Portugal is the latest country to formally position itself as a haven for “digital nomads,” as it introduces a new visa geared toward remote workers that will become available Oct. 30.
With its comparatively low cost of living, temperate weather and proximity to other European destinations, Portugal has grown in popularity as a destination not only for travel but also for longer-term relocation, including retirement. About 9.6 million international tourists visited Portugal in 2021, per government estimates — a 48 percent increase from 2020, but still sharply down from 2019.
Despite the pandemic’s dent on tourism, it set off widespread remote work, which Portugal now appears to be trying to take advantage of. In July, when the country was considering such a policy, Portugal’s deputy minister for parliamentary affairs, Ana Catarina Mendes, said: “Portugal is a country of immigration that needs immigrants, that needs and benefits from the contribution of immigrants to its demographics, to its economy, to its culture.”
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The digital-nomad visa and residence permit will be available for people employed outside of Portugal who are able to provide a contract of employment, tax residency documents and proof of an average monthly income over the past three months equivalent to at least four times the minimum wage in Portugal, or roughly $2,730. For salaried workers, an annual salary of about $32,760 would suffice. That’s just under half of the average annual salary of U.S. remote workers, according to jobseeker site ZipRecruiter.
For freelancers or other self-employed workers, proof of the same level of income will be required by way of service contracts or other means of proof of services. (European Union nationals and citizens of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Andorra and Switzerland already have some residency rights in Portugal.)
Portugal has another comparable visa that permits residency with relatively lax income requirements, but this one is geared toward retirees and has a passive-income requirement. Portugal has become popular as a means to attain permanent residency within the E.U., with its “golden visa” offering a path to long-term residency for people who invest a minimum amount within the country. It is not immediately clear if the digital-nomad visa provides a similar path.
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Portugal’s digital-nomad visa comes as U.S. companies are again pushing employees back into the office. But workers in many cities have resisted returning to the workplace, with downtown activity in many major cities such as San Francisco, Washington and New York City in June far below its pre-pandemic levels, according to a study by the University of California at Berkeley.
Meanwhile, many tech companies have remained fully remote. Twitter, Airbnb and Salesforce have allowed many employees to go remote full time. Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong said last year that the cryptocurrency company had become a “decentralized company, with no headquarters,” with its remote-first policy helping it “attract top talent.”
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Those tech workers — as well as countless other remote workers and freelancers — are able to take advantage of remote-work programs across the world, which have blossomed during the pandemic. A report on remote work released in June by the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, said that more than 25 countries have created digital-nomad initiatives since 2019, when Estonia became the first country with such a visa.
One of the latest is Malaysia, which launched a program that aims to establish it as the “preferred digital nomad hub” in Southeast Asia. A government website promoting the “DE Rantau” program touts Malaysia as “Your Next Digital Nomad Destination.”
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/10/11/portugal-digital-nomad-visa-remote-work/
