[USER]

(Sorry for the length)
I’m a single female principal mathematician (widowed during undergraduate with no desire to date again/have kids) who’s part academic and part consultant in industry planning to hit my FIRE number in 18 months or so.

I’ve had grants pulled this year and am possibly impacted by Harvard’s cuts.

My consulting is with foreign companies, and I have enough equity that I don’t want to fully FIRE until I know if any will sell (probably $2M post-tax range from each company, not included in my FIRE estimates due to money contingent on sales).

Given my foreign income and some of the comments about autism lately, I’m meeting with estate planners and immigration lawyers to consider my options (business visas, foreign property purchase for residency/citizenship by investment, early retirement visas, sabbatical abroad options… in my countries of interest).

For those who have looked into or actually done those options, I’d love to hear your experiences and the financial impacts of whatever options you chose.

Bonus if anyone has navigated an exceptional person visa (have won a couple minor international prizes in my field).

[Stef]

Sorry, this is happening to you. The US is embarrassing and frightening today.

[Russell]

I’ve not moved yet, but I’ve looked into it extensively as I plan to do the expat nomad thing for quite a while when I retire.

The biggest question I’d ask is if you intend to renounce your U.S. citizenship once you get somewhere else.

The U.S. will tax US citizen income no matter where you live in the world. There are tax treaties with foreign countries which will decide to what extent you are double taxed, and some pension types are exempted but all of that varies by country.

If you renounce, you simplify that…but at the cost of no longer being American. It’s not an option for military retirees as they lose their pension, but it’s a consideration for others.

You don’t mention your countries of interest, but the rules all vary so much that it’s hard to give too much advice that isn’t completely generic.

I know many nations have pension visas for retirees. Some of those require documented passive income; often dividends count for that. Others can be qualified for with a large enough cash balance.

Costa Rica, for example, can be qualified for with around $60k deposited into a CR bank account.

[Robert]

I did immigration law when I was in private practice. (I’ve been out of private practice for about five years now.)

I’ll see if I can rustle up some names for you.

But are you looking for inbound immigration into the US; or outbound immigration from the US?

[Author]

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