Hacker News Reader

Will the Dutch actually let you manage your finances if you are a US taxpayer? Many countries will now limit US tax payers to checking accounts exclusively, sometimes blocking money transfers and stuff - thanks to FATCA.

Furthermore, US taxpayers have crazy FBAR/FATCA reporting requirements about any money you have signatory rights outside the US, even if it isn't their money - to the point that having e.g. a CFO with a US citizenship -- even if they never set foot in the US -- is becoming a serious liability for a company.

Estonia is also good option https://e-resident.gov.ee you can do everything remotly

You should keep in mind though that having your company in such a small country might shut you off from some services.

E.g. I decided against Estonia for my SaaS business because Stripe is not available there (among other reasons), since that alone probably creates more hassle than founding the company there saves.

Have been seriously thinking about doing this, but the residency requirements give me pause. (You must always have a mailing, non-PO-box address in NL — essentially, your own place — and have to stay in the country 6 months out of a year, though apparently it’s not really enforced.)

In Europe right now and maybe 25-75 on just pulling the trigger... who knows if our so-called president ends up doing something stupid that blows up this treaty? No other easy paths to residency in the EU as far as I’m aware!

There is the blue card http://www.bamf.de/EN/Infothek/FragenAntworten/BlaueKarteEU/...

Essentially all you need is a normal IT job above a certain threshold

Sorry, I forgot to add “...for a self-employed person”.

Germany offers a self-employment visa too, with not too many additional requirements on top of the Blue Card.

Well, there's always the whole "get a job" path. If you're single you might find a European partner which helps.

If you're a US citizen another temporary option (but among the easiest) is to get a working holiday visa for Ireland. I believe it's the only EU nation offering working holiday visas to the US. I probably wouldn't bother with it if the DAFT were an option - when I got one it was much earlier in my career.

Not sure how the residency requirement is a bad thing? NL is pretty nice as I understand it. Incidentally, this blogger did the DAFT and describes their experience: http://shawnindutch.com/

Yeah, I've read that blog! Very useful. I'm sure NL is wonderful, but I can't quite commit to living there full time. For one, all my friends and family live in California. It would be very hard to justify paying rent on an empty apartment for half the year just to keep qualifying, and I would surely get lonely in any case. (I guess I could Airbnb it out if there are services that can do the landlordy bits while I'm away, but it would be hard to ensure that this is possible without actually going through the DAFT process. Even finding a regular, un-Airbnb-able NL apartment without the NL SSN-equivalent is a bit of a Catch-22, since most apartments require the SSN but applying for DAFT is what gets you the SSN in the first place. And you can't apply for DAFT without a mailing address, as far as I'm aware. I think common advice is to stay with friends for a bit, but that doesn't work if you don't know anyone in NL...)

Surely if you don't want live there it is easier not to do it? What is the goal here?

Well, the goal would be to spend 4-6 months out of the year in NL and work towards an eventual EU citizenship five years down the line. That would be totally fine. It's mostly the logistics and cost of keeping around an empty apartment for half the year that I'm concerned about.

They don't want people abusing the system to get free EU citizenship. It's about attracting talent to NL.

I would think the residency requirement is 5 years of actual residency, so at half time it would take ten years.

It depends a lot on the country. Sometimes you're resident if you're present for (365/2)+1 days per year, but my understanding is that if you do that you're going to get some really tough questions about your intentions when time comes to naturalize. Tax authorities will likely be somewhat more willing to consider you resident.

Of course, you can also just buy your way in if you have cash. Malta sells EU passports.

https://www.ft.com/content/6f98892e-fbf3-11e5-b3f6-11d5706b6...

If you don't want to live in NL it won't fly, I imagine. But then, if you don't want to live in NL why are you doing this?

If you want to spend 4-6 months a year there for kicks just go as a tourist; you can spend up to 90 days at a time in Schengen twice a year.

If you do, please document your journey, as I am in the very early stages of a similar decision.

Not only that, we are considered the best non-native English speakers of the world, so even if you aren't keen on learning Dutch (boo!) you'll manage pretty easily :)

The Dutch are also great at German!

Only in as far as our languages are similar (they are more closely related than either of them is to English). A lot of younger Dutch are quite limited in the languages they speak; often just Dutch and passable English. Don't expect people under 30 to be able to read a German newspaper comprehensively or hold a conversation beyond ordering beer in a Biergarten when in Germany. Older generations with a tertiary education degree often can speak and read at least either French or German at a more useful level though.

While this may be true, you will find quite a reasonable number of people who can speak non-English foreign languages quite well, and that excludes the foreign nationals that come to live and work in the Netherlands as well.

If you wanted to serve a largely German speaking clientele, then you could reasonably expect to get a decent number of applicants in the Netherlands in my experience, especially in the border regions. The kids here are still learning German and French in school, and while they might speak it less, there are still plenty that go there regularly.

I looked this up to make sure [0]; it's true, and the countries with a "very high" proficiency are:

    01 Netherlands
    02 Denmark
    03 Sweden
    04 Norway
    05 Finland
    06 Singapore
    07 Luxembourg

0: http://www.ef.com/epi/?mc=we

I question the validity of "global" rankings that don't include regions like East, West or South Africa, where countries like Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa have very high English proficiency rates (especially given that it's also an/the official language in most cases).

I think the point of those ranking is ESL. So if English is an official language, you're out ;)

Then Singapore doesn't belong on that list.

UK and Ireland not there either.

It's a list of nations in which English is not the first or primary language (which is why Australia and New Zealand are also not listed).

Note also that fields are not all equal. In France I used to complain about the lack of English skills but I never found a programmer who could not at least read English and most business people will be able to communicate, maybe with a strong accent.

Now I live in Japan and most programmers I meet do not speak English at all (leading them to be pretty poor programmers).

Proficiency is not equally distributed.

Well, it is hard being a programmer if you do not even read English :)

Yep. They have Japanese translations of all documentations. They put comments in Japanese in their programs. I don't know if it is the sole factor but it probably explain partly why there is so little good Japanese software.

They're also all taller than you, so you'll have to get used to looking up.

It is quite the growth spurt, given how short the Dutch used to be:

"Today, the Dutch are on average the tallest people on the planet. Just 150 years ago, they were relatively short. In 1860, the average Dutch soldier in the Netherlands was 5-foot-5. American men were 2.7 inches taller."

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/why-the-dutch-beca...

Helpful, as my wife and I keep considering moving to Europe for a spell. It probably won't be so difficult as I am an Italian citizen and she is British; however with the UK leaving the EU, suddenly we may have to worry about her being an EU resident either as a guest from the UK, or as someone married to me (which means lots of paperwork in a language I don't understand).

Also, her job in a hospital means she needs to speak the local language "unless--" .. which probably means unless they have a specific need for a native english speaker who does not have to know the local language, or if it's an American military hospital, or...

Dutch is a difficult language to learn, and you'll manage fine with English; especially if you're located in large cities like Amsterdam. We went out dinner yesterday in Amsterdam and people start conversations in English even though both parties end up being Dutch (we're Dutch natives). Also, learning Dutch isn't very useful since it isn't spoken a lot throughout the world.

If you'd like to have yourself heard/understood in the EU, even though English should generally suffice, German is another contender. In Italy its quite well understood (esp the north) and many Eastern European countries as well. Though perhaps Russian even better, I don't know.

As for Germany, the Germans living in cities like Berlin and Munich speak excellent English.

Are there any similar programs in Europe for Canadian citizens?