Ask HN: Living overseas with a profitable online business • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Living overseas with a profitable online business

#71

Post by gexla » Mon, Oct 04, 2010, 12:14 AM UTC

I agree that other people here are making this more complicated than it has to be. Just go from one place to another on a tourist visa for the country you are visiting. Continue to pay takes in your home country and keep your work on the down low in the country you are visiting. You would probably be walking (if not crossing) some thin lines in regards to laws against working while on a tourist visa but I doubt you would have to worry about getting caught.

The only thing I have really found difficult is dealing with payment issues. Moving money in its many forms can be a pain. This is a big subject which is highly personalized for each person, so I won't get into it here. Just make sure you have a plan a, b and c for getting access to money and contacting your family when problems appear.

Re: Ask HN: Living overseas with a profitable online business

#72

Post by Vivtek » Mon, Oct 04, 2010, 12:48 AM UTC

I've done this since the 90's (I mean, not continuously). Your ATM card works anywhere; as long as you can keep everything at your bank at home working online or through the mail, travel on a tourist visa and work as you go. Pay your taxes at home.

There's nothing like it. You can't really understand a place in less than a year.

Re: Ask HN: Living overseas with a profitable online business

#73

Post by Vivtek » Mon, Oct 04, 2010, 12:52 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #36

Check out expat forums--there are a whole host of countries (largely Latin American) where you can live there on a tourist visa; every 90 days you take a weekend trip to a neighboring country and get a new tourist visa. Since you have an online business you won't be working in the local economy so work authorizations and the like won't be a problem. Also, these countries tend to be really cheap. I know a woman who li…

Could you recommend some expat forums, actually?

Re: Ask HN: Living overseas with a profitable online business

#74

Post by listic » Mon, Oct 04, 2010, 12:59 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #3

I've done it for a couple of years (5 in all), from the Netherlands to Canada. It cost an arm and a leg, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. As for taxes, the rule in my case was that as soon as I spent more than half a year per year in the one country that one became the one where I paid my taxes. I did create a corporation in Canada in order to have a bigger footprint and to help with the immigration proce…

Can you advice a good place to check health insurance in serious detail? I would appreciate that.

Re: Ask HN: Living overseas with a profitable online business

#75

Post by simonw » Mon, Oct 04, 2010, 1:01 AM UTC

I'm doing this right now with my new wife, although our online business (lanyrd.com) isn't exactly profitable yet.

We're UK citizens, and we've made sure our company has a registered address in the UK (with our accountant). We'll pay all taxes in the UK - as far as the world is concerned, we're working on our UK business while travelling. We're doing everything on tourist visas since we're not performing any work for foreign companies etc.

Our accountant advised us that paying tax in the UK would be a great deal easier than trying to figure out how to pay it in foreign countries. Get a good accountant!

We've been travelling for 106 days now, through France, Spain, Morocco and now Egypt. Every single place we have stayed has had WiFi, though occasionally a little flakey. Working and travelling actually go very well together - we'll work in the morning, explore in the afternoon, then maybe work more in the evening. Makes it much less likely you'll over-work and burn yourself out as well.

Re: Ask HN: Living overseas with a profitable online business

#76

Post by jscore » Mon, Oct 04, 2010, 1:09 AM UTC

kroger wrote: post #53

jscore wrote: post #40

Don't try working from Brazil; I tried doing it, but I just spend the whole year going out, partying and the beach. Never got any work done, but was the best year of my life.

Or you can go to a place in Brazil where there is no Beach ;-) Just curious, where in Brazil you went?

Rio de Janeiro. Highly recommended :)

Re: Ask HN: Living overseas with a profitable online business

#77

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 04, 2010, 1:23 AM UTC

hsarvell wrote: post #33

I'm currently living in Thailand (remote programmer) and it's a great country to do these kinds of things from. When it comes to the visa situation here it's kind of difficult, I have a Thai wife which kind of takes care of that for me, otherwise your best option is probably getting a student visa. The internet connection is not the fastest (max 100k/s to the EU/US) but it's very stable even out here in the jungle.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Living overseas with a profitable online business

#78

Post by andreshb » Mon, Oct 04, 2010, 1:55 AM UTC

metastew wrote: post #31

andreshb wrote: post #22

It seems to me all the answers so far make it look far more complicated than what it actually is. What I've done is just travel as tourist staying in each country around 3 months. When I "lived" in Chile I just took weekend 'visa vacations' to Argentina and had my stay extended for another 90 days. Nothing changed in terms of taxes for me, since I never really become resident of another country. Earning money online…

How did you like living in Peru? I've thought about getting an apartment there for a short while and work on developing my business.

Peru is beautiful, but I'm not a fan of Lima's weather (think seattle). So for travel+fun I'd recommend just landing in Lima and going elsewhere in the mountains. If I did not have to recruit engineers, meet entrepreneurs or do biz dev, I'd def. stay in Cusco for a while.

The food and transportation is very affordable, and really really cheap if you don't go to the touristy restaurants and instead head to el mercado (marketplace). You can get a full meal with soup, drink and dessert for like US$.60-$1

Now, if you want to meet fellow hackers/entrepreneurs and recruit incredible talent, check out http://limavalley.com the startup/tech community in Peru.

Re: Ask HN: Living overseas with a profitable online business

#79

Post by andreshb » Mon, Oct 04, 2010, 1:58 AM UTC

elai wrote: post #61

nagrom wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great advice. I've done something similar and found that after about 2 months you can get a flavour of what life in that country would be like. It's a fantastic thing to do, and it will completely change your perspective on life in the UK! It's incredibly important to have someone you can trust to take care of admin issues at home if you're gone a while though. My parents helped me out, but a lawyer or accoun…

You make a deal with the a really nice internet cafe with a good connection. All the kids speaking in a foreign language going crazy over video games might be distracting (especially when school comes out o_O), but it's like a rentable AC office with a good connection and cheap drinks and snacks. Or can rent a apartment that comes with it's own landline internet connection. The landlords can set it up in their name f…

You can usually find furnished apartments/room with internet included. In Buenos Aires and in Chile I found mine through craigslist.

Santiago: ~USD$250/mo all inclusive (with flatmates) Buenos Aires: ~USD$480/mo all inclusive Studio

Re: Ask HN: Living overseas with a profitable online business

#80

Post by vinvigor » Mon, Oct 04, 2010, 2:06 AM UTC

borism wrote: post #50

gommm wrote: post #24

I've been doing that for a few years now, first working in Japan, then living for some time in Malaysia, Thailand and China before deciding on settling here for some time.. For Japan, I was working there for a Japanese company so it's a bit different... For visas in Malaysia and Thailand, I just switched between both countries for 2-3 months at a time (but stayed more in Malaysia), so I didn't need a visa for such a…

> Since, my official country of residence at the time was france, I didn't have to pay any taxes. I'm sorry, but I have hard time believing that. Since you were still a resident of France I'm sure you have to pay some tax to France in some shape or form.

US is rare in that it declares the right to tax its citizens' income wherever they live. Most countries don't do that.