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Comment by r00f | Hacker News Reader

I have always been blown away by money requirements for such visas, in many countries. Show monthly income of 1000000 ISK. Over 7k USD. Why?

I used to live in Dubai, which is considered pretty expensive place, and never spent over 2500 per month, despite dining out almost all the time. Maybe 3000 if I needed some purchases like clothing or hobbies stuff. I get it, Numbeo says Iceland is 13% more expensive, but 7k? What exactly kind of lifestyle are they expecting from humble nomad?

Not all nomads work remotely for FAANG. Some live happy nomad life with much lower income.

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> Over 7k USD.

I don't think you understand how ridiculously expensive Iceland is. Practically everything has to be shipped/flown in.

Just to give you an idea, a small completely unremarkable burger at a fast food place will be around $20-25. It will not make you full.

7K a month is realistic. Our vacation was still fantastic despite the cost.

That's realistic if you are there as a tourist who wants the premium experience on everything.

Staying in hotels and eating out daily, we didn't spend 7k when extrapolating our two weeks to a month. Heck, it's still below 7k if you include all one-time purchases like the way there and back, clothing, new expensive hiking boots, etc. I've got a problem with most waterproof fabrics so I didn't have a raincoat, but reading about Iceland, I figured it's worth finding one that works for me, so that's another purchase I count towards my Iceland expenses. All in all still below 7k after extrapolation. (Edit: oh and I forgot that this is for 2 persons. You can't divide by two of course, but some correction factor should be applied.)

I fully agree with anyone saying Iceland is expensive, but if you stay in an actual apartment instead of hotels, don't do a number of guided tours every month, don't rent a vehicle for the whole time you're there (and drive around, though fuel was a surprisingly small part of the final expenses), you'll definitely not need 7k per month.

They have absolutely no interest in sponsoring visitors. This visa program is intended to bring in well-off professionals who will have plenty of cash to live a comfortable lifestyle and cover a disastrous broken leg or two and still be able to fly back home if they lose their job. That $7k is before taxes, before retirement savings, before health insurance, before your assumed flight home once every month or two...

That's actually a good point that it's before taxes, I hadn't factored that in.

If you live in a low tax country, you would ordinarily have a lot to spend and be rich, and also have enough money to live off of in Iceland potentially, but might not meet that requirement by even half, whereas someone from a high tax country loses roughly half their income on them and would meet the requirement. Not the fairest method but, as you say, this clearly isn't geared toward charitableness in the first place.

> whereas someone from a high tax country loses roughly half their income on them

Please, typically those taxes go (not completely) to stuff you’d otherwise be paying for from your after tax cash.

One obvious one is health care (which Americans pay much more for than Europeans, just not via their taxes). Less spent on roads: more car maintenance/shorter car lifespan.

One can have a reasonable argument over which should be bundled and which should be unbundled, but to say broadly that one “loses” on taxes is either lazy or ideology.

Ok but if you're from a high-tax country and work temporarily in Iceland you're paying those higher taxes without most of the benefits. You can't access the better healthcare, education, and safer streets of your home country.

You’re getting those benefits in general, though not at that instant, but is the tax you pay on march 28th making every street you drive on that day better? No, it’s smeared around spatially and temporally.

If you’re in Iceland for six months you might not even owe taxes in your home country for that period.

Americans owe taxes at home forever no matter what*, which tilts the calculus somewhat.

> One obvious one is health care (which Americans pay much more for than Europeans, just not via their taxes).

Interesting ignored fact: the US government spends as much per capita on health care as socialized systems. We also have to match that amount out of pocket, but that's because healthcare in the US costs twice as much, not because less tax money goes to it.

It's actually more than that. Last I checked the US government spends much more per capita on health care than any other country on earth. And by a large margin, not quite twice the 2nd country spending the most but almost.

Also, I assume that the Icelanders don't want all that many digital nomads showing up. From their point of view setting a USD7k cut-off limits the inflow and gets them something like the cream of the crop.

Now ask yourself: Wouldn’t people that fit such profile move to a more comfortable and yet cheaper country? Spain literally weaving its hand.

I'd say that people who would find Spain and Iceland appealing for this sort of thing are two different demographics (of course, not without overlap). Much as I love Spanish food, culture and my Spanish friends, moving to Spain for six months holds little appeal. Iceland, on the other hand...

If coming from the English speaking world, Iceland is easy. Everyone there knows English. Spain may or may not be easy depending on where you stay.

> Practically everything has to be shipped/flown in.

That's no excuse. Burgers in Fiji cost a quarter of that, and everything is shipped in from far further than it does to Iceland.

>> That's no excuse. Burgers in Fiji cost a quarter of that, and everything is shipped in from far further than it does to Iceland.

Does the nation subsidize costs? I went to a couple of countries where staples were remarkably inexpensive and later learned that most of them were subsidized by the national government.

Nope, not at all. BUT on further thought, beef at a local burger joint is locally produced. Everything else (wheat, cheese, onions, tomato, lettuce, sauces, etc) is usually imported.

Of course at McDonalds and Burger King, everything is imported and they cost about the same (or less) than what a burger costs at a local joint.

I believe Iceland also generates its own electricity from geothermal energy.

> Does the nation subsidize costs?

Import is super cheap unless it's something perishable like fresh fish and salad and needs to come over via plane. Local delivery normally costs much more.

In NZ right now a kilo of tomatoes is on par with one kilo of chicken.

Tomatoes are $18NZD/kg in Fiji right now. Imported from NZ.

We can't produce our own tomatoes in the hot months. Prices should drop massively come July.

Realistically, while shipping costs will play a part, the prices are going to have a lot to do with the fact that Iceland's a separate, small national market. It's not even in the EU customs union, though it is in the Single Market. You can be sure that the biggest retailers who do operate there aren't losing money in Iceland. It also seems to be a hothouse economy with incomes and costs driven by high-wage industries related to tech and, apparently, cod. Not completely unlike Ireland or Switzerland but an order of magnitude smaller, and with no membership in a large customs zone.

So in some ways it's a really bad place for fully remote workers to choose to live: a bit like moving to Seattle! Or at least it can be said that you'd be using your freedom of movement exclusively as an opportunity to party down (or maybe to raise children somewhere nice) and not at all as an opportunity to save any money. On the other side of the ledger, I suppose that if you really must leave the US and Canada (or can't get in) and you want to live as close as possible to the US Eastern or Central timezone in a nice fully-developed country which is very easy to navigate using only English there aren't many other options. The UK doesn't seem to welcome digital nomads and its Home Office is no fun to interact with, anyway; Ireland might not be that much cheaper these days and it's certainly not as glamorous a playground as Iceland. Honestly I'd look into finding a posh, safe neighbourhood in Barbados first, though. https://www.visitbarbados.org/barbados-welcome-stamp I suppose one other advantage of Iceland might be the chance to network with other people in tech, but maybe you'd have to at least get conversational in Icelandic to really pull that off?

> a small completely unremarkable burger at a fast food place will be around $20-25. It will not make you full.

Sounds like they've captured the authentic San Francisco experience.

Why would a tiny exclusive island ever want anyone other than high income individuals to move there?

If it weren't the fact that US cities cannot restrict the free migration of individuals, almost all of them would ban anyone moving there who didn't make above the average income for the area. Hawaii's last Republic governor tried every possible step to kick out the Marshallese, which is fucking hilarious considering how few of them there are globally.

If it wasn't for the US constitution you'd have giant slums in the interstitial space between cities, with a few zones stylized after the Jewish Autonomous Oblast here and there as well.

This is simply not accurate. The US was historically and is currently built by accepting poor immigrants. As the famous poem by Emma Lazarus says, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free".

The US is and always has been a place where the poorest can make something for themselves. No matter what rhetoric you spout, this is still demonstrably true: 40 million Americans are first generation immigrants. Another 40 million second generation.

So when I, as an American, see these heavy restrictions, it highlights a couple things for me:

1) Just how different US immigration culture is from anywhere else. And how despite all the anti-US rhetoric, all the political nonsense, we are still the most welcoming place in the world for immigrants, and it isn't even close.

2) How unwilling other nations are to provide opportunities for people outside their borders. I want to go a little further and say these nations don't have much interest in being a part of the world if they can't exploit it.

The US doesn’t have the highest proportion of immigrants, nor is it the most welcoming to most (I am myself an immigrant to the US, and was welcomed).

It’s in the top quartile of both criteria, though.

The US had the advantage of mostly eliminating the indigenous population. The only Americans who aren't immigrants are natives and the descendants of slaves. Other countries have large native populations.

Natives are also immigrants.

I'm talking about migration within US borders. It has nothing to do with immigration.

> despite all the anti-US rhetoric, all the political nonsense, we are still the most welcoming place in the world for immigrants, and it isn't even close.

Haha, hardly. I've seen Indians genuinely discussing that if your life plan is to move permanently to the US the best way to do it is to first move to Canada and get citizenship there.

Yes, the US is more welcoming of immigrants than a small, wealthy, tight-knit island with extensive (and expensive) social services, at least on some measures (OTOH one could argue that Iceland not providing healthcare to immigrants shouldn't count against it when the US doesn't provide healthcare to immigrants either). But Iceland is hardly representative of non-US countries in general.

> I want to go a little further and say these nations don't have much interest in being a part of the world if they can't exploit it.

Is the implication here that the US is not busy exploiting the rest of the world, starting with the fundamental economic reliance on migrant workers that aren't good enough to actually be working there legally?

Iceland isn't tiny.

It's only not tiny in terms of geographic area.

Population wise and urban area wise, it's miniscule.

Yep. For comparison, there are 53 incorporated cities in the United States that have a greater population than all of Iceland (372,520). If you expand it to metropolitan areas, it's 147.

Edit to expand: 37 of the 50 United States have a greater land area than Iceland too. So Iceland is pretty small in both regards.

My city in Poland that's not the biggest one has still more population that the entire Iceland.

Local tech worker in Iceland, and this is the going rate for a midrange software worker.

Wages here have grown ~25% (for the whole country) over the last ~4 years (if my memory from the reporting on this is correct).

Everything has to be imported, and what little that isn't is heavily reliant on imported goods.

Living here is mightily expensive.

Ofcourse you could live more frugally, and obviously most here do. Tech workers here are in the top income bracket like in most other places.

Not sure why digital nomad visas should have lower restrictions though. We want foreigners that come here and spend their money. No need to make it easier for the frugal tourist to come here for longer.

> Show monthly income of 1000000 ISK. Over 7k USD. Why?

I'm not familiar with the reasoning for Iceland specifically but in another country (Switzerland) I was in the position of having to apply for long-term work visas for myself and some of my employees. There they justified the high income requirement because they wanted to know you weren't going to bring in cheap foreign labour and thereby undercut local wages. So you had to show that the wages were high in absolute terms and that you weren't paying less than the national average.

Expect to spend a third of that on rent

But this is for remote work — undercutting local wages shouldn't be an issue.

They want to attract high value individuals because they are doing this to benefit their country and economy while limiting the number of people, not to make foreigners happy.

Edit: apparently the average income in Iceland is close to $6k per month so 7k is not even "high value", it's just making sure only people who earn at least an average income qualify, which makes sense.

Well, of course they're going to set the requirement high enough that they can be confident you'll survive without them needing to pay to deport you.

Beyond that though, they want you to spend your money in Iceland - why else?

Presumably you aren't paying any income tax. So the only advantage to letting you into the country is that you'll spend money on goods and services.

They want rich nomads who will spend lots of money in the local economy.

Your FAANG job probably wouldn't allow you to work from Iceland anyway.

Still the requirements are less strict than Thailand's remote work visa [0] but that lasts for 5 years renewable for another 5.

In Thailand's case the existence of a work-from-Thailand visa also clarifies that working remotely on other visas (Tourist, Non-O, Non-B) is not permitted.

[0] - https://kpmg.com/th/en/home/insights/2022/11/legal-news-flas...

Indeed, tried to get the go ahead with this at Microsoft, HR was very clear about not letting it through

Why though? HR is right to be leery of allowing people to work overseas when the legal status of that is doubtful, but Iceland apparently went out of their way to clarify that situation.

Isn't Iceland inhabited by like 340k people? Maybe they're testing the waters or trying to limit how many people end up moving there.

Overall I agree. DNs would use Portugal's D7 to move in (in an exception of what the visa was originally intended to), but then Portugal introduced a DN visa which now requires a much higher income than what D7 requires, I think 4x times more than D7.

Iceland is in Schengen. Effectively the whole of Europe could move here tomorrow if they wanted. This is not due to immigration control.

It’s in the EEA, more to the point.

D7 was minimum wage, if I recall correctly, around 800 euros per month. I don't think 4x minimum wage is at all unreasonable if it makes the process smoother, since they make the D7 application process as horrible as possible.

I had an awful experience applying for D7, so I am now happily living in Dubai instead which has the best residency process I have seen for ANY country.

The goal is to get self sufficient people (who will stimulate the economy through consumption and not incur costs on the government), not buskers or low-impact nomads.

I know tech salaries outside the US can be much lower, but the requirements Iceland is putting up are basically enough (pre tax) for almost any tech employee in the US. Not just FAANGs. Not sure if Iceland is counting gross vs net pay but even if so, it’s enough for a very large portion of us tech employees still

> almost any tech employee in the US

And almost nowhere else. Hell, it’d be too high for most tech workers in Europe.

most of Europe can already come to Iceland with no reason needed. EEA and Schengen allow them to live and work there without a permit.

I moved to the UK under the same rules (before Brexit) - never moved back home to Iceland :)

Yeah, I know, and I could too. Just feels a bit hypocritical somehow. Like they only want people that get what they cannot give.

Only high earners are welcomed.

Seems like a lawful way to say "North Americans Only".

Basically because you already need to have visa free entry to Schengen (and if you're an EEA/CH citizen you can already move there) this is only available to North Americans, Aussies/Kiwis, and other rich countries like Japan, as well as us Brits mourning our FOM.

Iceland is the 3rd most expensive country in the world to live in. Just look at the prices in ISK for the websites of businesses in Reykjavik, one of the only cities there with cellular data service, and convert it to your local currency.

Your money will stretch 3x-5x further in Europe unless you plan to build yourself an igloo and catch fish lol. Europe isn’t known for being cheap either.

> Not all nomads work remotely for FAANG.

Also FAANG aren't particularly flexible for nomad work.

> Why?

They give you a visa in exchange for the money you will spend in the country. That's it.

Yeah, this is what disqualifies me, although together with my partner, I could possibly make it work. I wonder what accommodation prices are like in Iceland.

Perhaps the calculation is how much they anticipate you contributing to the local economy. They’re not doing this for altruistic reasons.

They want rich people spending locally and bringing their rich network, what answer did you want?

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