Sure the weather is the best I've ever experienced on earth, the food is great, and the cost of living is low. But on the other hand you have an ecosystem that is nothing to write home about, culturally it's good but not great like London or NYC, academia is lackluster (no world-class universities in any subject, bar 1 MBA), not very international, not a whole lot going on in general.
Portugal is a great place to come on holiday, go surfing, go sailing, and retire. It's not an intellectually stimulating place, and the general level of competence in everything from local government to enterprise management is extremely frustrating.
I would say to OP that usually if a place is interesting, it won't be cheap as there is more demand for it. Maybe look at Oxford, UK, Bristol, UK, Edinburgh, UK, or Rotterdam, NL as secondary cities with still enough going on. Apparently Bordeaux is nice but I have never been so can't say.
You do have a point there, but I think what skews this picture somewhat is language barriers. Everyone learns English in school and English is the language of academia, so all else being equal, the demand for English speaking locations is bound to be greater than for other destinations.
Because the tax payers are paying €110m for it? http://www.thejournal.ie/lisbon-web-summit-new-ten-year-deal...
Feels like it's been a "win-win" for everyone (except perhaps the "locals" who have no interest in tourism/tech and have been priced out of their rental accommodation by "AirBnB Landlords"... it's the SF apartment price squeeze all over)
If I were to guess the reason for the selection of Lisbon, it would be this: the Web Summit organising team have to spend much of the year in the city where the event is held. They chose a city they want to be in for their own reasons. e.g: Weather/Climate, Food, Culture, Night Life, Scenery (lots of city parks, cycle/pedestrian areas), Architecture, Surf/Sailing, good International Schools (for those who have children) ... Mostly still "cheap" for visitors.
There's a good reason why people say that Lisbon is like SF but with better weather and more affordable.
Eu dominates the US for quality of life and standard of living.
This is probably considered off, so message me
I will just add my suggestion of a another city to the mix: Aveiro. Small yet not too small, cheap, a short hop from Porto, 2hrs away from Lisbon, with trains and good highways, a very tech oriented university, excellent food, close by the sea and a huge lagoon good for all kinds of watersports.
I work for an US based company from here, and I used to live in Lisbon for 10+ years. Love Lisbon, but my quality of life here in Aveiro is so much better.
* Cost of living for a good quality of life still being relatively high or rising, especially in Lisbon and other tourist/expat areas. And a second tier city in Portugal is much less of a clear choice since that is comparable to a lot more places.
* The tax system being very complicated. One can always argue about how much tax to pay, but few people want a complicated tax system, especially not as a foreigner. (And is usually an indication that other systems are complicated as well).
* The tech scene not really happening. Despite the usual "next Silicon Valley" it doesn't really stand out from anywhere else as far as I can tell.
There might certainly be things I don't see, but at least initially it doesn't seem like Portugal rise above the competition to the extent that you wouldn't have to consider quite a few other options.
As I've said in another comment, IRS is literally filling out an online app for 5 minutes - and all relevant entries are already pre-filled. It's very easy and simple.
As for companies, my girlfriend works at a company run by two Germans and they basically hire an accountant to do the paperwork every year. It's pretty cheap. For a larger company, you'd have to hire a local to do the accounting, though.
Maybe I'm missing something because I don't run my own company, bear in mind that hiring freelancers is cheap here.
Why is it better?
Purportedly they can fine you tens of thousands of euros for tiny honest mistakes even if you don't owe one cent of tax (Modelo 720).
If you have questions drop me a line.
* highly educated
Universities are not very good.
* and english speaking
Don't they speak Portuguese?
*youth and a will to conquer the world.
Unlikely. And Silicon Valley is not about guys with laptops creating some websites. It is all about high tech, top universities, supply chains and synergy effects. You may be able to to a technology heavy start-up in the UK, Germany, China, Japan, Korea but in Portugal this is difficult. You lack the industrial supply chain of customized high tech products. Just working on your laptop you can also do in Kenya (which actually is quite innovative in IT).
Portugal is a nice place. Nice people. But too little high tech, too much debt, demography problems etc.
" destruction created by more than 50 years of fascist dictatorship." Not aware how much damage this created. The Portuguese empire was not important before the dictatorship anymore, so not sure how much time you really lost.
But PT has many good things. I wish RE was cheaper in Lisbon and I would buy immediately.
Caveats:
- If you intend to work within Academia, you may occasionally have to deal with fairly incompetent professors. It depends on the research unit and area, but there tends to be a certain amount of people who got full tenure in the past by connections and self-publications only. Needless to say that there are also some very good people. For example, at our institute about 50% are foreigners with excellent publications in English.
- Rents have skyrocketed during the past years in all beautiful areas of Lisbon. It's still not even comparable to SF, of course, but you need to calculate around 800 for a decent 2 room apartment. Housing prices have also gone up, but if you have the money it would be a safe investment - they'll continue to rise for quite a while. (Is there any major capital where they don't rise?)
- Social hierarchies and "respect" (in the sense of brown-nosing) are generally more important than in the north of Europe. Portuguese are very friendly towards foreigners, but they can be rather unfriendly among themselves. It's a kind of social pressure and artificial politeness/respect that can be very unappealing in the long run. You can never say straightforward to your boss what you think, no matter how right you are. Critique always needs to be very indirect.
I cannot say anything about the startup scene, because I'm not familiar with it. I suppose it's generally harder to obtain VC funding or bank credits than in the US. Starting a company is very easy, though, for a small company it suffices to hire a freelance account. IRS is also outstanding and can be done online within 5 minutes. The only downside is that as a foreigner you don't get a citizen card, which means that you have to go to local authorities in person instead of doing it online, too. Traditionally, Lisboagas (for natural gas delivery) and the Social Security authority suck, every other authority or company I've dealt with in the past 10 years was super-friendly and professional.
Overall, I can totally recommend Lisbon for anyone who wants high quality of living combined with low costs of living. I have no plans of ever moving away again and instead plan to open my own little software company in case my postdoc funding ever dries out - so far it's still going well in Academia though.
Athens.
I need to leave that country for my own sanity and I'm currently on the lookout for a new one to move to. All this talk about portugal is very tempting :)
Also education is not very convincing (considering op might want a family). Universities in Portugal are not that great nor renowned. Many qualified young people go work abroad by lack of local opportunities. I've also heard that healthcare is messy if you can't pay. It doesn't sound like a healthy country to me.
I guess Portugal is good enough if you just want sun, decent food, cheap QoL and good internet, but I wouldn't consider it a thriving intellectual place by any means. But maybe in OP's words, good intellect = finding a sufficient concentration of other engineers. Then it might be enough.
I disagree. Universities are not the problem. General school is. As a rule of thumb, public universities are better than private ones and the opposite on general school.
Also can't think of any portugese scientist, or portugese based lab renowned for anything in biology or computer science.
Fernando Pereira comes to mind: he made significant contributions to the early development of logic programming (e.g. C-Prolog) and natural language processing, as well as other AI research.
Lisbon is quite good in all of the above since it is well placed on the European circuit for performing arts and has plenty of smallish but very high quality museums. As a music student there I got to hear all of the greats and frankly I got to attend relatively more high-quality concerts there than what I get around to living in Paris, since in Lisbon I didn't have to book everything 6 months in advance. (I'm not complaining about Paris, it's awesome.)
Braga on the other hand has a lot less cultural activity as is normal for a small city. However, it does have an incredibly rich history, plenty of ancient monuments (mostly churches) and is a 45-minute drive from Porto.
If you're talking about the bubbling native culture that you can find in cities like London or New York, than no, Portugal isn't the hottest place. But the SV isn't either.
Can you elaborate on this? Wouldn't a U.S citizen still be limited to only 90 days in the Shengen zone every 180 days? Or is there some type of freelance visa?
Nevertheless - my point was, you’re living my dream and I’ll definitely give a visit when my life allows for a Portugal trip. Never been yet.
No matter where your customers are, you are subject to (at the very least) tax and social security regulations of the country you live in.
Rather than looking in the mirror I would suggest looking at:
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/corruption-rank
http://www.doingbusiness.org/en/doingbusiness
As a foreigner you cannot do as the locals do when it comes to corruption (even if you wanted to) or you're going to have a target on your back.
You don't need to shun the people even if you shun the country.
I feel it's already very widespread to avoid any visits to Turkey and Russia (among others obviously), though it's hard to say how much of it is because of the political situation, and how much because of perceived instability. Personally, I would like to see Hagia Sophia but I'm unlikely to visit as long as Turkey stays in the current dictatorial road.
The scale may be different, but the situation in the US is not to good either on these topics, and has been deteriorating lately.
A total of 11 journalists have been arrested during the protests in Ferguson
Most were only held briefly, not charged
German reporter says he's never been treated so badly by police
https://www-m.cnn.com/2014/08/19/us/ferguson-journalists-arr...
I saw something once that credibly argued that the treatment of Chelsea Manning in prison amounted to torture.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Manning
The current president of the US has called for his political opponent to be jailed. Not readily finding actual instances of actually jailing political opponents in the US, but I'm not trying that hard either.
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2018/1/2/1729104/-Donald-Trum...
We also generally treat Blacks and Natives terribly and generally have crazy high rates of incarceration.
Ferguson protests were dangerous and riotous at times. Sure, some people were arrested that shouldn't have been, but they were released. This isn't even comparable to the kinds of journalist arrests and murders we are talking about.
Journalists entrenched in violent protests will inevitably get arrested, that's not a break down of rule of law, nor of democracy; are they getting imprisoned for being journalists who are critical of the president? Not AFAICT. In Turkey journalists are imprisoned for not supporting Erdogan.
Has Trump called for his opponents to be imprisoned for not supporting him? Or, did he claim they had committed crimes for which objectively they should be punished? Erdogan has his political opponents actually imprisoned; and 10s of thousands of their supporters.
Trump is a whacked out crazy misogynist, displays the worst traits of capitalist greed, and of self-obsession, he's a power hungry ignoramus. But Erdogan is an evil genocidal fascist.
However it's still a long way away from countries like Turkey or Uzbekistan or Russia.
Compare the US to Brazil or South Africa sure, point out how it's no longer in the same bracket as Canada or Denmark or NZ, but comparing to Turkey or Thailand does a disservice.
Like, yeah, Turkey is worse. I think. I'm not even sure, given that Turkey has less power. So no, it's not at that level. Yet.
Trump's inclination to reduce everything to ass kissing ("has said nice things about me") and personal vendettas would be an absolute disaster in many countries. But the US is healthy enough to survive him - I think.
Does it. A first-past-the-post system which reduces everything to two parties. Low voter turnouts. High gerrymandering. Terrible voter accessibility laws. Three branches of government end-to-end owned by only one party. And a ton of money in politics thanks to Citizens United.
I'm sorry, but "robust democratic institutions" and "checks and balances" at this point are things americans tell themselves to sleep better at night. If you step back, you start seeing just how far gone the country is.
(I'm not American)
The constitution also defines the process of changing the constitution itself (article V), and it does not include a way for Mr Trump or his party to do that as they do not have the required two thirds majority in both houses or in state legislatures.
Importantly, there isn't even a way for him to whip up emotions in a referendum in order to change the constitution.
The judiciary is not controlled by any party at all. Supreme court judges are appointed for life to prevent arbitrary interventions by other branches of government.
And in practical terms, did you really get the impression that Trump has unwavering support even just among the legislators of his own party? Did you get the impression that the FBI acts on Trump's say so? How about the courts?
No, what I'm seeing is a wannabe autocrat who is kept in check by an extremely robust set of institutions, constitutional arrangements and by a lot of principled individuals inside those institutions.
I don't see Xi, Erdogan or Putin getting investigated by their own police or courts, having to fear impeachment or face the sort of (well deserved) journalistic onslaught that Trump has had to face.
You realize that if they get this bad, it's too late to take action, right?
Here's the same logic, applied to a different field: "Oh, yes, you keep talking about climate change but I only see mild temperature increases and I'm not even sure they're man-made. I don't see the sea level rise and catastrophic outcomes you're talking about. If we start seeing those, we'll take action."
It'll be too late.
That's exactly why so many autocrats and parties with an authoritarian bent try to change the constitutions of their countries in order to give themselves greater powers.
Trump hasn't done that because he can't. And I think this deserves far more attention than it is getting. It is something other countries can learn from.
https://apnews.com/0a029f0bf678452aa89facb6dfba5f25 - AP - WH restricts AP, Reuters, Bloomberg for KJU summit
http://time.com/5270968/donald-trump-reporters-credentials-m... - TIME, Donald Trump threatens taking away reporter credentials
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/09/donald-trump... - The Guardian - White House won't rule out banning press for 'negative' coverage
Just a couple of examples of what white house press feels like under the Trump era. Talk to me more about "his predecessor".
Edit: Today's bonus article on freedom of speech, press, and assembly: https://outline.com/3TKY5M - CNN - DOJ demands Facebook information from 'anti-administration activists'.
There's like one of these every day at least. So, you know, I don't believe you.
Of course, other checks are being removed left and right, so I don't think it evens out in the case of the Trump admin.
I wouldn't move to any of those places though, partly because I don't want to support people like Hamas or Erdogan, and with the justice systems in these countries, that's what you're doing. Same if you set up shop in Colombia or Venezuela.
However it's also because of corrupt governments means I as a westerner am particularly vulnerable. Canada, New Zealand, Finland, Portugal, Japan, Argentina, sure, you'll be fine (ok maybe not Brits in Argentina).
If all you're doing is a backpacking gap year, and you're willing to get out of these fast, you're probably OK, but look at how quickly Istanbul turned during the attempted coup. Things can get very ugly, very quickly, or they can get very ugly in a boiling frog basis and you won't notice until it's too late. Neither is good.
For example, Russia bombs and shells cities in Europe and Africa, uses chemical weapons, bombs hospitals, torture and kills civilians in their own and even in other countries, supports terrorists, spread fake news, and so on. But you can find lot of intellectuals in Moscow.
In one word, no
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-... is a good starting point
Well, you could say that the United States is run by a similar person. That does mean all of the U.S. is like that?
Istanbul does have a good intellectual atmosphere. Izmir too.
I'm not going to say it's all fine over here, but it's perfect for a digital nomad. Istanbul, especially places like Besiktas and Kadikoy are perfect.
No, you really couldn't. While the US democratic system is augmented by a very strong executive position, he still is only the executive of the system with fairly robust checks and balances in place (which seems to be working despite intense tire kicking).
US is not run by the president.
This quora answer seems a pretty good 101 on the issue:
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-US-not-a-parliamentary-syst...
Just because a person tweets like an ex-wrestler turned autocrat does not make him so.
Trump is just an error in the system, a person that is incapable of following the rituals and gain advantage of a low-profile attitude.
The civic quality of the Turkish system has quite a troubled history. Turkey's government has been held at a gunpoint by it's military for decades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
"systemic corruption in the USA has been prevalent for almost a century"
I think that needs a quotation. US history is filled with genocide, empire building and after the 1970's, funnelling the profits from the economy from the employees to the capital owners. That, however, is not the same thing as corruption.
We're not discussing who is 'good' or 'bad', but comparing the quality and nature of institutions on the national level.
Certainly the couple of military coups there I know of seemed to rapidly result in establishing a strongly democratic constitution and a group of representatives to whom the assumed power could be handed over to.
Not that this is a bad thing. I don't see any reason for the great design & engineering talent in Istanbul to stay there, while the ruling government treats anybody who's not a part of their clientele (conservative, xenophobic, nationalist, authoritarian) like cockroaches. Considering they're only getting 51% even with the massive, massive practical broadcast power the ruling governments get, that's a lot of people.
So we vote. In the best way. With our feet.
Funnily enough, even Erdogan is realising that Turkey is losing a massive amount of talent on a month-to-month basis, in that it's been in a few of his speeches imploring people to come back lately. Apparently he realised when we're all gone, and when the construction / inflated real estate boom stops (which it did a few months ago, and the economy is in free fall right now), the only people who actually produce value are the people he did his best to alienate and scare out of the country. I believe his literal words in a national speech were: "Like, or leave" ("Ya sev, ya terket").
So we did, and I'm now paying my tax bill to the Internal Revenue Service of the United States, instead of Vergi Idaresi, and you know what? USA treats me with a lot more dignity and respect than Turkey ever did.
Turkey is going to starve (hopefully only figuratively) before it gets better, and I don't have a big problem with that. There's no teacher for authoritarians like it.
Istanbul is a beautiful city and I'd love to go back. That being said, I've also traveled to over 30 countries and have a bit more perspective on the matter compared to the average American.
>"[...] 134,000 people in Turkey have been sacked, including 7,300 academics and 4,300 judge and prosecutors in the nine months since the failed coup in which there is little evidence that any of them knew anything about or were otherwise involved. Some 231 journalists are in jail and 149 media outlets have been shut down, while 95,500 people have been detained and 47,600 arrested under emergency laws." (https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/turkey-erdogan-referend...)
Consider three sentences which could carry very different meanings:
Polite decline: "No, thank you."
Firm decline: "No, thank you."
Scolding decline: "No, thank you."
Perhaps not the best examples, but if italics helps reduce ambiguity and preserve more subtlety, I'm for it.
I have never really seen anyone in the states use italicization with the "No, thank you" example. Its better to just use emojis instead to get the same message across. Italicization used this way is sometimes treated as sarcasm or passive aggressiveness. Using italicization this way more excessively eventually goes to things like * <bashes away at keyboard> * or writing actions in written form. Those aren't subtle, but they are really awkward to read.
If I can just ignore them it seems to read better but it's hard work to do so, but maybe that's just me :)
I’m a freelance software developer and can happily work out here even on a plot of land which has no power/net connection. The 3G/4G is great, and everything easily runs of a single solar panel.
This isn’t my long term plan, but does me well when I come out here for a few weeks at a time. Long term there’ll be a house etc.
If there was a coworking space in Covilha / Castelo Branco I’d be very keen.
Otherwise I may start a little coders retreat or some such :-)
But this reminds me I haven’t posted for ages!
Do you have any stats proving that? Just asked a portuguese friend living in Barcelona and said that is a quite bold statement.
I'm sure it's just a slip of tongue but never ever say things like that in Portugal...
I have searched but haven't found anything concrete ... the best data available is: https://www.ef.edu.pt/epi/regions/europe/portugal
in lieu of stats, I'll give you the logic [facts] instead: English as a Second Language (lessons) begins in the 5th grade in Portugal. It's compulsory for all people and generally high quality.
see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Portugal
Students cannot graduate from High school without proficiency in English. So the system is setup to ensure that the next generation [the one you will be interacting with in most situations] is fluent in English.
I know from first-hand experience of going to a "government" school and being taught by a fantastic teacher who studied at Cambridge, UK. The English lessons are predominantly "mechanical" i.e. grammar/vocabulary and sentence structure. But the fact that all television is sub-titled, not dubbed, means that all popular CSI/Fox shows are in English so the general population learn English "in use" much more effectively than in Spain, Germany or France.
All "Top Tier" STEM Universities are taught in English in order to help attract foreign students and help graduates get jobs abroad. This is a "double-edged sward" that has resulted in considerable "brain drain" to other countries. But we are seeing many Portuguese educated people who have worked abroad returning to start their own companies now which is really promising!
In Spain, many people speak English, however - and this is not meant to cause a "flame war" - since all television/media is "translated" [dubbed] people don't practice listening to English nearly as much, so the level of spoken english in the general population [outside of tech] is lower. There's a reason for the "Manuel from Barcelona" Fawlty Towers sketch/stereotype: https://youtu.be/s6EaoPMANQM
I love Spain and Barça [especially] is lovely! I worked there [as a waiter!] for 3 summers as a teenager. Loved it! But again, from first-hand experience, the level of English was much lower than in Portugal. This worked out well for me, because it forced me to learn Spanish. ;-)
The "stats" comparing Spain and Portugal: https://www.ef.edu.pt/epi/compare/regions/pt/es/
Mucho amor a todos los amigos en Barçelona!
It's true, however, that the fact that every TV show is completely dubbed makes it harder for us to develop our speaking (our listening doesn't seem to be so affected for some reason).
When you finish college you're only supposed to have a B2 English level. I don't know about it, but I wouldn't be surprised to know it's a fairly low standard for a European country.
Same in Czechia. English has been mandatory for almost two decades now, and yet somehow nobody seems to be able to speak it. Grocery store clerks, waiters, even policemen, unless you are in a touristy area, and often not even there, you are basically out of luck.
On the other hand, I'm sure having everything dubbed is a boon to foreigners trying to master Czech. All three of them.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...
"visa issues"? Portgual is Schengen. You need a residence visa if you want to live there. Possibly but far from trivial. On the other hand, if you want to buy real estate anyway and can cough up 500k you can go the golden visa route.
You may be too late for Lisbon. Also, Overtourism becomes a problem.
Braga sounds interesting. Had not time to go there. Wanted to check out rafting. Also, summers may be milder.
If you don't need a golden visa, you can buy a very decent flat in the outskirts (within 30 mins - 1 hour commute) for less than half of that.
i also heard that if you buy a 600k usd house in portugal, you could register for eu citizenship, please someone confirm.
Almsot 200 EUR a month on dental seems outrageously expensive.
Getting a simple figure on the prices is difficult but it seems like the going-rate is appox £16-21 pm (lets say 20-30 EUR): https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/dental-insurance...
The amount I have to decalre to the tax man for the "benefit in kind" value my health insurance through work (which is private health & dental for me, my spouse, and all dependants - includes private GP appointments, physio etc etc) is about £1600 for the entire year, or £~135/month or ~155EUR/month. I apprecaite that is just from my P11D form [1], but there are some other sources that are in the same ballpark: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/cheap-health-ins...
You would be better off saying ok put the benefit into my pension instead.
I might have been able to get the same treatment on the NHS (this was for a running injury, so not a life-critical illness), but the doctors, MRI, and two consultants visits were done on consecutive days - i.e. within a working week I went from "ow my knee hurts" on a Monday morning to having seen a doctor, a consultant, getting an MRI, and then seeing the consultant again who prescribed a course of physiothearapy by Thursday afternoon (the physio was also booked the same day).
With the NHS it probably would have taken two or three days to call at precisely 08:30:00 to get an appointment before they book out, then I'd be waiting minimum two weeks before I even went to that first GP appointment, and I am sure their response would have been "stop running and see if it gets better in 3 months - come back if it hasn't. NEXT." (based on experience)
Seems like a good deal to me.
I certainly got no value from BUPA when I had major transplant operation - just a £500 tax bill.
Really? I live in a developing country middle of the Pacific Ocean and I regularly buy from Amazon with no issues. How come Portugal doesn't have Amazon?
Meanwhile as others have said, we get our deliveries from UK amazon here in less than a week. It's not "Prime" or "Same Day Delivery", sure, but we can be patient for a few days and it just means we don't buy crap on impulse.
I buy things from Amazon.de to Finland very often - often no extra cost for shipping and good prices. Also EUR prices without extra taxes for me.
So while Finland does not have "Amazon" (amazon.fi is a redirect to amazon.de) - I can still buy things from there very easily.
Our government is learning from China and Cuba: we have 2 systems, one for locals (ultra-socialist) and another for foreigners (ultra-liberal).
[Sadly] while AirBnB has made it easier for "tourists" to visit the cities it has accelerated the [ridiculous] house-price inflation, especially in short-term apartment/room rentals often pricing "locals" out of the market completely.
Coimbra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coimbra is a lovely city. It was second on our list precisely for the "intellectual vibe" (as you say).
What "swayed" our decision toward Braga was:
+ Much Closer to the Porto international airport via Bus, Train or Uber/Taxi. So getting to London/Paris/Frankfurt/etc. is a lot easier.
+ More existing companies both tech and traditional e.g: Bosch & Primavera. So the MeetUps are more "practical".
+ Lower latency and generally faster Internet.
Our plan in Braga is to "recover" abandoned buildings (which are currently empty/unused) and renovate them into amazing places to live & work for "location independent creative/technology professionals".
We are morally against Landlords/investors who are simply buying up the stock of available "rental" property and jacking up the prices so locals can no longer afford them.
It's 50mins train and 15mins uber, from Coimbra to OPO.
For reference, the car journey time at the 120kph highway speed limit between OPO and Coimbra is 125 mins see: https://goo.gl/maps/xosQureNf3x
By comparison the journey time (by car) between Braga and OPO is 39 mins i.e. less than half. see: https://goo.gl/maps/bN8GFy2UJoq
Trust me, we have done our homework on this. This was a major deciding factor. We still have a company in London and we need to go there frequently for in-person client meetings. Otherwise Coimbra would have been a no-brainer.
Our "sister company" has just opened a Student Residence in Coimbra: https://www.studentville.pt/en/cidades/coimbra We would have benefitted hugely from being there.
Much love to our Coimbra friends! :-)
I'm living a bit north, Galicia, and I still think that Braga is one of the most undervalued cities in Portugal, it's kinda cute, warn, has a lovely downtown. You made an awesome decision. :-)
Could you elaborate on this? Are there options that exist that Non-Portuguese tech workers can look into? Something like a freelance visa or a start up visa? Do such things exist? Cheers
I was only in Lisbon for 4 days (loved it!), but did run into some off-hand issues with language barriers. Cab/uber drivers in particular seemed to know little to zero English.
With that being said, once we got a rental car I greatly appreciated the cutthroat driving style of the Portuguese - damn they are good drivers.
International cities, thriving technology hubs, connected airports, visa issues really are not a big issue. We have a completely international team based in our Spain office.
It's easy (currently) for those of us in the UK, but from April, or for people from outside the UK, countries just haven't really caught up to the remote working situation.
The wanton incompetence of the RDS and Dublin's general inability to get anything done, not to mention mediocre transit and eye-wateringly expensive accommodation?
If they are cool with remote working why not hire much cheaper remote workers at eastern European rates.
What about people from other part of the world? Asking since you live there. Any resource you would recommend to have a general idea?
Portugal is one of the most welcoming countries to people of all nations. You will never be unwelcome here regardless of where you are from. There are communities of people from the Middle East, Nordics, Indian Sub-continent, China, Africa (South America, obvs) and if you go out to the "trendy" parts of town and listen to the range/variety of accents it's every bit as "cosmopolitan" as London's Shoreditch/Soho! Just book a trip and see for yourself! ;-)
> Just book a trip and see for yourself! ;-)
Yeah, it's been pending since college. My Euro Trip. Now I can't even blame affordability :)
https://www.livinginportugal.com/en/moving-to-portugal/tax-r...
Portugal has followed the "Nordics" model when it comes to taxes; income is taxed higher but services (healthcare, schools, roads and other infrastructure] is much better than in the US [or most of the rest of the world for that matter!].
The much cheaper lifestyle in Portugal more than makes up for the higher taxes.
I'm not a "tax adviser" and HN is not the place for that "tax efficiency" advice. But you should consider setting up a Ltd Company and paying yourself/co-founders [Tax Free] dividends.
I would [highly] recommend watching "Startup Legal Mechanics" [YCombinator Startup School]: https://youtu.be/BTShgZxiNV8
tldr; start a company [separate legal entity].
I'm not a tax expert but I don't think you can do it. Dividends are not tax free. You have to pay 28%(IRS) + ~20% (IRC) so in the end you pay more than a regular freelancer (for salaries below €80K).
edit: except if you are a non-habitual resident..
So maybe if you set up your company in another tax friendly country, you would be able to pay your corporate tax and taxes on your dividends there.
[1]: http://www.newco.pro/blog/en/portugal-or-spain-two-tax-regim...
This is not about paying taxes, it's when those taxes are essentially wasted by the giant administrative leeches that runs countries like Portugal.
Long story short: run for the hills, don't come to Belgium.
>Long story short: it's one of the best countries in the world to live in, by almost any metric.
Yeah, I'd take that deal.
Went through rabbit hole.
So much love ! ! !
(beautiful home)
Lisbon and Porto are super popular with ["digital nomad"] remote workers who work for international companies so earn in USD but spend [much less] in Euros for a superb lifestyle.
There's a reason @paddycosgrave moved Web Summit to Lisbon. It's one of the cheapest cities in Europe and [unlike Barcelona] everyone speaks English. There is a good "tech scene" and a fantastic work-life-balance; surf, great food & warm/welcoming people.
A few things to consider that many people over-look: + Socio-Economic and Political stability. + General safety/security and crime levels. + Sanitation and healthcare availability/cost. + Availability/cost of healthy [organic/unprocessed] food. + Lifestyle to actually live in the place: is it "cheap" but a nightmare to live there? + Contract-law for short-term apartment/room rentals.
Portugal will exceed your expectations on all of these.
Portugal is very welcoming to US citizens, you won't have any "visa issues" the way you will in many of the [superficially] "cheaper" Asian countries.
If you want your budget to stretch much further, consider Braga. The cost of living is less than a third of SF, internet is fast and you get most of the benefits of Porto & Lisbon (or can reach those cities with a short train journey).
Note: I am [slightly] "biased", my Wife and I have recently "escaped" from London [after working there in tech for 10 years] and we are busy setting up a Co-living/Co-working House in Braga: https://github.com/dwyl/home We will be opening at the end of this month and our target cost per month [1Gbps Internet, all bills, cleaning & gym included] is $300 (USD).
We chose Braga because it has all the "ingredients" for an awesome place for tech/creative people to escape the bigger cities and focus on their work while still having access to all the amenities great healthcare, superb organic/vegan food and good libraries/meetups/etc.