78. A Digital Nomad's Guide to Visas

So that was a long-winded way to say you're going to have to do your own research outside of this episode . Our goal here is just to give you the broad overview .

We're going to break down a couple different types of visas that make sense for digital nomads , we're going to talk to you about different requirements and the main ways to apply and extend visas , and then we're going to give you some resources to help you do your own research .

So a passport is issued from your country , from wherever you're a citizen or a resident of , and allows you to leave that country and to travel into the world wherever your country has agreements with and allows travel to . The main thing is that it's issued from your country .

A visa , on the other hand , is issued from the country that you're traveling to and gives you permission to enter that country and to stay in that country for a certain period of time . So you do need both of them . Pretty often , if not always , visas come in a few different forms . There are some newer electronic visas , which are really nice .

They are linked online to your passport , so there's no need usually to print off any physical document . Have anything on hand . Just have your phone . If you've gone through the application process , you just pull up that information on your phone and you're good to go .

The most common form that Monica and I have experienced is some sort of stamp or a sticker that's put into your passport . Sometimes there are some like the visa is a whole document that you need to print out and have signed and everything like that . Those are probably the least convenient .

But yeah , again , most often it's a stamp or sticker taped or glued or stamped or sometimes have stapled into your passport .

We're not going to be able to , but there are some , like big bucket , broad categories that we can talk about , and these are the ones that we feel like are most applicable to people who want to be digital nomads , people who are going to be listening to this podcast , people who are in our Facebook group .

We're going to be touching on , I think , one , two , three , four , five , six different types .

So that's one of the four things in there for people who are looking to go into this country and just spend a short amount of time there to enjoy themselves , for leisure , for tourism .

Typically , the average length of these visas is normally about three months and typically you have no limit for how many times you can apply , though there are some exceptions to that rule , like one of the biggest ones that comes to the top of my mind is the Schengen region , which is most of Europe , where you are only allowed to be there 90 days out of any

180 day period . So 90 days there , 90 days out , before you can reapply . So realistically , you can only go twice in a year .

So your month comes up and as long as you leave , you can come back and reapply and , like we said , there's no limit to the application . So a lot of people there'd actually be companies who would bust people out of Vietnam for a night , which would reset their visa . Then they could come back , stay another month in the country .

There's a lot of countries that allow that . So a lot of travelers and digital nomads will take advantage of that and leave for a night , come back . Reply . We do want to say to be super careful and pay super attention to the wording of how long you're allowed to stay in a country .

For example , when we were in Cambodia , we were allowed to be there for one month . We assumed it meant 30 days , that those were kind of synonymous , because a lot of countries say 30 days , or sometimes they'll say 90 days , which we just in our head .

We think that means three months , but we happened to be traveling in Cambodia during the month of February , which was a shorter month , so we were assuming 30 days .

We are leaving the airport , leaving the country , and we had to pay a fee because we had stayed there longer than we were supposed to , because we were there in February and we had counted I think we were there like 29 days . We made sure that we were there , leaving on time , but because of February it was longer than one month .

So just pay super close attention to those types of things

.

So if there are places that just totally capture your heart and you want to stay longer , there are options for you there . Okay , next form of visa these are actually two different kinds , so we kind of lumped into one . It's a business or a work visa .

So a business visa allows you to go into a country to engage in business , attend conference , drop contracts , maybe sometimes even set up your business in that country and run your business , have business , make money in that country . A work visa is allowing you to take a job in this country , so they allow you to work for an employer .

There are a lot of like work away type options for digital nomads that I know are really popular , especially during like seasonal work . I know there's a lot of people who really like to do that , but you will need a work visa for that purpose .

These visas are typically longer term than a tourist visa and normally can go up to about four years in a country before , you would have to reapply .

Think of this as like a long layover where you're going to leave the airport , go and explore and then come back to the airport and fly out again . Because these transit visas are usually issued for about 24 to 96 hours , sometimes all the way up to two weeks , but usually not . Usually it's just one to three days .

You do need these to leave the airport between flights , again depending on the country . We just learned , for example , that Peru does not have a transit visa . So if you're stopping by in Peru on your way somewhere else and you do want to leave the airport , it's just a normal tourist visa that you would get .

So some countries have these , some countries don't , but typically they're not issued at the airport . So you will need to apply for these at an embassy or a consulate or online and get these ahead of time before you travel .

I mean , if you have more experience with us than we do , please let us know . I'm very curious about this . But yeah , it is just something you're gonna have to plan ahead for .

Okay , the next kind of visa is a student visa and this is for people who are wanting to study abroad and it's normally valid for the duration of your your program , so normally two to four years . Typically , when you're on a student visa , your work opportunities are very limited .

I know specifically in the US you are allowed to work like on campus , but you weren't allowed to get jobs outside of campus For student visas . I'm gonna guess there's other really similar requirements to these in other countries .

That's not to say that you can't make money , you just can't hold a job in that country , if that makes sense , and we met a lot of people in Thailand who were on student visas , who were wanting to stay in Thailand for longer than the 45-day tourist visa and they use it through student visas .

That being said , the schools and programs that you apply to had to be approved by the government to qualify for a student visa . But it could be like fun classes though , like we met people who were doing cooking , like going to cooking school or doing multi-classes and things like that , but it had to be an approved program .

So you could theoretically sign up for just a single class and then apply for a student visa and possibly you get approved .

So just so you know , this is like a form of a residence permit . It allows you to stay there . I think it's normally one to three years . It's kind of the average length for a retirement visa . Another common requirement is you have to show proof of sufficient income or sufficient funds to be able to support yourself .

The idea is that the country doesn't want you just freeloading . They want to know that you're going to be able to contribute to the economy in some way , especially if you're of retirement age . You're probably not going to be working , so they want to make sure that you can still have money to spend in that country .

So you have to show that you have enough income or it's fun somewhere to support yourself .

Currently , I think there's about 50 countries that offer digital nomad visas and there's about another 10 or so that have announced their intentions to set up a digital nomad visa , so that's super exciting .

You do have to prove that you work remotely , and normally there is some sort of income requirement that you have to prove that you can meet consistently , but this is a really great option for remote workers , freelancers or people who own their own business online and just want to live in one country a longer amount of time .

And if you have any questions about that , I highly recommend that you scroll back to episode 60 and 61 , which are tax episodes with our nomad tax experts , crystal and Marcella , and so just make sure you know what tax treaties might be in place , what your tax options are , where to set up your tax residency if you are looking to have more of a residence type

situation through these visas .

But these are some common things that you'll find your passport .

Proof of income like we talked about with the digital nomad visa and retirement visa , proof of how much you're making , sometimes proof of health insurance and then proof of onward travel . We've seen this a lot with the tourist visas , similar to the retirement visa .

They wanna make sure that you're not gonna freeload and just live off of other people and to do that , they make sure that you're leaving after your visa's expired .

So if you don't actually have plans , like a lot of digital nomads and travelers don't often know exactly when they're gonna leave the country or where they're gonna go next , if this is your case , you can actually go to this awesome website called OnwardTicketcom and pay about $12 to $15 for a short-term ticket Like it's a valid plane ticket but it expires in

about a day and you get that right before you travel and then that's proof of your onward travel and then , once you get to your country , it expires . Then you can stay there until your visa's up and then make plans for it to go after that .

So this has the potential to be a little bit risky because you do still have to apply and you have the potential of being denied .

Typically from what Austin and I have seen and experienced , the airlines make you apply ahead of time , even for a visa upon arrival , because the airlines don't wanna be responsible for dropping off in a country that you are not allowed access into . But it could potentially be a little bit of a risky situation .

This is specifically for travelers from the US though each country should have their own version of this and this is a really good site that provides information from the government , which will give you different like visa information .

It can give you different like safety tips and different things like that , so it can be really nice as well , as I would recommend looking up the government website of the country you are traveling to Most of the time .

That's going to be the most up-to-date website , although I have been on a couple government sites that have not seemed like they were up-to-date , so just make sure you're kind of checking with that . If you ever have any questions , feel free to call your consulate or the embassy to get more up-to-date information .

Another really good one that we just heard about is sherpacom , and the website's a little bit weird .

You can't just type in sherpacom , so make sure you're using that link down below because it's a little bit funky , but it's another really good one to stay up-to-date on visa requirements , though we always recommend that you cross-reference these requirements just to make sure you're getting the most accurate information .

That is your visa crash course visas 101 , for anyone interested in digital nomading and traveling , we would love for you , if you're not already , to join us in our Facebook group for things like this , if you have more questions about visas .

Our Facebook group currently has members from , I think , about 40 different countries around the world , so it's a great community of travelers . You can ask any questions you have about visas , about traveling , about working online .

Monica and I are both very active in that group , so if you're not there yet , go join us , and really it's just an open invitation to join this really awesome community of other people where you can get some information from and contribute information to and I mean , we're a little biased .

We love this group , so that's also going to be linked below for you to head in and join us . Thanks so much for joining us here on the profitable Nomad Couple podcast . We appreciate you listening to us today .