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As Digital Nomads Flock to Lisbon, Portugal's Youth Are Leaving in Droves

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Re: As Digital Nomads Flock to Lisbon, Portugal's Youth Are Leaving in Droves

#71

In summary, salaries need to rise (and they are), and the tax system needs to raise its thresholds accordingly (and it hasn't yet?). Note that the increase in housing costs has been largely driven by AirBnB etc, like much of the more desirable to tourists parts of Europe. Digital nomads (working remotely, almost by definition, and not getting paid that much in the grand scheme of things, again almost by definition) a…

> Digital nomads (working remotely, almost by definition, and not getting paid that much in the grand scheme of things what are you talking about?? to be a digital nomad, you have to spend significantly more to sustain traveling and the added expenses of short term rentals. I could cut my costs in half if I just stayed in one spot for a few months. A typical apartment is going to cost half of an equivalent airbnb and…

The basic premise of digital nomadism is to earn less then you would otherwise being 'on-prem' (pandemic changes notwithstanding, generally more lucrative careers require at least a certain amount of 'face time'), but have a higher standard of life because you are in a low cost of living region. Things like surfing when you feel like it might be a bot harder otherwise.

Agree that flitting about every 3-6 months is not the most efficient way to provide for life's necessities, hence why nomads might struggle in e.g. Zurich, but be fine in e.g. Bali (or Lisbon, before things got crazy).

Re: As Digital Nomads Flock to Lisbon, Portugal's Youth Are Leaving in Droves

#72
post #8

Expats can be helpful to a country like Portugal but it has to be done correctly. And of course it hasn't. What Portugal needs to do is: 1. Ban Airbnb and other short-term housing other than renting out a room in your house ; 2. Provide a huge stock of social housing, meaning housing at an affordable price only available to natives; and 3. Restrict foreign ownership of huge swathes of the country. This could be as si…

Agree with 1. Ban AirBnB. (this is already in play as I understand it) Silly tax incentives like Non-Habitual Residency have to go (done). 2. Actually already exists in the suburbs, but maybe now needs a bit of a make over. Of course the children of well-heeled Portuguese wouldn't stoop to live in such places while studying at University, but hey that's the world we live in! 3. The Golden Visa scheme is a nonsense (I…

> Agree with 1. Ban AirBnB. (this is already in play as I understand it)

I believe no new licenses are being granted. Personally, I don't think this goes far enough. Revoke existing licenses.

> The Golden Visa scheme is a nonsense (I think this is also being scrapped)

IMHO this was an overreaction. If the issue was pricing out locals, you could simply remove real estate as a qualifying investment under the visa and/or increase the minimum investment amount.

Re: As Digital Nomads Flock to Lisbon, Portugal's Youth Are Leaving in Droves

#73
post #11
post #8

Expats can be helpful to a country like Portugal but it has to be done correctly. And of course it hasn't. What Portugal needs to do is: 1. Ban Airbnb and other short-term housing other than renting out a room in your house ; 2. Provide a huge stock of social housing, meaning housing at an affordable price only available to natives; and 3. Restrict foreign ownership of huge swathes of the country. This could be as si…

Expats and digital nomads aren't the same thing. I'm an expat but I work locally for a local company with local wages like most people around me The problem is working for foreign company which pays a salary that is way above what your peers live with, it creates insane inequalities. One month of a good tech salary is one year of min wage in Portugal

What you describe sounds like an immigrant, not an expat.

Re: As Digital Nomads Flock to Lisbon, Portugal's Youth Are Leaving in Droves

#74
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expats and digital nomads aren't the same thing. I'm an expat but I work locally for a local company with local wages like most people around me The problem is working for foreign company which pays a salary that is way above what your peers live with, it creates insane inequalities. One month of a good tech salary is one year of min wage in Portugal

>The problem is working for foreign company which pays a salary that is way above what your peers live with, it creates insane inequalities. Those inequalities are present regardless. It's just a matter of out of sight, out of mind. Check out this global inequality calculator, you might be surprised to learn that you're in the global 1%: https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i

No it's not, when you can't live in your home town because foreigners with foreign salaries take everything it matters a lot.

I don't care if someone is getting paid 5x as much for the same job in another country, I care if they get paid 5x as much for the same city

Re: As Digital Nomads Flock to Lisbon, Portugal's Youth Are Leaving in Droves

#75
post #73
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expats and digital nomads aren't the same thing. I'm an expat but I work locally for a local company with local wages like most people around me The problem is working for foreign company which pays a salary that is way above what your peers live with, it creates insane inequalities. One month of a good tech salary is one year of min wage in Portugal

What you describe sounds like an immigrant, not an expat.

An expat is someone who's not living in his home country, so yes, by definition... I think a lot of people use words without understanding their meanings

Re: As Digital Nomads Flock to Lisbon, Portugal's Youth Are Leaving in Droves

#76
post #21
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expats and digital nomads aren't the same thing. I'm an expat but I work locally for a local company with local wages like most people around me The problem is working for foreign company which pays a salary that is way above what your peers live with, it creates insane inequalities. One month of a good tech salary is one year of min wage in Portugal

This is a distinction without a difference. Expats often come with money from having higher wages overseas even if they work at local rates. Retirees, people who sell homes in a developed country and so on. Other than that, the Portugese government should favor Portugese people over the interests of people who simply want to relocate without any means whatsoever. This is already the case: immigrating to Portugal requ…

> Expats often come with money from having higher wages overseas even if they work at local rates.

I and most of my friends are expat, we left our home country after graduation, we didn't bring nay money. We're far from an exception

Re: As Digital Nomads Flock to Lisbon, Portugal's Youth Are Leaving in Droves

#77
post #18
post #15

What a hilariously short-sighted policy from Portugal. Offer visas for rich remote workers and also exempt them from contributing to health system, and give them huge tax discounts. It's like the Portuguese government actually hates its citizens.

As I wrote elsewhere, paying into the social security in Portugal with a salary of 80.000 Euros means paying 88% in taxes and social security. Do you think that is reasonable? Additionally everyone I know has their own insurance and pays for all of their health bills. And that‘s only for urgent things, planned surgeries are usually done in the home country anyway.

you 're probably applying the highest tax bracket to the whole amount, but that's not how it works

Re: As Digital Nomads Flock to Lisbon, Portugal's Youth Are Leaving in Droves

#78
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employed by a portuguese company 80000€ / year is taxed average 42.8%, take home after tax: 45728€ This gives you a monthly pay after tax of 3811€ (way above average in the country, which unfortunately is really low)

Right. But as a nomad you cannot just give up your own health insurance and you cannot just stop paying into a foreign retirement fund yourself. Portugal won‘t allow you to deduce that, of course, and it‘s another 1500-2000 per month to subtract in case of private insurance for example. Leaving around < 2000 net. And as I said that‘s without the mandatory social security problem on foreign income.

isn't the whole point of moving to europe to get away from expensive insurance?

Re: As Digital Nomads Flock to Lisbon, Portugal's Youth Are Leaving in Droves

#79
post #15

What a hilariously short-sighted policy from Portugal. Offer visas for rich remote workers and also exempt them from contributing to health system, and give them huge tax discounts. It's like the Portuguese government actually hates its citizens.

And it has been copied by many other countries because the internet said "great success!!1!"

Re: As Digital Nomads Flock to Lisbon, Portugal's Youth Are Leaving in Droves

#80
post #62

I spoke to a real estate agent about the housing problem. And it’s not an obvious one. And one very few ever talk about. The problem is that most builders need to borrow money from the bank for a project. But the government red tape can take from 1-3 years. Plus the building phase can be 1-2 years. So a total of 2-5 years. Builders cannot property plan project schedule, finance schedule and are feeling excessive risk…

does portugal need more buildings since their population is going down? Is there not available inventory at all, or is it another case of many houses sitting empty?

Also, hopefully the airbnBust will come to europe next year , i feel the airbnb meme is way overdone

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