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Comment by nelsonic | Hacker News Reader

Depending on your ability to work remotely, I would make the "case" that you should consider Portugal.

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.

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Yeah, as a Portuguese person living in Lisbon and having worked in the tech scene here, I can say avoid Portugal if you're looking for a SV type scene. The level of anything going on around here is far lower.

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.

>I would say to OP that usually if a place is interesting, it won't be cheap as there is more demand for it.

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.

It happens a lot that foreigners find places awesome where locals find the opposite even given two quite similar persons.

> There's a reason @paddycosgrave moved Web Summit to Lisbon.

Because the tax payers are paying €110m for it? http://www.thejournal.ie/lisbon-web-summit-new-ten-year-deal...

If it pays off by helping make Lisbon a strong European tech scene, which it looks like it could do, it's not necessarily a bad deal for the taxpayers of Portugal.

€110m is an absolute bargain for the value that it has generated. Any public official who was involved in making that decision/deal and facilitating the influx of talent/ideas/energy/capital deserves a medal! Lisbon is buzzing now more than ever, thanks in no small part to Web Summit. It was good before, now it's incredible. Say what you want about Web Summit (that's a whole other rant!) it is unquestionably "net positive" to the Portuguese economy and the lives of tens of thousands of people.

It does indeed appear to have been a very smart choice for Lisbon, but that does not address the question of whether this was the main reason for the location selection.

When Paddy (and the WebSummit Team) decided to leave the Dublin chaos, they had a choice between several cities. Lisbon made the best case on many factors. There must have been an "incentive" for them to move beyond simply having a "better venue" or "sunny weather", we (the public) will never have the full picture of the terms of the original "deal" between Paddy and the Lisbon/PT authorities.

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.

I came to the discussion to see if Portugal was mentioned, and was pleasantly surprised to see it as the top-ranked comment.

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.

You'd still choose Lisbon over Paris right? ;-)

I have had my eye on Portugal for a number of years, but there are a few things that seem less than ideal.

* 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.

I agree with you regarding the cost of living but the tax system is similar to a lot of other countries within the EU.

Portugal has a complicated tax system? I always thought it was fairly simple compared to how certain foreigners describe theirs.

The tech scene in Lisbon and Porto IS happening - just take a look at companies like Farfetch, Outsystems, Talkdesk, Feedzai, Unbabel and many other smaller startups w/their HQ based in Portugal. I myself work at a Porto based startup (Bottlebooks) w/American and Slovak founders. Portugal has everything going for it to be the California of Europe - highly educated (and english speaking) youth and a will to conquer the world. We welcome any foreigner willing to work hard and contribute to a creating a great place to live :)

California or Florida of Europe?

* 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).

You left out the most important reason most “next SV” will have a hard time getting there: VC money. Maybe Lisbon can be a different kind of tech hub, not necessarily a copy/version of SV.

Go away troll - Portugal has been growing strong in terms of its people's education and consequent modernisation for the last 20 years and there's nothing you can do about it, so if you've got nothing useful to say: get out of the way and let the Portuguese people show the world how a great country is re-built from the destruction created by more than 50 years of fascist dictatorship.

I am not trolling. I love portugal. But it is not a tech hub and I don't see it being one. IT? Maybe. But for high-tech you need the supply chains. If I call a random B2B supplier and ask "Can you do X?" they often answer: "X? we can do better!" And this is where opportunities open.

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.

By the way, maybe you are the troll. Read up how SV became SV https://siliconcowboy.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/the-secret-mi...

I don't understand the comment about the tax system. Which taxes are you talking about?

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.

Freelancing, starting companies and the NHR scheme (which is sort of an exception but still) seems to have a lot of deductions, conditions and exceptions that require more guidance than some other countries. Maybe this is something one adapts to, but it still seems like an initial hurdle for foreigners.

Spain offers you a mixture of international cities, and technology hubs. There will never be another "Silicon Valley", but as an alternative where you can find stimulating and rewarding work, I'd argue it's better than Portugal.

> I'd argue it's better than Portugal.

Why is it better?

I prefer Portuguese people since I speak Portuguese and Portuguese are much more welcoming and friendly. This could change with overtourism which also makes Lisbon comparably expensive. Spain is more diverse and still has cheap big cities. Cheaper than Lisbon.

Has the smoking situation improved any? Remember a lot of it indoors in Iberia.

Smoking indoors is highly regulated now (thankfully).

The next question to that is do people comply with them? From your tone, I'm guessing yes.

None is is better. Both are great.

For work we find the technology community more diverse and deeper. Also for internationals choosing to move to somewhere attractive Spain offers a great balance of lifestyle and work. I would argue Lisbon is sort of the exception in Portugal; and even then it is a bit limited with no real domestic scene more people seeking low cost or nearshoring.

We were considering moving the company to Spain after Brexit but the reputation of the Spanish tax office as extremely bureaucratic and unfair is a huge deterrent.

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).

So far so good for us, but that's why we pay our accountant! We'll see what happens end of next year.

If you have questions drop me a line.

Good luck getting by on English alone though.

I think it depends what city you are in, we have not found any problems in Southern Spain, but I cannot speak for elsewhere.

I live in Lisbon and work as a foreigner at one of Lisbon's universities and can confirm that the living quality in Lisbon is absolutely top. It's a fantastic city. And our bridge is similar to yours - looks smaller but is longer!

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.

> Is there any major capital where they don't rise?

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 :)

I've been very curious about how life is in Greece now. What is the vibe like? Is there any hope amongst the creative youth? Any interesting cultural movements that we generally tend to see emerge in times of hardship?

There's a decent tech scene primarily centered around crypto currency. Most of the issues and roadblocks are government related to be honest. It's an interesting country if you want to invest in a developing country but quality of life is pretty bad.

I would have expected the quality of life to be excellent in Greece. It has all the ingredients such as weather, history, geography....

Thanks. I'd like to consider this seriously - what's a good place to browse places to rent in Portugal?

https://www.idealista.pt/en/

I'm not really confident about the quality of the cultural life in Portugal (let alone Braga). Do musicians tour there ? What about the classical music offer (a good marker in my opinion of intense cultural places) ? How many art museums, do they host touring exhibitons ?

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.

> Universities in Portugal are not that great nor renowned.

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.

At least in my domain (veterinary, idk about medicine but if the same, that's frightening), they have seemingly no selection and numerous universities are offering the degree (even much more than smaller countries). So their degree is shit (no time for practice, only theoretical and you'll learn more once in the job), there are too many of them anyways and they can't find jobs.

Also can't think of any portugese scientist, or portugese based lab renowned for anything in biology or computer science.

> 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.

Fwiw, I went to a free Fado concert at the big castle that overlooks Lisbon. While I was there, the city hosted a Guns and Roses concert. Additionally, there was live music all over the place on the street. It's by far one of the best cities in Europe for climate, beach and culture.

> Do musicians tour there ? What about the classical music offer (a good marker in my opinion of intense cultural places) ? How many art museums, do they host touring exhibitons ?

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.

>"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."

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?

This is awesome. I live in SF, and have a base in Istanbul, which is from what I heard, similar to Lisbon in many aspects — but I would be hesitant to recommend it without at least a willingness to learn Turkish. There are some digital nomads here in HN based in Istanbul, though.

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.

Why did you italicize so many words?

Italian heritage.

exactly! but seriously, it's just a [bad] habit ... thanks for pointing it out. hope it did not detract from my message.

You wrote a great response! Assuming you genuinely want feedback on it; your writing style does detract a bit from what you're saying - the emphasis and braces don't read like native English. My advice is try not to use quotes, italics and braces at all - go cold turkey! Then you'll probably find yourself using them when you actually _need_ them. :)

A bit OT: "Using an exclamation point only serves to call attention to the writer."—Miss Steiger, 10th grade English, Washington H.S., Milwaukee, 1964

I find it hard to read, because I find myself mentally pausing and stressing those words in my head and there are a lot of them! Also the square brackets and the quotes around words that don't seem to warrant them - I'm not sure what you mean by them and so I'm not certain whether I'm getting the same message that you're intending to convey.

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 :)

What's with all the square brackets also? Such an unusual writing style

Hey, I like it. Yes it takes longer to read, but people don't speak at one cadence all the time. We make words longer or take short pauses to emphasize our point. I like the creativity.

Half of that github doc is in italics too.

I don't think it's a bad style of writing for a forum like this. In natural speech, we communicate a lot by our use of emphasis.

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.

Except it seems to be completely random words, with a "few" random quotation marks and brackets [thrown] in the mix. Taken together it has the opposite effect of what it’s supposed to achieve.

On closer inspection I have to agree.

Personally, I only use italicization when I make a digressive sidepoint (for instance, using e.g. or examples given), or offer a different perspective away from the central voice I use. Its a matter of formatting preference though. Italicization helps improve readability of writing if used correctly

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.

Glad to see this as the first comment I read. Im currently sat in Portugal on 4ha of land I have brought over near Fundão. It is more out of the way, but still has excellent access to cities. Plus it is absolutely beautiful.

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 :-)

If no house, what is your solar panel currently attached to? That sounds like an interesting setup.

Simply propped up facing the sun. Sat on the ground. Super simple, but rather effective.

Not OP, but I have done work with literally a camping solar panel charging a 12V battery and a car power -> laptop power adapter. The setup cost me approximately $1000 AUD. I use the solar power for other things as well.

Where's the blog post? :-)

Since you ask:

https://blog.adamcharnock.com

But this reminds me I haven’t posted for ages!

Cool, how much have you paid?

Ask me via email :-) It’s on my site.

Where do you live if there is no house?

> and [unlike Barcelona] everyone speaks English

Do you have any stats proving that? Just asked a portuguese friend living in Barcelona and said that is a quite bold statement.

I'd second this. Almost everyone in professional circles speaks English in Barcelona. I would say on average Portugal has much better English penetration than Spain, but Barcelona is definitely an exception.

> I would say on average Portugal has much better English penetration than the rest of Spain

I'm sure it's just a slip of tongue but never ever say things like that in Portugal...

Yeah, Portugal isn't part of Spain.

Weird historical fact: they shared a king for a little while a few hundred years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_Union

I think the GP intended "the rest of Spain" to mean "Spain excluding Barcelona", rather than "Spain excluding Portugal". But I read it as "Spain excluding Portugal" the first time too.

I think you need to read both sentences together. I believe the OP is just excluding Barcelona from the comparison of English speaking between the two countries.

English(Portugal) > English(Spain − Barcelona)

"Why havent Spain conquered you yet?"

I agree. Even in the big cities the level of english speaking is pretty low, and definitely lower than in Barcelona. But this shouldn't be a problem. Take the month or two of effort it takes to get started in the local language where you live, make an effort over time, and you'll find it to be no barrier.

Stats would be nice, I agree.

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!

Isn't English compulsory almost everywhere throughout the EU? I live in Madrid and it definitely is here in Spain.

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.

Some description of language proficiency standards here [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_R...

> the fact that every TV show is completely dubbed makes it harder for us to develop our speaking

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.

I wanted to buy an apartment in Lisbon (I speak Portuguese). Forget it. You don't get anything decent below 500k (speak Golden Visa Program). Big chunk of change for a comparably poor country.

"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.

You can also get a Golden Visa if you buy property in an urban rehabilitation area (or any property with more than 30 years) for 350k.

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.

Golden Visa is irrelevant for me. Trust me, I checked the prices in Lisbon for some time. What do you consider "outskirts" of Lisbon? Sentubal?

As a born and raised in Braga I can confirm all of this. Also Braga as a background in IT sector for a few decades now. Mainly because of University of Minho.

+1 for portugal, i was actually in lisbon for a few days this summer, first time, i really liked what i saw, was more on vacation than for work, but definitely had a few escalations that forced me to get on the internet and everything was fast. people are friendly, costs relatively low, i stayed in 2 different parts, but near my hotel there was a large huawei office (not that i'd ever consider working there), but it tells you that some big, multi-national companies are there.

i also heard that if you buy a 600k usd house in portugal, you could register for eu citizenship, please someone confirm.

I think what you are referring to is the golden visa program (or Resident Permit for Investment program): https://www.expatica.com/pt/visas-and-permits/golden-visa-po...

From what I heard from Portuguese people, it's 500k investment and you can get the visa.

500k EUR (roughly 575k USD)

Yes I meant Euros ;)

Yes Portugal is a good choice now, I moved here 1 year ago from UK because of various factors, Brexit, tax, quality of life etc also because I believe it will be a great location to recruit IT talent to. I live in Cascais which is a bit expensive, (still much cheaper than San Francisco of course) but has wonderful quality of life for family, Capital city amenities next to beach. Great infrastructure, motorways, ultra fast cheap fibre to home, good IB school for kids, quality cheap fresh food, esp fish and veg. Retail items are expensive, high VAT, no Amazon (yet rumers will come soon) Services cheap, private medical cover including dental, for family of 4 unbelievably cheap, less than 200 Euro pm, i paid nearly that much for just dental in UK, the free public healthcare and schools are also apparently good. Property prices going up v fast, many Brazilians moving here to avoid crime and Scandinavians to avoid Tax. Dividends are Tax free from the UK for 10 years, 20% on local income. EU passport if you spend 500k on property - 1 or more units, inc home or investment - is booming as a result - they collect lots of VAT so is good strategy for Portugal considering it was like Greece 4 years ago. 1 downside is insane price of large or fast cars, so lots of dangerous small old cars, also they are totally inept drivers for some strange reason, you see accidents nearly every journey, feels 100 times more often than UK, though stats show only 10 times worse, similar to US apparently - apart from that feels like a very safe country, locals are v friendly and welcoming and most speak English. Oh and I forgot to mention nearly 300 days sunshine pa vs 120 in Wales is so nice, hard to feel down in Estoril with Azure sky and ocean, sea is a bit chilly but stops it getting to hot.

> no Amazon

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?

I think that has to mean no Amazon Prime or similar?

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.

No local amazon. You can buy electronics from Amazon Spain and books from Amazon UK. They'll arrive in about a week. No idea what will be the new solution for books in english after brexit, though, since customs here are horrible.

[Off-the-record] Amazon is opening a distribution centre in Portugal "very soon". Portugal was not seen as a "priority" for Amazon because there are much bigger markets to "conquer". But since Google announced their intention: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-portugal/google-to... Amazon has "re-prioritised" Portugal ...

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.

Amazon Spain delivers in 3 days.

No distribution centre in Portugal, so no Prime free delivery. Also many items don’t ship here, in UK we used to literally get at least 1 delivery per day (courtesy of my good wife bless her) now only twice a week mainly from German site, which is much better than Spanish Amazon and has English option (unlike Spain) delivery costs soon mount up though.

> Dividends are Tax free from the UK for 10 years, 20% on local income. EU passport if you spend 500k on property.

Our government is learning from China and Cuba: we have 2 systems, one for locals (ultra-socialist) and another for foreigners (ultra-liberal).

"Dividends are Tax free from the UK for 10 years" - can you share any more info on this?

Search for Portugal non-habitual residence scheme

> private medical cover including dental, for family of 4 unbelievably cheap, less than 200 Euro pm, i paid nearly that much for just dental in UK

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...

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P11D

PMI is a scam in the uk you ending up losing on tax and if you have a medical problem it has ZERO value.

You would be better off saying ok put the benefit into my pension instead.

Just in the past couple of months I had a private GP appointment (£65), a MRI (£800), followed up by 2 consultant visits (£170 each) and 6 physio (£35 a go). About £1400 of treatment all for free.

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.

Depends on how much a year your losing in tax and how often you need it might be cheaper to self insure, much more so if your a higher rate taxpayer.

I certainly got no value from BUPA when I had major transplant operation - just a £500 tax bill.

Your company had a good deal, cheaper of course in corporate plan, but I suspect your dental cover is very limited. Most dentists in UK now will only accept patients on Denplan, is very comprehensive but is very expensive cost me £160 pm for whole family.

Thanks for this - been to Portugal a few times on holiday and love it, seems a perfect place too from which to work remotely given decent internet speeds etc. Not familiar with the towns and cities so good to have Braga now as somewhere to look at!

I understand skipping Porto and specially Lisbon as prices literally skyrocketed in last years. I also understand that Braga is maybe the cheapest relevant city in Portugal, but despite that I would pick Coimbra for the intellectual vibe.

Agreed, Lisbon and Porto have become more expensive in the last couple of years but still way more affordable than SF/NY etc.

[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.

> Much Closer to the Porto international airport via Bus, Train or Uber/Taxi.

It's 50mins train and 15mins uber, from Coimbra to OPO.

Yes, the train from Coimbra to OPO is a good option. But having to use two forms of transport when there is a "Get Bus" (direct airport bus) between Braga and OPO for €8 which is basically door-to-door for us.

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 think there is something missing in your story. My Portuguese friends who fled Portugal to London paint different picture of their lovely country. Maybe there are different rules to foreigners there?

Problem being that they are portuguese. Things look a lot better if you're foreigner, keep work connections to the outside can avoid the new crazy renting laws that make it easier to put people out. For a lot of locals living in the big cities gentrification context is pretty much 2008 crysis part II.

Hi,

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. :-)

What do you think of the bicycling culture in Braga/Lisbon/Portugal in general? Are there a lot of protected lanes, do you feel like bikers are respected on the roads, etc.

>"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"

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

>and [unlike Barcelona] everyone speaks English.

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.

You could say all of this and more of a number of Spanish cities: Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, and Seville.

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.

Presumably (as a non EU citizen) one would need a self-employed visa and residence permit.

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.

"@paddycosgrave moved Web Summit to Lisbon"

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?

Not sure you will get sv salary in dollars working in Portugal :-) having said that I got pitched a 100K (euros) Job in Portugal a couple of months ago so it looks like tech skills are in short supply

The GP is talking about remote work.

I did realise that the GP wanted to have their cake and eat it -but why would anyone pay full SV rates for a contractor in a different country.

If they are cool with remote working why not hire much cheaper remote workers at eastern European rates.

Clearly, they're really efficient, especially Poland.

I can't agree more. I worked in both Chicago and London; Portugal (perhaps Lisbon) seemed like the kind of place I would go to do remote work from if I were to move in Europe.

> Portugal is very welcoming to US citizens

What about people from other part of the world? Asking since you live there. Any resource you would recommend to have a general idea?

Good question! I'm simply highlighting the fact that US citizens are welcome in PT because there's always been a "special relationship" between the two countries for various historical reasons.

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! ;-)

Thank you :-)

> 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 :)

How hard is it get a remote working visa or something similar to Germany's freelancer visa?

How is the income tax situation in Portugal?

Portuguese IRS: https://github.com/galfarragem/learning-notes/blob/master/no...

So basically, if you make more thank 50k euros per year, you start working for your own benefit around mid-june. Yeah ... pass.

Yup.

Yes. Unless you live alone in the woods drawing no benefit from the democratic, rule of law, first-world country you live in, paga e não bufes, which translates roughly to "cough up".

There are democratic, rule of law, first world countries that work way better than Portugal in pretty mcuh all areas you care to look at and where the top income tax bracket is less than 30%.

This is not about paying taxes, it's when those taxes are essentially wasted by the giant administrative leeches that runs countries like Portugal.

If you're saying that mismanagement and corruption are issues, then yes, of course you're right. But then again, remind me how much is the top bracket in Belgium? Austria? Germany? Denmark? Sweden? Much better run countries (in superficial evaluation at least), yet all have 50%+ tax rates at the top.

Top income tax bracket in Belgium is 50%, but this is after the employer has paid ~30% of that in social security contributions. So your 35K EUR net salary costs your employer roughly 100K (I rounded up, so this is an exaggeration). And you get a whopping 21% VAT rate, a dividend tax of 30%, several other taxes which are seemingly aimed at dissuading people from investing. Oh and there's a corporate profit tax of ~33%.

Long story short: run for the hills, don't come to Belgium.

FTFY

>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.

Good question. If you work for a local company income tax is "steep". see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Portugal

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].

> paying yourself/co-founders [Tax Free] dividends.

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..

As a non-habitual resident in Portugal or Spain, it seems that the dividends are tax free if they come from a foreign source but you still have to pay taxes in the country of origin [1].

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...

If you're not already a tax resident of Portugal and you decide to legally move there, you can apply for a special tax rate as a "non-habitual resident" that gives you a lower tax rate for ten years.

https://www.livinginportugal.com/en/moving-to-portugal/tax-r...

Interesting. I wasn't aware that it was already valid or so lax (20% vs 48%!). This measure was sold by government as a way of bringing back our emmigrants.

WOW.

Went through rabbit hole.

So much love ! ! !

(beautiful home)

How do I sign up?

That's interesting, as the USD is cheaper than a EUR and generally speaking life is more expensive in Europe than in the US. Would be curious if there are stats on how much a remote worker gets in USD in Portugal.

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