The Nomad Capitalist Andrew Henderson Reveals How To Broaden Your International Options

Now, welcome back to Bacon Wrap Business. And speaking of welcome back. Today, I have got a very rare repeat guest on the show. Andrew Henderson from nomadcapitalist.com is here on the show to continue our talk. And to also give those of you who haven't heard this a refresher in what it means to be a Nomad Capitalist. See if you've been listening to my show for a while, I've done some several episodes where we talk about diversifying yourself internationally. From featuring Ronan McMahon from International Living's Real Estate Trend Alert on how to find these properties overseas and capitalize on them both for income, but also for having a place to escape to. And other folks who have really talked about the benefits of diversifying where you live, where your assets are and how to create.

Whether it's an an adventure or an escape, I think it's a really important thing, especially in the state of today's world. This is March of 2022. There are wars going on around the world. There's potential recessions. There is pandemics. There's a whole lot of things that are pretty upsetting. And some of the folks out there, especially the entrepreneurs that, you know, we are and that I know are thinking, man, is this the best place for me to be, especially in the light of everything? And I can't think of anybody more expert at sharing this than our guest today. Andrew, welcome back.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

So for those, for those folks who haven't listened to our first episode, I would love to give a refresher on your backstory and what Nomad Capitalist is all about. Like, what is the, what is the change you're trying to help people bring to their lives?

Well, go where you're treated best. Those are the five magic words. Your country probably isn't number one in everything, let alone anything. And so, you know, for 25 years back when I was 11, 12, 13 years old, my family and I, my father and I would look at the charts of economic freedom and various other reports that would come out and would see, you know, hey, the west is heading in the wrong direction. They've gotten complacent. They think that they're just going to have all the business forever. And, you know, we have Adam Carolla, who's coming toward the comedian who's coming to our, our conference this year, Nomad Capitalist Live. You know, he does a rant on California where it was the bell of the ball 30 years ago. It was the one that always got the date on Friday night, didn't have to put in that much effort. Everybody came to them, you know, now it's 30 years later. And they kept that haughty attitude. And, you know, things aren't working as well anymore. And I think that's what Western countries have done. You've seen that in the last couple years. You've been paying a lot of money, and when you needed them, they probably weren't really there for you. You're seeing a wave of crime right now in the United States. What are they doing about it? You're seeing so many things where it's like, wait a second, what are you paying all this money for that they've been shaming you? Now they want more of your money, by the way, especially if you're a nasty entrepreneur or a nasty investor.

And so my thesis is there are better countries out there. I've been doing it for over a decade, living overseas in various countries that allow me safer places to store my money, better investment opportunities, better lifestyle opportunities, better places where I can have relationships with people, better places where I can hire and do my business. And by the way, very few of those are the same. And so I think that if you treat the world as a buffet, you'll find that maybe Singapore is the best place to bank and put your money. Maybe Malaysia is a great place to live. Maybe Serbia is the best place to hire. St. Lucia is the best passport to have. So there's a lot of opportunities to take advantage of treating the world as a buffet because it's more competitive than ever, it's more open than ever, and it's certainly not the same world even that it was when I started thinking about this with my family back in the 1990s, where you had so many fewer options in so many fewer countries that were competing for your business.

Yeah, you make a great point. And the fact that we've talked about this before, America, which is the majority of my listeners, America's got the best brand, right? They've got the. They've done the best marketing, the best brand. I love the country. I love what America stands for, the ideals, the constitution, et cetera. But loving the idea and the. And the concept and the brand of what it is versus loving the way you're being treated. It can be a completely different story, you know, altogether. Would you. I know that one of the things I've thought a lot about this moving overseas. We've. My wife and I bought a place in Portugal. We've started the process of. We like. That's as far as we've gone we haven't applied for citizenship anywhere. We haven't completely diversified our assets, but it is definitely on the plan to do so.

What is the. What is typically the biggest stumbling block for people when they think about, okay, you're right, I like this idea. I think there's something here, but I just don't know. It's just so confusing. I don't know where to go. I don't want to make a mistake. They don't know what they don't know, especially if they haven't traveled to some of these countries like you were talking about. But, you know, what do you think is the biggest hurdle they have to get over first before they can start realistically planning the next step?

Well, just. Just to be clear, I think this is part of the process. I mean, I'm drinking this. If you're watching, you can see the. The can of Coca Cola, by the way. You know, it's always the same red. I think maybe the Coke Zero is a little bit different red, but they have the same red. They have the same font. They have the same everything. It's the brand for people who drink cola. You don't go and bar and buy an RC Cola or some weird cola. You know, all these drinks that go on Shark Tank, you know, a lot of them don't work because you don't know that brand. You. You know this brand. And I think that if you, you know, accepting that is perhaps part of the process.

Because what I see is the following. A lot of people have reached out to us just a couple months ago, a lot of Canadians reaching out because of what, you know, Justin Trudeau is doing. And now, you know, north of the border from where you are, you know, Justin Trudeau and the far left are getting together with the Coalition to Stay in Power. They might try and implement some of the stuff that the US Already does that is taxing you no matter where you live. And people come, and my team says sometimes they just want to rant. And when it comes to do you want to do business? They really deflect and get away from that because it's not a serious issue for them. And they haven't realized, they still think this is the best place because of the brand. So you have to kind of accept that there are better possibilities. And then I think what the answer is is dipping a toe in. One of the best, first things that you can do if you're not ready to move is get a bank account somewhere. I understand people aren't keeping a lot of money in the bank these days, be it because you're in crypto or you just want to keep your money in assets that are growing in these inflationary times. But get a bank account somewhere, you may need to report it in your home country, depending on how much you put in there. But get a bank account in a Georgia or you know, Armenia or some country that doesn't require much money at all and you'll start to see how the online banking is better, the service potentially is better, you have more options in terms of holding currencies and your money will still magically be there. And so that's one thing you can do.

Let me ask you a quick question before you move on from that. So I know that because of fat carols, et cetera, there's a lot of countries who actually don't, from what I've heard, who don't want Americans to open bank accounts because of the fat. Reporting is so arduous and draconian that they're like, well, we just don't even want to deal with you. Or are there certain countries to kind of avoid because of that versus the ones like you just, well, very much of an issue.

Yeah. I mean again, the legacy brands of banking, right? I mean Switzerland can say we, we can afford that to deal with them. A Georgia and Armenia, especially a Georgia, that's been very friendly historically with the US since the George W. Bush times. They welcome it because they welcome the business because they're open for business, right? So I mean a Swiss bank can afford to push away American clients and perhaps you're better off without them. You know, Liechtenstein to a certain extent, Andorra, but even banks in Singapore will take Americans. You may not have as many opportunities for investment in their bank as the rest of us do. But you know, some of these smaller countries, Ecuador is one if you're in Latin America, I don't think that their banks are nearly as sophisticated. But you know, in this kind of Caucasus region, Georgia, Armenia, they've got some well run banks, but you can get started with very, very little money. You can make it an adventure. You go to Georgia, I mean, great food, great wine, make a trip out of it and spend two days opening a bank account and then make sure you comply with any local laws. So those are places where they're still open because again, they want the business. Right?

Right. Now we, we were able to open a, an account, a bank account in Portugal. Now granted, I don't know the degree of how much buying a property over there, how much that made it easy versus if we just wanted to open one for, you know, giggles. But are some of the EU countries, are those a little bit more difficult?

Yeah, generally, I mean, I think we do open accounts for Portugal, but we do a lot of business in Portugal. So, I mean, certainly who, you know, could be helpful. But, yeah, Portugal could be done. Poland at one point could be done. But, you know, I mean, again, if there's a brand to it, they're going to ask you more questions. And so I think that something that's up and coming is probably a little bit easier. And so, I mean, the point here is not move all your money out of the US and move it into this new account. My point is get an ATM card, start using it, and just show yourself how, oh, this kind of functions. And as I discovered many years ago when I started traveling, this is better. Oh, I want to hold Euros. Oh, okay. I can just do that with a click of a button. It's cheap. Okay. Like, get accustomed to it. Mexican residence is something that Americans can get relatively, I don't want to say easily because it's a bureaucratic debacle, but you can get it without an investment of any substantial nature. And so that could be something where now you have a higher elevation than a tourist. So, I mean, you have to typically.

Move to Mexico on that one in particular.

You need to have some. Spend some time, but you don't have to move there. So I think that doing things that get you conditioned is the first step and dipping your toe in. Because if I just say, listen, here's your Malta citizenship, and it's going to cost your family a million dollars in donations and fees, you know, you're not going to do that. But if I kind of ease you into things, you know, my. One of my first international property deals was $22,000. You know, now we do deals a lot bigger than that. We don't think about it, but back then, it was something. It was a little scary, right?

So the first time always is.

I think that mindset is important, especially if you're from the West. Listen, I don't have to sell when I talk to people from Eastern Europe, when I talk to people from Asia. I don't have to sell them on why this is important. We just say, here's what we need to do. Great, let's go. I mean, I was looking at the sales figures recently. I mean, the speed and the rate of getting, let's say, someone from Ukraine to buy and to execute a plan that we create so much higher than in the west because they get it, they understand even before the current situation, why do I need options? Right? And then they're used to occasionally being rejected somewhere. And, and so when you can execute for them at a high level, they're very happy. You know, Westerners I think are still like, am I sure I need this? You've got to be sure you need it. And so I think that finding ways to condition yourself that it's valuable is important.

Okay, so one of the things you mentioned I want to hit on. So you talk about like the plans we create. So I know I've been familiar with your website nomadcapitalist.com for a long time. I've read the content, I always found it fascinating and especially when I was just researching and reading about this stuff. And I know that you guys actually do have services and you help clients and you help people do this. So kind of a two part question, what are some of the services that you actually help people when they decide, okay, I'm in, I want to do this. And then part two of that is, what are you seeing? Because I'm sure it's very vast. What is, what, what's the highest demand for services? Because it can go as far as, hey, I want to expatriate and like give up my citizenship and completely move over somewhere else versus I just want to diversify, have assets here and there. So kind of give me like what the services are and what the biggest demand right now is.

I think everyone's looking for general diversification. What our services is two parts. It's a blueprint and it's execution of the blueprints, building the house. And so when we create a plan, we look at the financial stuff, whether it's banking, whether it's brokerage, whether it's corporate setup, whether it's your taxes in all the different jurisdictions. Where are you leaving? Where are you going? Both as an individual and whereas as a business or one or the other. But it all works together. You can't just set up a BVI British Virgin Islands company, go back and sit in Florida and pay zero tax as much as the people in the BVI may try and sell you of that doesn't work that way if you're sitting in the US all the time. So we do the financial part, we do the residence and citizenship. Where do you want to live? Where's your residence permit? Is there a residence that's leading to citizenship? Is there, is there a residence that doesn't lead to citizenship, but you could live there and it's tax friendly. Is there a citizenship? What's your citizenship? Do you want to keep your citizenship? And then there's the investments. Not that we're investment advisors, but you know, are there real estate properties you can buy to live in? Are there real estate properties you can buy, for example, in a country like Turkey that lead to citizenship in six months? You don't want to overpay. You don't want to do the 25% commission deals that are out there. You want a 2% commission deal. So we find those and you know, if you want to move.

What do you mean by that? Let me, let me back up. When you talk about the 25%, 2% commission deals, what can you elaborate?

Well, when, when people are looking for properties overseas as an investment or for residents or citizenship. So you know, Turkey is a citizenship program. You buy $250,000 in real estate, you can get citizenship in six months. You'll see a lot of people who will then come in and they'll, they'll sell you some new build some flashy project. You don't know where it is, it's not really in the best location, but they, you know, make it look like it's amazing and they'll sell you some new build project for exactly $250,000. You think you're getting a great investment. Then you go to sell it in three years when you're allowed to, and you find out that it's only worth 150 or 125. Why? Because they called and offered someone like me a 25% commission. They're making some money off the top as well. The property is not worth anywhere near 250, but they've sold enough of them that it will appraise at 250. And they just have kind of a flashy marketing campaign. What I do is I find properties that are on the resale market in that situation where we're paying, you know, I guess 4, 2% to each side, usually normal resale commissions, the same way you would buy or sell a house in the US where it's very transparent and nobody's getting, you know, rich on some back end commission at your expense. And then when you do that, you can probably sell that property if you buy it correctly for the same price or more later.

Okay, perfect. So, yeah, real estate commissions. And I didn't really quite understand also that nuance. And this is the stuff you have to be careful with, especially dealing with other countries. You're dealing with other things that you just don't Know what? You don't know. I know going through the process of buying in Portugal, it wasn't, it wasn't that complex, but there was definitely some hurdles we had to jump through.

Different. And it's different, right? You've got a transfer tax. You've got things you wouldn't think about in the US So our service is helping people navigate that and putting that all together. If you can buy a property that gets you a citizenship, you know, how does that fit in? If you need a citizenship, how does that fit into the parameter? So, I mean, what most people do is, hey, here's a citizenship, you know, here's St. Lucia citizenship, or here's Antigua citizenship. Which one do you want? Which one sounds nicer to you? Well, you don't know. And people call me, oh, I got my Antigua citizenship. Now I don't have to pay taxes. I mean, these people really do a number on these folks. So we help people kind of figure out the whole picture. And then once we have the whole picture, it's pretty easy. Kind of like having the IKEA table manual. We have a team who knows how to manage all the different trusted lawyers and accountants we've made over the 12 or so years I've been or more now that I've been doing this. And we just kind of plug and plug the plans in and get them moving so you don't have to wait 12 years as I have. So that's what we do.

I love it. Have the, have the people, the, like the various concerns that people are coming to you for. Obviously, you know, they want to save or they want to reduce. Save on taxes. Right. Some of them might just want to be, hey, I'm done with the US Some of them is tax related. Some of them may want a plan B escape route just in case everything goes, you know, to crap in their home country and be able to move assets quickly and easily. There's probably some other reasons, but some of them, people just want an adventure and want to diversify their holdings. Have you found recently in the past year especially that the concerns are.

Aggregating in one area more so than others? Whether it's taxes or just.

It's always a blend. Right? I mean, we work with entrepreneurs, they have issues with taxes. That's more of a Plan A. I want to physically make a move somewhere, and by doing that, I can reduce my taxes. If I'm an American, I'm moving to Puerto Rico. If I'm in capital gains assets like cryptocurrency or day trading or Whatever. If I'm running a business, Puerto Rico could also work, but I've got options overseas. Even though the US Follows me for tax, I can still dramatically reduce my taxes in Puerto Rico or overseas if I incorporate and structure properly. So that's always a camp. What's been the bigger camp? And by the way, for. For the, for the run up of cryptocurrency in bitcoin over the last year, that's been a big camp. But what's also been a big one is people seeing, I think for the first time what exactly I've been saying at Nomad Capitalist for a decade, what I've been looking at with my family for the last quarter of a century, hey, you know what? I don't recognize my country anymore. It'd be nice to have a second passport. Because. Because what happens when they do come in and pass this new quote unquote billionaires tax, which is actually gonna affect a lot more people than just billionaires? What happens when they force me to do this or force me to do that? I mean, there's all kinds of things. You're seeing the veneer chipping away. People don't feel free in the Western world anymore. Maybe the US Is a little bit better, but you're seeing lots of taxes come down the pike, you're seeing lots of regulations come down. And yet in Canada and Australia, people are very concerned about having their bank accounts frozen, not having their passport renewed, all kinds of stuff. And I think people are saying, maybe I don't want to leave, but I want options. I do think if things get bad enough, you'll have wished you have left. And I think too many people, again, leave it to the last minute. Like, what do they have to do for you to say, I'm going to get out of here, but at least have a second passport. At least have. As Robert Kiyosaki said at our last conference since we last spoke, he said, where can you get to that they're going to let you in in three days where you can set up a new life. And again, you know, look at my wife, for example. She doesn't like going and staying in hotels long term. And if I said, hey, this place is falling apart, let's go and stay in the, you know, the Marriott somewhere. We've got a residence, she's going to be like, ah, are you sure it's that bad? If we've got a house that we vacationed in, she'll go and she'll be ready to go because there's a Familiarity. And so I think that where can you go in three days is what Robert Kiyosaki says. If you have a residence permit or if you've got a passport, you've got a property there. Now you're. Now you've got a plan B.

Exactly. Are there certain countries that, for Americans especially, that you think are better, more friendly? I know it kind of depends on a lot of the options, but are there any that you kind of recommend, like a group of people?

I mean, here's my mantra. There's 252 countries and territories. I mean, there's something for everybody. I have wealthy people who are leaving, for example, the Cayman Islands over some of the health policies, and they're going to Nicaragua, of all places. They're going to, you know, Serbia. I mean, is that, I mean, by the way, I have a home in Serbia. I think Serbia is fantastic, but it's not the kind of place you thought you'd be going. I also have people who say, listen, all right, take me to Mexico. I kind of know Mexico. Similar culture, similar food, Mexican residents, or what you did. Portugal, people want to go there. I have people who want plan B getting citizenship in the Caribbean, which they're trying to make more difficult right now, where you go and you make an investment or you make a deal donation, you can get a second passport that's pretty good quality in about six months. So for someone who doesn't even want to leave the house, you don't have to leave the house, you just collect documents, send them down, we can help you with that, and you get your citizenship in six months. You know, Turkey has been a good program for some who want the value, the value of the Caribbean citizenship, but they don't want to make a donation. They just want to have an investment. So you buy that property, you have a little bit of legal fees, here's your passport. Obviously it's a little bit different animal. So there's so many, I mean, people, people are less moving to Asia because it's been the last part of the world to kind of reopen, but it's all over the place. I mean, people who have high end businesses are moving to Ireland because there's a friendly tax regime for foreigners to move there and run their foreign businesses in Ireland. Yet they speak English. One of the wealthiest countries in the world. You can work towards a great citizenship after a course of living there. So, I mean, really, it's as broad as you can imagine, right?

You, you, last I spoke, you either live in or spend a lot of time down in Colombia as well. Is that correct? Do I remember that right?

It's been a decent chunk of 2021, partially because Asia wasn't is appealing in 2021. I have a home in Colombia. I have a permanent residence, permanent in Colombia. It's interesting. Part of the world. Nice.

Yeah, I, I been to Medellin like four years in a row and I've got a bunch of friends down there.

You know, I'm in. I'm in Bogota. It's a little bit cooler. I kind of like that almost. But I think there's some interest there. Again, if you know how to manage property, which is, I mean, in the bureaucratic Latin America, it's no easy feat. But if you can get accustomed to that, you can get some decent returns. You can get a residence permit. I mean, yeah, for some Americans, they like that Latin America vibe. They like South America because you could buy a property where you can grow food. I mean, so you can really kind of create your own plan B. But you know, South America is interesting to a lot of folks too.

So, Andrew, let me ask a selfish question. This is about Brazil. So my wife is a Brazilian citizen and US citizen, so she's dual. She moved here when she was about 22. I am only a US citizen and I've started to research this a little bit to where if we were to go live in Brazil. And I. You may know this better than me, but.

Having a Brazilian spouse would technically fast track my ability to apply for Brazil as a Brazilian.

Yeah, Brazil is one of those countries where things are somewhat defined but don't always go exactly according to plan. So you want to take that into account. Here's the situation. If you've got a Brazilian spouse or you've got a Brazilian child, which, by the way, children born in Brazil as a lot, along with most other countries in the Americas, are Brazilian simply by being born there. So anyone can go to Brazil, give birth in one of their hospitals. There's some great ones, especially in Sao Paulo, Albert Einstein Hospital, etc. Now you've got a Brazilian child, and now you can apply for this permanent residence. So it takes about a year of residence to then qualify for citizenship. Generally speaking, you're supposed to be spending a good amount of time living there, which then likely drags you into the Brazilian tax net. Then you file for citizenship, and then certainly there's kind of a discussion as to how much time you want to spend there while they're processing your application to make sure they do process it and keep Going. So what is claimed to be one year might actually be closer to two years. And then you know, are you paying tax there for one year? Are you paying tax there for two years? It's a bit of a complex tax system. So I mean this is what we help people navigate. It is a pretty fast process. It is a great passport. I was just talking to a guy from Brazil yesterday.

And so I think it's a great backup passport. It's a great opportunity for someone to go and give birth there. If I'm going to be taking the naturalization route, do I want the costs that come with that? It depends on your own financial situation. If you're already paying taxes in the U.S. maybe it's not a big difference for you to go down there. Just pay Brazil for a couple years. Obviously as an American you could move overseas to some other country and pay a lot less tax. So, you know, that's the conversation. It's definitely worth it if. Depending on.

Yep, yeah, it's one of those. I've just started exploring and I also wasn't sure if like if I move all of the income I make is US Based. Right. I have, I do consulting and I've got businesses here in the US I wasn't sure if I moved down to Brazil, stayed there, you know, lived there for a year, etc. In order to do this, if, if that US based income would technically be also subject to.

Yeah, so in Brazil taxes people who are tax resident, I don't know where they live. And so you'd have to resolve banks, etc. I don't know what we typically do is let's say you're a U.S. taxpayer, we're going to move somewhere that's totally tax neutral. That could be a tax free country, that could be a country that doesn't tax foreign income. That could be a country that gives you a 5, 10, 15 year exemption. A country that doesn't tax, as you said, based on remittance. Brazil is not really a remittance based country. So you'd have some tax issues to deal with. You'd have to resolve those between the US and Brazil to figure out where the money goes. And so you're not really going to save anything. But that's the complication of working out international tax systems. But you can get that passport and you know what I mean, it may be worth it. I think that for someone who's just starting out, I go back and look 15 years ago and I was very interested in this stuff and probably would have Been a better time for me to do my business because I was also doing stuff that was. I mean, consulting. You can do that anywhere, I would imagine, right. In this day and age. And look at. During the pandemic, people showed it can be done anywhere. So if you can go and you're just kind of starting out in your consulting business, for example, go and live in a country whose passport you want that gives you a good passport. That could be Chile, which is moving in the wrong direction. It could be a European country, like an Ireland, like a Portugal, where you don't have an investment to make, but you're willing to put in the time. It could be a Brazil. I mean, if you're willing to pay some tax now, get the second passport now you're in the driver's seat for when your income is higher later. That's a strategy that I probably should have done earlier.

It's just pay the taxes and suck it up at some level and then, you know, have options for later.

Yeah, that makes total sense.

Right. Oh, and the Brazilian one would have been. To be real Frank, that's more of a. Well, my wife got. My wife has it. So if we both got it, that would almost be like a plan B escape route. If. If we needed to leave the U.S. we both had Brazilian citizenship.

Yeah. I mean, understand Brazilians who don't live in Brazil. So the US Is the only country, you know, essentially the world attacks its citizens no matter where they go, under full conditions. Again, there's exemptions, exclusions, ways you can kind of carve that out. You can get it down into the single digits potentially, you know, so you can still save taxes by moving as an American, but they're still going to be in your life. If you're a Brazilian living in Dubai, they're not in your life. And so while you're living there, it's unpleasant. But if you could get that passport and let's call it two years, you've got a better passport than the Caribbean citizenships by investment. Right. I mean, if someone came to me and said, hey, my wife is Brazilian, I'd say, okay, how much do you make? And then we would do a simple ROI on, you know, 100, you know, $200,000 in. In donations and fees for a passport for your family versus you go down and live in Brazil. And what are the taxes? If the taxes are $10 million for two years, then you don't do it and you just buy the other one. If the taxes are $50,000 and you're willing to make the move, then you do do it. Right. So I mean, I think Brazil is a top quality passport. And I think people, they think, oh, high taxes, always high taxes. No, no, no. Once you leave the country, anything other than the US you're free and you can do what you want. But as long as you have that U.S. passport, that's going to hold you back. So the play would be, I'm American and Brazilian now, and if one day I don't want to be American anymore, I can simply say, hey, I'm Brazilian. Sorry guys, I'm out. And now I can live as a Brazilian. I can travel pretty much anywhere in the world except back to the US and Canada. I can get residents anywhere in the world that I want. No one hates Brazilians. So that's the play. And if I don't renounce my citizenship, I've got a place that I can always go to. And hey, if things get bad enough, maybe I don't care about how bad the taxes are in Brazil.

Right, exactly. You mentioned the citizenship by investment programs in the Caribbean.

And I know those are fairly popular. At least, you know, they're, people talk about them a lot. They're, you know, people are heard about them. Do you have a positive, negative view of those?

Well, the governments aren't being hard. What I love about the Caribbean, we've got five countries in the Caribbean, St. Lucia.

What's your overall view of those that.

Have set up this kind of business? Because they don't have a lot of opportunities in an island of 50, 100, 200,000 people. They've had, in some cases their offshore banks have been shut down or pushed out of the financial system. You know, they don't have a lot of opportunities. And so they offer citizenship where, you know, you send a whole bunch of due diligence materials in. We help people do that. You, you wait around three, four, five months, they give you an answer, they send you a passport. Now you've got a not US quality, but pretty good overall passport you can travel on. That helps them fund their economies and they spend that money relatively well. They build roads, they build low income housing. I mean, they put that money to use in their country because they need it. Now you have the US and the eu, most of the US trying to kind of put pressure on them to get to be done with that. Because what do you have right now? Well, you have finally, what all these politicians have been selling is, oh, Russian oligarchs get these passports to hide their dirty money. Yeah, Russians are less than 1% of some of the programs, and I bet most of them aren't oligarchs. But that's been the marketing campaign that they've been running for five years. And oh, just how fortunate for them. Now Russian oligarchs are in the news and that's a great opportunity for them to put some pressure on this. So, I mean, if you have a citizenship, as I do, you're not going to lose your citizenship. But they may make the programs more difficult. The question as to whether it's worth it for you is a simple, again, return of investment question. I've done a lot more of these in recent years because we have successful people who don't want to jump through a lot of hoops who may not want to leave the country, but they want an option. You can do it all without leaving. You never need to go to the country. You don't have to ever go to the country. There's one exception. Antigua, you have to go five days in five years. The rest of you don't. You could never set foot there. And you can keep the passport for life. So for someone who, you know, 100,000, 130, $150,000 plus fees is worthwhile. More so than moving somewhere and waiting, moving to Brazil and paying taxes, you know, changing their lifestyle. That's very interesting. There are other programs in Europe that are more expensive, that maybe offer different benefits. There's a program in Turkey that's more investment focused, but obviously doesn't have the same travel privileges. So it's a matter of talking to someone. But, you know, the other thing is, let's say your family tree, let's say you've got an Irish grandmother, you may be entitled to Irish citizenship, or you've got family from the Caribbean, from anywhere in Europe, from Taiwan, Mexico, I mean, a lot of countries, parents, in some cases grandparents, and in fewer cases, but still a growing number great grandparents. Slovakia just improved their rules. Bulgaria, I think, just improved their rules last year to where if you have a Slovak great grandparent, you can apply. And so those are better citizenships. Unless you think the EU is falling apart. I mean, okay, maybe it's not better, but I mean, in terms of the passport quality, those are better and they're free. So I like Caribbean citizenship. But unlike most the people who just sell Caribbean citizenships, I think it's worth evaluating. Are you hiring people somewhere or is there some other way you can get a passport? Are you willing to move somewhere? Can you work towards a passport? You know, is there is There a cheaper way to do it if you're willing to wait three years rather than six months. Do you have someone in the family tree? I mean, there's so many different ways to get a passport. Are you married to a Brazilian or married to a French citizen? You can do that without moving to France in some cases. So I mean, there's so many different ways to do it. But if none of those other things apply to you and you say, oh my goodness, I want a passport in six months, I'm in cryptocurrency, it's going through the roof. I need the opportunity to get out of here, then. Yeah, I mean, citizenship by investment works. And I think that's precisely why the US Government is so eager to attach more strings to it, because they don't want you getting out.

That's true. You mentioned Puerto Rico earlier, and I know Puerto Rico is a great place. I'll let you actually touch on some of the benefits on there. I've got multiple friends who've moved out to Puerto Rico and, you know, their timing couldn't have been better. One of my close friends moved there like three and a half years ago, bought a really nice condo in the El Dorado neighborhood, which is like, I think the nicest neighborhood in Puerto Rico. He says, he says, I'm surrounded by hedge fund managers. It's amazing. He's not a hedge fund manager, but he makes good money and his Property, I think 5x or something insane. In the past three and a half years, he's basically hit the home run of his life. But a. Can you touch on some of the benefits of Puerto Rico? I know it's. You don't. People don't go to Puerto Rico to get a Puerto Rican citizenship, like passport, etc, necessarily, but there's tax benefits. But second of all, out of personal curiosity, have we, are we seeing any. There was some talk of the changes.

Or Billy's being last summer. Those benefits, you can go there and you can get 0% on your capital gains. And so if you're in crypto, it's not 0% from like the day you bought it. It's. It's basically when you get there, then we, we figure the number out from there. So if you expect to have continued gains in some kind of financial asset, you can do that in a slightly different formula. If you expect to have continued gains on the growth of a business that you intend to sell, you can run, run those gains up, sell them in Puerto Rico and basically only pay the US for the part. Again, depending on the formula for the part that was accumulated while you were in the US So if I start a business and one year into it, it's working and I go to Puerto Rico and four years later I sell it, I'm going to get a very substantial discount on my US Capital gains tax exposure on that exit. In the meantime, if I structure my business in Puerto Rico, I can pay 4% on the profits from that business. I have to take a salary out and pay normal income tax rates on that salary. But, you know, as long as your business is at least in the six figures, it's still going to be a good deal. And so there's a number of complications, I mean, depending on how your business works. But you know, in the most simple of ways, you can, you know, 0 and 4% tax rates. And so you don't have to leave the United States as a US Territory, you don't need a residence permit. You do need to go through the process of applying for the act. It's called X60. But it's not like where they can ever get rid of you. Like theoretically a residence permit in 10 years would run out or you need to rely on a citizenship. You don't need to invest in anything other than they require like a charitable donation. And you need to do your tax planning. So it's kind of a soft landing for Americans and it could be a kind of a first step before expatriating. But you know, for me, if you're living in California and you're moving to Texas or Florida right now, if you're going to move, you might as well move. I mean, if your goal is, among other things, taxes, why not get rid of the biggest tax, which is the federal one, and just move a little bit further to Puerto Rico. It's still in your country. And so, yeah, I mean, I do think at some point they're going to raise some of those numbers and say for everybody new, they were going to grandfather everyone. And I think you'll be fine on the grandfathering if they raise the rates. But they may raise those rates. You've seen now. I mean, they now require you to buy a property. Property is a heck of a lot more expensive just since Joe Biden got in office. So, I mean, and by the way, I see some of the same thing in neighborhoods in Dubai. Monaco properties already always gone up. I mean, places people can go and be treated best are going up in price. And I think, you know, when people say, oh, how do I do this? It's so expensive. Well, you do it early. Right. And if you can't afford to go there, then you look at the more affordable countries, the Panamas, the Georges, the Thailands. I mean those are still very tax friendly for many people. But Puerto Rico is a good option if you just kind of want to keep it in the country. And especially if you have capital gains. I think that's the person that it's for business sale or athletes.

Let me ask you a question on the capital gains. To the best of your knowledge, I'll use a very simple example. Let's say you buy. We'll use crypto too. You mentioned that you buy crypto. You buy $100,000 worth of crypto, you're living in the US and it appreciates to 200,000. Then you move to Puerto Rico and it appreciates to, let's just say $300,000. So from my very rudimentary understanding, I thought that, that the capital gains is only calculated on stuff that you purchase once you're in Puerto Rico. But then if I bought it here in the US I would still have to pay us like total capital gains on all of that. So is there in that situation?

Yeah, I mean people aren't selling their assets when they go to Puerto Rico. You need to sell it before you leave. Someone's planning, expatriating, how might that work? Where they plan on putting in five years in Puerto Rico and then just going back. Right. Where they kind of just get a take a five year adventure and come back wealthier.

You got to sell the stuff in Puerto Rico. But you can go in. Obviously if you're going in, you're going to reduce capital gains tax on the exit of a business. You're not selling your business and then starting it over. Right. I mean, so we basically figure out, hey, what do you have going in? We document that, we structure that and then you just kind of keep going. And then when you sell it in Puerto Rico, you can enjoy kind of the prorated benefits.

We're not giving tax advice here.

So do you believe, and once more, this is a very non tax.

Whatever I'm accumulating in the US I'm going to pay on that in the US.

That I'm in Puerto Rico. That's going to help me or the value of the asset that is what I had when I arrived versus what I sell it for.

Okay. So that at least helps me because I thought it was if I came there with it and then I sell.

It, by the way, some people do. I mean you're not Gonna sell a business. Some people do wanna sell assets because you've got a bit more flexibility in terms of some of the asset prices. I mean, some people do sell it just to say, hey, here's a clean slate. And it's easy to calculate. And, and, and you could do that, right? I mean, if you're in Bitcoin, you could sell it, you know, and then a couple days later, a couple weeks later, buy it back. I mean, okay, if you want to do that for cleanliness purposes. Now what that's gonna do, obviously that's gonna put, that's gonna push to now rather than deferring. So that's up to you.

Okay, that's, that's definitely handy to know because I was kind of confused about that. Especially, you know, as somebody who has some appreciated crypto has looked into this, etc. That was a, that was something I couldn't quite wrap my head around. You mentioned Georgia. You do you still on the last episode you talked about and I think in your book, you really like Georgia the country, Is that correct?

Is.

Has that changed now with all the global stuff going on? Because it's over there amongst the.

I've never been extremely worried about that. You know, I actually haven't seen battles that are going on. Is there what I saw about a.

Week ago, do you think there's any big danger with Georgia troops out of.

Some of the areas in Georgia that they've kind of de facto taken over for the last 13, 14 years? You know, listen, I have a, I have a team in Georgia. I have properties in Georgia. It's a great, you know, tax friendly place, I think. And I've got a picture here on my wall. We had the president, the former president of Georgia who's, who's being controversial. I mean, he, but he turned the place from zero to hero. He came to our conference, he's a very smart guy. We have an interview with him on our, on our channel.

You know, I think he was the most welcoming and he was the best marketer of the country and the best person who believed the country should be competitive. It still has a lot of the competitive advantages with a bit more of a muted approach. They're not actually marketing as much anymore and so they are a bit more trying to be European. So if I look at like a place that's kind of content being in Europe but not acting European, maybe that's a Serbia, for example, if you want. You know, Georgia, I think has always had these kind of EU aspirations. I don't know why you Know, it seems like it's very far away to be, you know, in the eu. That's their aspiration. And so they've kind of, you know, tried to move in that direction because they don't want to be in the direction of Russia. So I think it's become a bit more neutral these days. But still, I mean, it's an okay place to live. I think the pandemic, you know, probably, you know, it took a little bit of a toll on the city in terms of, like, the cleanliness of this, of Tbilisi. But I think there's still some advantages to living there. I think there's still, you know, some decent investment opportunities. If you bought a property before this whole situation, I mean, you have people who are now moving there and rent prices have gone through the roof. So if you're a landlord, I suppose that's a. That's. I don't want to say it's a good thing, but, I mean, it's. It's benefited you financially, sadly enough.

Right. Do you have any favorite, just general quality of life?

Well, again, I mean, somebody who said.

I mean, all around like this, I.

Think Ireland, I know there's a country been going there longer than pretty much anywhere else, and I think that, you know, you have potential tax advantages. But listen, it's not a cheap place. And by the way, they have some rules there, right? So, I mean, if you don't want any rules, that kind of place isn't for you. So I think it really depends on. I mean, right now.

I almost kind of like, after all these years living in the tropics and living in warm climates, I almost kind of like the weather.

I would also think the weather isn't that.

Yeah. I mean, like living in Malaysia, you walk, you know, you're spitzing. You know, you walk to the grocery store. I mean, it's a real nice change of pace. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, that's good. Listen, some people, I mean, they love the, the Latin vibe.

They love Medellin down there.

I think Mexico is great quality of life and it's vibrant and you've got a lot of those kind of American cultural aspects to it. It's very American in many regards. I think that. I mean, there's so many places like I'm ever, you know, where, Where. Where do I spend my time? You know, I think Colombia, Mexico, Eastern Europe, like Serbia, Georgia has some benefits. I think Montenegro and the seaside is. Is a hidden gem, you know, Malaysia and Asia, you know, I think those are great places for lifestyle I think Ireland's interesting. A lot of people like Portugal, I think those are all places that can work. It's just a question of what are your priorities. Is your priorities avoiding some of the rules and restrictions and regulations of day to day life and having that kind of total freedom? Are your, is your, you know, speaking English, by the way? Countries like Serbia, Belgrade, everyone speaks English. You wouldn't think that, but they do.

One of the top countries in the intermediate level for, you know, after native speakers. So I mean those are places that I like. I mean there's so many. Right. I mean you could define what it is you're looking for. And that's what we help people do. What's most important to you? Finances, freedom, lifestyle. I mean how does that rate? And we go from there.

Uae. A lot of people go to Dubai, obviously. A lot of people going to Dubai, obviously. You know, good taxes, lifestyle.

That's fantastic. There any they go where? Dubai?

Yeah, yeah. Real hot. Yeah. No, I've heard that. I've never been to Dubai. I, it's definitely someplace on my to visit list.

I've got. I probably know about three people who live over there. They're trying to get me to come. I'm like, it's a, it's a far trip just for a, a dedicated trip, but one of these days for sure. Are there any other things that you think people should really do when they're like, yes, this is the path I want to pursue, whether it's contacting you, whether it's taking inventory of what they really want. But when people are, hopefully they've. You've fascinated them quite a bit.

I, I would, I would gather information and gotten them.

I wrote a book about this.

What is the first how to manual. Throws a lot of possibilities. I mean if I listed every program's requirements, I'd be upsetting the book every week. But I wrote a book called Nomad Calculus. It's on Amazon. There's some stories, there's some of my experiences and there's some ideas of what you can and can't do and what you should and shouldn't do. I think it's probably a good kind of all in 1 370some page I think read to kind of help you understand everything that we do here and then you can decide what you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do. And I think that people have said that the book helps them kind of understand, hey, maybe you don't want to do any of this stuff in which Case, you know, go do something else. You know, go build your business. There's a guy on YouTube who, and he seems like a good guy and he puts out some good content, but he said, listen, you know, this not paying taxes thing is stupid. I think not paying taxes and reducing legally Your tax rate to.0125%, whatever, is the best way to reinvest, create generational wealth, serve your customers better, create more opportunities for your employees all across the board. Pour boiling oil over the heads of your employees, competitors by being more competitive.

You know, but if you don't value that, then this isn't for you potentially. Right. If you think that the US Is the best place ever, read the book. And if you feel like, then go focus on building your business. And I think it's not for everybody, but I think that we finally come to at least a time where the veneer is being stripped off in some way of these what I call legacy brand countries. The taxes are never enough. The freedoms are being taken away. They're becoming more and more authoritarian. And so I think it's at least a good place to start and realize, no, you can't just set up your company in Belize and then go home and live and not pay tax, you know, no, you're not going to get Portugal citizenship just by buying property. But you can maybe start the process, you know, get some clarification on that.

That makes sense.

Speaking about buying property, are there any countries that you've identified as just really great.

Opportunities for buying real estate?

Yeah, I'm largely looking at real estate for folks these days that offer some kind of residence or citizenship. Eastern Europe, the Balkans region. So Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, you get a, you can buy pretty much any property and get a residence permit. Albania may be a hidden gem on the European seaside. So look at Valora, look at Saranda probably is even nicer. You can buy properties, you know, not a mansion, but you can buy something near the sea, sea view for 20 to €25,000 to start. Yeah, I mean, Colombia, I think, has decent yields. If you can kind of deal with a bureaucracy down there, there's a residence benefit there. Georgia, I think, still has some potential. Turkey, I think is underpriced in many regards. If you buy big enough property, you, you can, you can get that citizenship. If not, you can do. There's maybe some flipping opportunities. So those are places that stand out to me. And then I've been a big fan of Cambodia for a while. I've got a friend who runs InvestAsian and helps people do it, because you can't really do it on your own in many countries in Asia. But Cambodia has been a great play in my mind for the last decade and I think will continue to be. So that's maybe one where you need a little bit of help. The others I think are very interesting.

Cambodia, yeah. That's not on the tip of most people's tongues when you think about international real estate investment etc. Speaking of Colombia, two pieces of anecdotal stories there. One you mentioned about the bureaucracy. I mean one of my friends down there who done a lot of real estate development actually.

Specializes in making simple things complex. He's like, it's pretty crazy how many hoops you have to jump through. Yeah.

Yeah. And then he also. It blew me away on my last trip down there. I've got two different friends who've developed properties. One is bought 30 acres in the jungle about down near Venezia, if you're familiar with that, about hours south of Medellin. And another one up in, I can't remember what exact town it's near, but he built a, he built a 17 room boutique resort on a couple acres and it's gorgeous. We spent like three days there, a bunch of us, we basically had 75% of the entire place. And I think the all in cost for a 17 room boutique resort with huge pool, big clubhouse, everything was about 1.3 million U. S and it was mind boggling. When you go down there and you see how absolutely gorgeous some of these places are and the prices and it does make you, it does make you question what am I doing with my life? When there are possibilities out there like this and these are just ones that you stumble across. It's one of those things you only get from travel. It's. You only get from expanding your horizons and getting out and seeing how other people are.

Living, investing, doing things. And you, that's like you say, you realize, wait a minute, maybe what I've been sold is not the absolute best thing.

I think start with the book. In closing, I think that's what I would do. And I know it continues. You have to get clear on what it is that you're willing to do, what you're not willing to do and get clear on what the options are and then understand the mindset of go where you're treated best. The US really does not rank number one in anything. It might rank number 25 or number 41. And hey, maybe out of 200, that's not so bad. But you know, find the, find the Best place to do everything, whether it's find a relationship, park your money, invest in real estate. I mean look for that number one.

Well, in a day like days like this, when we're so globally connected, it becomes easier to do that. And I really like the trend that we're starting to see and I hope it continues, which is other countries starting to compete for citizens and compete to, hey, we can provide you a better lifestyle, better amenities, better this, that and the other. So because so you're not tied to one city. I mean companies compete for customers. Sure as heck be great if countries competed for citizens. And I think we're starting to see that more. So wouldn't you agree?

I love it. Well, Andrew, as always, it's been great having you back on the show today. So the best way, obviously there will be links in the show notes so you can get the book Nomad Capitalist and also visit nomadcapitalist.com I've read your book. It's really good. Took copious amounts of notes. Really, really highly recommend it and it's probably the best next step I would think to.

After this if you want to go in, you'll get all of Andrew's very, very thorough thoughts and strategies and stories on what to do. I remember in the early, I think it was maybe chapter one or two, you gave an example that was very personal to me. You were talking about, you may like the beaches and women of San Diego, which is where I live, but did you know that there are places a lot like that for a lot cheaper, etc. I was laughing when I read that.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I get a hold of you. We're a functioning business here. So it's, it's a thought leadership but it's also what's a business. So it's nomadcapitalist.com, we've got over 1500 articles that we've written over a decade can learn more about our services. But I think the best place is the book and I think the best place is the YouTube channel, 1700 plus videos. We put one out every day on all kinds of topics. Again on the mindset sometimes. And so there's a lot of resources out there to help you for free or next to free to get started. And a lot of people call me and say hey, I've been following, I've been reading for a year, two years, three years and it's finally sunk in.

Perfect.

Love it, love it. Well Andrew, thanks again for being on the show. For everybody else, please read the book reach out to Andrew or his company if you think this is something they can help you with. And if you like this show, you like this topic, leave a review on itunes. I read every single one. And don't hesitate to shoot me an email to ask Brad at baconwrappedbusiness.

Com.

Andrew, thanks a lot and I hope to talk to you again soon.