The purpose of this little research project was to find countries where you could park some money as a non-resident and not have to worry about paying withholding tax.
You still might have to pay tax on the foriegn income if you live in residence-based tax country or the US.
I also wanted to cross-reference it with countries that had special visa regimes where you could get a residence permit with just a bank deposit (no income or property purchase reqd).
Monaco - 500K EUR min
Phils SRRV - 20K USD
Panama - 200K USD x 3 yrs for TR, 300K for PR
Latvia - apparently they have a TR program for about 280K EUR
I excluded sub-Saharan Africa except for South Africa and Mauritius
Method: I used the following 2 websites to screen
https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/quick-charts/withholding-tax-wht-rates
https://dits.deloitte.com/#TaxGuides
I checked almost every country on the Deloitte, but there were a few missing so I either looked at Ernst&Young tax summary
https://www.ey.com/content/dam/ey-u...l-tax-and-immigration-guide-april-2024-v1.pdf
or i did a query with ChatGPT 4o (chatgpt.com)
or just did a Google search
There were some surprises (tax havens like St Kitts and Antigua that charge 15-25% WHT, and normally high tax EU countries that charge 0%)
Halfway through, I realized that I should've written down if gov bond interest was also exempt. So I only managed to write down a few of them
A couple countries don't charge WHT per se, but would charge the interest as domestic income tax even for non-residents so it is basically equivalent
Please give feedback if you see any that are inaccurate. I tried to keep this research project ot just a couple of hours and the screening process was good I think but not perfect.
Europe
Andorra/Luxembourg/Liechtenstein/
Monaco
San Marino - hard to tell, probably 0%
Switzerland - US residents exempt
UK/Jersey/Guernsey/Isle of Man/Gibraltar
Bosnia
Cyprus
Malta
Denmark/Finland/Norway/Sweden
France
Germany
Estonia
Latvia - 0% if not in a "low-tax jurisdiction", otherwise 20%
Netherlands
Ukraine - only 0% for gov bonds
Spain - 0% if EU/EEA resident
Romania
Latin America
Puerto Rico
Panama - sav accts and gov bonds
Caribbean
Bermuda
Anguilla
Aruba
Bahamas
Barbados
BVI
Cayman
Curacao
St Marten
Gulf States
Yemen
Oman
UAE
Kuwait
Bahrain
MENA
Libya
Israel - certain public bonds
SEA
Singapore - approved banks/debt securities
Laos
Malaysia
Phils - Expanded Foreign Currency Deposit System (EFCDS) only
East Asia
HK/Macau
Central Asia
None
Anglosphere
US - as long as not ECI to US trade or biz, must fill W-8BEN
You still might have to pay tax on the foriegn income if you live in residence-based tax country or the US.
I also wanted to cross-reference it with countries that had special visa regimes where you could get a residence permit with just a bank deposit (no income or property purchase reqd).
Monaco - 500K EUR min
Phils SRRV - 20K USD
Panama - 200K USD x 3 yrs for TR, 300K for PR
Latvia - apparently they have a TR program for about 280K EUR
I excluded sub-Saharan Africa except for South Africa and Mauritius
Method: I used the following 2 websites to screen
https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/quick-charts/withholding-tax-wht-rates
https://dits.deloitte.com/#TaxGuides
I checked almost every country on the Deloitte, but there were a few missing so I either looked at Ernst&Young tax summary
https://www.ey.com/content/dam/ey-u...l-tax-and-immigration-guide-april-2024-v1.pdf
or i did a query with ChatGPT 4o (chatgpt.com)
or just did a Google search
There were some surprises (tax havens like St Kitts and Antigua that charge 15-25% WHT, and normally high tax EU countries that charge 0%)
Halfway through, I realized that I should've written down if gov bond interest was also exempt. So I only managed to write down a few of them
A couple countries don't charge WHT per se, but would charge the interest as domestic income tax even for non-residents so it is basically equivalent
Please give feedback if you see any that are inaccurate. I tried to keep this research project ot just a couple of hours and the screening process was good I think but not perfect.
Europe
Andorra/Luxembourg/Liechtenstein/
Monaco
San Marino - hard to tell, probably 0%
Switzerland - US residents exempt
UK/Jersey/Guernsey/Isle of Man/Gibraltar
Bosnia
Cyprus
Malta
Denmark/Finland/Norway/Sweden
France
Germany
Estonia
Latvia - 0% if not in a "low-tax jurisdiction", otherwise 20%
Netherlands
Ukraine - only 0% for gov bonds
Spain - 0% if EU/EEA resident
Romania
Latin America
Puerto Rico
Panama - sav accts and gov bonds
Caribbean
Bermuda
Anguilla
Aruba
Bahamas
Barbados
BVI
Cayman
Curacao
St Marten
Gulf States
Yemen
Oman
UAE
Kuwait
Bahrain
MENA
Libya
Israel - certain public bonds
SEA
Singapore - approved banks/debt securities
Laos
Malaysia
Phils - Expanded Foreign Currency Deposit System (EFCDS) only
East Asia
HK/Macau
Central Asia
None
Anglosphere
US - as long as not ECI to US trade or biz, must fill W-8BEN
