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South Korea launches digital nomad visa to boost remote work options in 2024

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Re: South Korea launches digital nomad visa to boost remote work options in 2024

#21

Post by renewiltord »

punkbit wrote: post #14
alexawarrior23 wrote: post #4

So I've got to prove I make $70k a year, and then put down a $7500 deposit on a small apartment that costs me $1800 a month in a crappy part of Seoul, and get insurance and a bunch of other things, and then I only get to stay six months, and if I extend it it's only up to two years? No thanks. When will the demographic time bomb racial supremacist countries learn that people want to ACTUALLY IMMIGRATE to countries? B…

People can’t simply decide to move to the US, Australia and UK and spend the rest of their lives there. The same applies to South Korea. You want to live there, you need to apply for a visa like everyone else.

Yeah, his point is that he isn't going to do it with those restrictions. Most of these startup visas have all these restrictions. And everyone is always like "yeah, you need to play by the rules like everyone else" and shit like that, but in the end it's just people saying "I'm not buying what you're offering" and then the government just sits there not having achieved whatever objective it set out to do with this stuff.

It's an asymmetric relationship. The nomad doesn't care if SK runs this program. But SK does care if people don't come.

Re: South Korea launches digital nomad visa to boost remote work options in 2024

#22

Post by throwaway290 »

scotty79 wrote: post #16
alexawarrior23 wrote: post #4

So I've got to prove I make $70k a year, and then put down a $7500 deposit on a small apartment that costs me $1800 a month in a crappy part of Seoul, and get insurance and a bunch of other things, and then I only get to stay six months, and if I extend it it's only up to two years? No thanks. When will the demographic time bomb racial supremacist countries learn that people want to ACTUALLY IMMIGRATE to countries? B…

Shouldn't rich people be able to get hassle free visas? Why ban them from your country if they just want to live there and spend their money, regardless of whether they earn some more or not? Just prove you have 100k and you get to stay this many days.

This is the hassle free rich people visa version of South Korea. Prove you earn $XXXXXX, leave $XXXXXX deposit, buy $XXXXX insurance = get a golden visa for two years, then get the hell out.

It's not to accommodate people who might actually want to live there (for whatever crazy reason)

Re: South Korea launches digital nomad visa to boost remote work options in 2024

#23

Post by alexawarrior23 »

TheRoque wrote: post #9
alexawarrior23 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as your source of income is entirely outside the country, which it typically is, then in most cases you're fine. You're essentially just like a travelling investor. It's earning income from within the country that you can't do legally without a visa.

That's not true, and it's often not well known, but your own physical location is also a factor, not only your source of income. Most countries would never detect this anyways, but you shouldn't think that it's legal at all.

Well then I guess the lawyers I hired in country were all lying to me? As long as I didn't overstay my visa, didn't stay more than the required time for physical presence test tax liability (typically 180 days), and didn't work for firms inside the country, I was legit.

Please let me know if I was given bad legal advice, because I don't want to get thrown in jail in the future.

Re: South Korea launches digital nomad visa to boost remote work options in 2024

#24

Post by petesergeant »

jbverschoor wrote: post #11

Again no mention of taxation

Which usually means you’ll be caught my the country’s general tax provisions, and the local tax agency will have no institutional knowledge of how this is meant to work for people on this visa.

Re: South Korea launches digital nomad visa to boost remote work options in 2024

#25

Post by maeil »

alexawarrior23 wrote: post #4

So I've got to prove I make $70k a year, and then put down a $7500 deposit on a small apartment that costs me $1800 a month in a crappy part of Seoul, and get insurance and a bunch of other things, and then I only get to stay six months, and if I extend it it's only up to two years? No thanks. When will the demographic time bomb racial supremacist countries learn that people want to ACTUALLY IMMIGRATE to countries? B…

> So I've got to prove I make $70k a year, and then put down a $7500 deposit on a small apartment that costs me $1800 a month

Nice, And that's places that are suitable for 2 people to live in - the large majority of digital nomads live on their own, in which case it's even cheaper.

Re: South Korea launches digital nomad visa to boost remote work options in 2024

#26

Post by petesergeant »

throwaway290 wrote: post #18
tavavex wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about South Korea's immigration policies, but why should this specific program accommodate permanent immigration? This visa is the opposite of a worker visa for a person that may want to become a permanent resident in the future - its purpose is to let someone live on their land while still being considered a citizen of their origin country for all other purposes. I'm guessing that there are better…

In most countries if you stay long enough and qualify then you become a permanent resident. The sneaky trick that SK is doing with its maximum term of 2 years is ensuring that no one on this arrangement will be eligible (which apparently requires residing there for 5 years at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_South_Korea ). This makes the program entirely pointless for intended audience, ie. people…

Or, more likely, people will switch to a different visa type if they’re looking to do more years? I’m not sure any of this counts as a “sneaky trick”

Re: South Korea launches digital nomad visa to boost remote work options in 2024

#27

Post by petesergeant »

alexawarrior23 wrote: post #23
TheRoque wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true, and it's often not well known, but your own physical location is also a factor, not only your source of income. Most countries would never detect this anyways, but you shouldn't think that it's legal at all.

Well then I guess the lawyers I hired in country were all lying to me? As long as I didn't overstay my visa, didn't stay more than the required time for physical presence test tax liability (typically 180 days), and didn't work for firms inside the country, I was legit. Please let me know if I was given bad legal advice, because I don't want to get thrown in jail in the future.

If they told you the legal advice they were giving you for a specific country was valid in all countries, and that all countries treated this income the same way, then yes, they lied to you.

Re: South Korea launches digital nomad visa to boost remote work options in 2024

#28

Post by alexawarrior23 »

worthless-trash wrote: post #15

My memory may be failing, last time (15 years ish? ) I looked at living / staying in Korea most places asked for a full years rent up front, then additional rent each month. You are supposed to get it back at the end of the lease. It would be trivial for a land lord to abuse a foreigner in this circumstance on the VISA, its not like you can stay around after the end of your lease to take them to court to recoup your…

Exactly, I suffered this landlord abuse while working abroad. Apartment was delivered back to the landlord crystal clean and 100% intact. Then they took my entire deposit and billed me around 12,000 EUR. I even had pictures to show that I had done no damage, but you can imagine how foreigner vs native testimony works in these kinds of super-racist countries. I managed to leave before I had to pay the bill, but I still lost my full deposit. Apparently this "fleece the foreigner" is a well known tactic in some countries.

Re: South Korea launches digital nomad visa to boost remote work options in 2024

#29

Post by dietr1ch »

numpad0 wrote: post #13
Fbnkigffb66tfbj wrote: post #2

I haven't seen any "digital nomad visas" that make much sense for a typical nomadic remote worker. Why go through all the bureaucracy when I can just quietly work while on 30-90 day visa-free (or cheap and easy visa-on-arrival) tourist entry stamps?

> just quietly work while on 30-90 day visa-free (...) tourist entry dude.

Generally restrictions are against working for a local company, since that would be a workaround of getting the right visa for you.

I think most tourist entries are ok with working for a company abroad, especially if some jobs might require to step-in while on vacation.

Re: South Korea launches digital nomad visa to boost remote work options in 2024

#30

Post by maeil »

renewiltord wrote: post #21
punkbit wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can’t simply decide to move to the US, Australia and UK and spend the rest of their lives there. The same applies to South Korea. You want to live there, you need to apply for a visa like everyone else.

Yeah, his point is that he isn't going to do it with those restrictions. Most of these startup visas have all these restrictions. And everyone is always like "yeah, you need to play by the rules like everyone else" and shit like that, but in the end it's just people saying "I'm not buying what you're offering" and then the government just sits there not having achieved whatever objective it set out to do with this st…

> It's an asymmetric relationship. The nomad doesn't care if SK runs this program. But SK does care if people don't come.

Unfortunately, they don't particularly care. The whole driver behind this program is optics. Both to domestic voters "Look at how global and modern the current government is and how much we're doing", as well as to international headline-readers "Look at how progressive Korea is".

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