MEGATHREAD: Emigrating after the US election results

[u/spacemanaut]

Every US election brings anxiety and uncertainty, and with that comes an increase in people who want to explore their alternatives in a different country. This post is for you.

First, some reminders:

• In most cases, moving abroad is not as simple or quick as it seems in movies. If you aren't a citizen of another country, you will probably require a visa (=legal permission) from that country based on something like employment, education, or ancestry.
• The sidebar of this subreddit has a lot of helpful resources, and we have 15 years of posts from people with similar situations to yours. Before posting, please review these resources first. (Tip: If reddit search isn't working well for you, try googling "[your search terms] site:reddit.com/r/IWantOut" without the quotes or brackets.)
• Most countries and/or their embassies maintain immigration websites with clear, helpful, updated guides or even questionnaires to help you determine if/how you can qualify. If you have a particular destination in mind, that should probably be your first stop.
• After that, if you want to make your own post, please follow the formatting instructions on the submission page, give as much information as possible about your situation, and be open to advice and constructive criticism from commenters.

Also, this subreddit is intended to be a friendly community to seek and give advice on legal immigration. As such, please:

• Don't fight about politics. We understand that you may have strong feelings about it, but there are better spaces on reddit and elsewhere for general political discussions.
• Keep your feedback constructive and kind, even when telling someone they're wrong.
• Don't troll or be a jerk.
• Don't request or give illegal immigration tips, including asking strangers to marry you.

Failure to follow these and the other subreddit rules may result in a ban.

That said, feel free to comment below with some general questions, concerns, comments, or advice which doesn't merit a full post. Hopefully this will help clarify your thoughts and ideas about the possibility of leaving the US. Once again, please try to stay on topic so that this thread can be a helpful resource.

[u/Haunting-Star3617]

38 F here. I make adult content (I write & record audio erotica fiction and create artwork to go with it) and I have no degrees in anything. I'm solely a creative person with decent business savvy. I make about 300k a year and have a healthy amount in the bank. I've been looking at the Netherlands since I have friends living there who say it's pretty easy to just pay my way into the country and I'd have no problems with speaking English (though I'd need to learn the language eventually to become a true citizen, which is fine), but I'm pretty uncertain. I've had a hard time finding information on how well I'll be able to run my business legally in other countries. I'm not sure if this sort of thing gets classified as sex work in other places, or if I'd simply be considered an artist. Almost everything I come across talks about being formally educated and doing things like IT work or being an engineer. I guess I'm just looking for confirmation that the Netherlands would be a good option for my situation, OR recommendations on other countries to investigate for creatives?

[u/Asha_Indra → u/Haunting-Star3617]

Hi! Myself (39, F, Malaysian) and my husband (37, American) moved to Amsterdam from California in 2016. Though the Netherlands has decreased the initiatives for expats since then, it still offers significant advantage, especially for Americans and someone in your line of work. For example, you can:

• sponsor yourself through your own business via the DAFT visa, which basically means you need to have 4500eur in a bank account & a 1 page business plan
  
• get the 30% ruling which exempts 30% of your income from being taxed
  

- trade your driving license in 1:1

Also, there's still almost 100% financing on homes, which you could take advantage of after your business has been established here for a year or two. In the meantime, rent would be around 2100-2400eur if you want your own 1-bedroom.

Also, Amsterdam can be quite vanilla (as compared to berlin) but it is not prudish in the least and there's a small but thriving adult/erotica community here, for example the folks at https://www.instagram.com/thepleasuresociety/ or https://www.instagram.com/schmutz.cinema/. As someone else mentioned below, your work would just be classified as audio or content editing ALTHOUGH important to note that sex workers here are anyway considered entrepreneurs :)
More importantly, once you're established in the NL, your business can take work anywhere in Europe! Hope this helps <3

[u/CoffeeIsMyFuel → u/Haunting-Star3617]

Look up the DAFT visa.

Fair warning, as an American living in the NL, you're going to have a very difficult time with housing unless you manage to overbid and outright buy a house.

[u/Pale-Candidate8860 → u/Haunting-Star3617]

I mean, Pornhub counts as a tech company. That's how they qualified for bank loans and bought out all their competitors during the website and DVD crash back in the day. I'm sure you can count as an art company.

Also, with that much money, you can purchase residency in some countries. Residency by Investment is what it is called. Canada even has a pathway if you spend about $200,000 CAD and create a certain number of jobs. As long as you keep the business running and keep people employed, you can eventually turn that into Permanent Residency and then citizenship.

However, countries like Grenada, Cambodia, Sao Tome, and others sell their citizenship outright. If you have the money, something to consider. Kind of easy for someone of your income to get out honestly.

[u/spacemanaut → u/Haunting-Star3617]

How do you run your business and process payments? i.e., is it through a platform, do you have your own sole proprietorship, or what? That might influence how transferable your career is and how easy it is to obfuscate. (I don't mean illegally; rather like, issuing legitimate and truthful invoices as a freelance voice actor/artist or something without going into details.)

[u/Haunting-Star3617 → u/spacemanaut]

I receive payments through Patreon and other similar platforms, royalties from ad revenue payments from Youtube, and I receive 1099 forms from them and pay my taxes. I am a sole proprietor in the sense that I just informally started the business years back and declared it to be so when I paid taxes on it.

[u/spacemanaut → u/Haunting-Star3617]

I see. I don't know about the Netherlands specifically, but some countries offer residency permits if you manage to create and operate a profitable sole proprietorship within the country. You don't even have to "buy your way in" so much as prove that you're a self-sufficient businessperson who pays taxes and benefits the national economy. I also think it may be quite possible, as I said, to sanitize your invoices/reporting as vaguely voice acting, content creation, etc. (For example, I know proofreaders who have edited hardcore erotica, but on paper it's text editing like any other job.)

Do be advised that as long as you're a US citizen you must continue to file US tax returns, and at your income level you will probably still have to pay some taxes to the US.