is insane. The amount of time wasted in the US doing basic stuff also can't be discounted. Our cost of healthcare adds up, as does the cost of everything here. I think this data shows that a lot of Americans are waking up to our brand of "freedom" being bullshit. The American dream is a bit of a myth nowadays. Americans lie to ourselves. If one isn't wealthy in the US, think top 15%, you're better off living outside the US. But Americans are "not yet billionaires" so most of us don't realize this. Our media pumps our hubris and egos using "freedom" and nationalism. Most Americans never travel outside of the US and believe our lives here are infinitely better than anything else in the world. It's something I see constantly when I talk international stuff with rural Americans(and the suburban cosplayer), an absolute fantasy version of the world.
- keiferski 5mo agoCost of living in comparable EU cities is very high as well, except salaries aren’t really correspondingly higher. The American dream is and has always been kind of a national myth but honestly if you limit it to purely making a lot of money by working hard, I think it’s still quite true, and the best place in the world to do so.
- markoman 5mo agoWhen you say that EU cost of living is comparable, are you taking into consideration the cost of health and higher education? In the U.S., if you're not currently priced out on those two points, just give it time & you will be! The U.S. isn't the shining-city-on-the-hill beacon it once was. I think that's pretty clear.
- dredmorbius 5mo agoAlt link: <https://xcancel.com/benbawan/status/2049303326999609846 https://xcancel.com/benbawan/status/2049303326999609846>.
- oxag3n 5mo agoDoesn't include another large group - repatriating Europeans. Our friends went back to Germany last year after 20 years in USA (permanent residents, didn't naturalize). My family plans similar move as well in a few years, mostly blocked by my postgraduate program and exact location to return to. There are other scenarios where we'd move right away, like if my spouse gets laid off.
- queenkjuul 5mo agoYeah my friends just moved back to Belgium after ten years here