As per my understanding, ESR apply only to those individuals who are shareholders/mangers/directors of the UAE company AND the foreign connected company.... So if you have only your UAE company you are not concerned by the ESR.
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You can opt also for citizenship by investment in real estate... there are few options around the world but i think the banks in Europe, CH, Usa will not accept panama citizens or something like that maybe i’m wrong let’s wait other opinions
I doubt they wouldn't accept Panama citizens as that is not something like Iran Syria are. You can always open in better location like HK, Singapore etc. Singapore is a viable option for CH. I believe Panama has also succumbed to OECD pressures so that is why now they are lifting away all sanctions on it. They are blatantly blackmailing every jurisdiction for BEPS ever since Obama psssed his FATCA blatantly causing a problems to Americans overseas who are paying tax to other countries and living here. This is a kind of blatant slavery that US accuses Eriteria of but not doing itself as we are are on Gods side. You will see EU passing those slavery laws after Covid 19 is over as govts are getting revenue crazy these days. Someone has to pay for all this mess. Andrew etc are exactly stating this over and over time and time again on YouTube. I doubt it's just for ramping up his business but he is telling his clients not to apply for Golden visa programs either.
You are correct. Rent is not that high as compared to many EU countries and NYC, LA etc. Plus it's fake residencies is what's causing all these problems to UAE as well as all of us who are actually living here. EU and even India also is watching its citizens coming in and out twice a year to UAE and they know this game already.
Too much money for a passport which banks have problems with nowadays as they want your second passport information too sometimes if you were born in that country. Carribean countries are a red flag to them. Think why Andrew applied for a Comoros instead of Dominica earlier. He was interested in Dominica earlier but he changed his mind for Comoros instead. All bankers know about CIS programs.
1) Yes I learned that lesson the hard way
3) Well I understand that, but isn't it much easier to have proper home base, for example in ur case now UAE? Like when the taxman doesn't belive you left your home country and starts asking questions shouldn't it be easier to explain properly why you live in UAE now instead of also explaining why you are having an additioanl residency?
4) Yeah I understand, in case you have an AMEX you can get transferred to their ME branch
Well rent highly depends on the area you live. I was living first in Address Marina and then moved to Address BLVD(Fully serviced apartments) where I paid for a 2 BR around 45k EUR a year, now in Bahrain I get bigger apartment for half the price. If you plan to get an investor visa by buying real estate I can again advice you to check out Bahrain. To obtain a 10 year visa (Which costs only 600 BHD / 1400 EUR) via real estate you have to buy a property for a minimum of 50k BHD (around 120k EUR). Its less than half the amount you have to invest in UAE (1M AED, around 240k EUR). And again depending on the area you are working in, you have easy access to the Saudi Market, which is way bigger and more sustainable than UAE. Also keep in mind Saudi is currently trying to diversify their economy, since covid19 even more. The biggest issue I personally have with UAE is, besides the problem with the huge amount of expat clowns, there are roughly about 1M+ emiratis, without expats that country is nothing. If UAE will go down the drain, it will be huge. Just consider the other thread you posted about prolly corporate taxation, if you only rely on UAE in your tax optimization structure there is not really any advantage in staying in UAE when they start taxing corperations. And don't even think about personal income tax. That will be deal breaker for most western expats atleast, and most of the local population will not be able to close the know how gap. Bahrain and Saudi on the other hand are not some lala lands, Bahrain has a long history in trade, they started a big fintech hub, and even AWS chose Bahrain over UAE, and locals are actually are normal working people, same goes for Saudi. They had a programm where they sent more than 250k young people to study abroad, which now pays off. Saudi has a so called "Saudization" which forces companies in KSA to hire locals or pay money to the GOV if they don't hit a certain quota of saudis. This works due a) Higher population than UAE, roughlt 20M saudis b) Young saudis getting well educated. IMO right now its unpredictable where UAE is going to especially with COVID19 hitting the tourism sector.
Well enough of my stupid nonsense about politics lmao
1) What I meant was that it wouldn’t be necessary to wire any money to/from the UAE. I have credit cards from other countries that have no foreign exchange fees. I can simply use those cards anywhere in the world.
3) Yes, that’s what I was thinking, until I was worried by this thread. I am a nomad, so I won’t be spending 183 days in any country, I move around.
4) I wouldn’t even necessarily get a UAE Amex. Or, maybe I would, but just as another indication that it’s where my home is. I’ve heard that the UAE cards aren’t great in terms of benefits.
I’ll need to check out Bahrain. Dubai just seems a bit more interesting. More expats, nice hotels, just generally more to do. And with Emirates and Etihad, there are two airlines with huge route networks. I don’t think Gulf Air or Saudia can compete with that.
And for example Doha is just boring. I’ve heard that KSA is even worse and that there is literally nothing to do because people just work and stay at home with their families.
In Dubai, you have the malls, the beaches, bars, restaurants, there is always something going on. And wouldn’t I be able to bill clients in KSA from my UAE company? Or through a company in the US or HK or somewhere else? I work remotely anyway.
EUR 45k seems expensive for a 2 BR apartment. But of course, if it’s serviced, I can imagine that the fees end up fast. For me, a regular unserviced apartment would be fine. I would just need a housekeeper, ideally someone who can also clean it when I’m not there, so I can rent it out to tourists.
3) Yes, that’s what I was thinking, until I was worried by this thread. I am a nomad, so I won’t be spending 183 days in any country, I move around.
4) I wouldn’t even necessarily get a UAE Amex. Or, maybe I would, but just as another indication that it’s where my home is. I’ve heard that the UAE cards aren’t great in terms of benefits.
I’ll need to check out Bahrain. Dubai just seems a bit more interesting. More expats, nice hotels, just generally more to do. And with Emirates and Etihad, there are two airlines with huge route networks. I don’t think Gulf Air or Saudia can compete with that.
And for example Doha is just boring. I’ve heard that KSA is even worse and that there is literally nothing to do because people just work and stay at home with their families.
In Dubai, you have the malls, the beaches, bars, restaurants, there is always something going on. And wouldn’t I be able to bill clients in KSA from my UAE company? Or through a company in the US or HK or somewhere else? I work remotely anyway.
EUR 45k seems expensive for a 2 BR apartment. But of course, if it’s serviced, I can imagine that the fees end up fast. For me, a regular unserviced apartment would be fine. I would just need a housekeeper, ideally someone who can also clean it when I’m not there, so I can rent it out to tourists.
No doubt Bahrain is s lot cheaper but the quality of life is much much better in Dubai especially than all of gulf countries. I have been to all those countries but Dubai is hands down the best. But if they start doing all this then I think we need to look at other areas. Mind you it will all be retroactive laws. Yes corporate taxation will be the nail in the coffin. Already VAT has led closure of Ajman freezone office in Dubai (you didn't have to drive all the way to Ajman at the time) and VAT was the reason as per Ajman freezone employees.1) Yes I learned that lesson the hard way
3) Well I understand that, but isn't it much easier to have proper home base, for example in ur case now UAE? Like when the taxman doesn't belive you left your home country and starts asking questions shouldn't it be easier to explain properly why you live in UAE now instead of also explaining why you are having an additioanl residency?
4) Yeah I understand, in case you have an AMEX you can get transferred to their ME branch
Well rent highly depends on the area you live. I was living first in Address Marina and then moved to Address BLVD(Fully serviced apartments) where I paid for a 2 BR around 45k EUR a year, now in Bahrain I get bigger apartment for half the price. If you plan to get an investor visa by buying real estate I can again advice you to check out Bahrain. To obtain a 10 year visa (Which costs only 600 BHD / 1400 EUR) via real estate you have to buy a property for a minimum of 50k BHD (around 120k EUR). Its less than half the amount you have to invest in UAE (1M AED, around 240k EUR). And again depending on the area you are working in, you have easy access to the Saudi Market, which is way bigger and more sustainable than UAE. Also keep in mind Saudi is currently trying to diversify their economy, since covid19 even more. The biggest issue I personally have with UAE is, besides the problem with the huge amount of expat clowns, there are roughly about 1M+ emiratis, without expats that country is nothing. If UAE will go down the drain, it will be huge. Just consider the other thread you posted about prolly corporate taxation, if you only rely on UAE in your tax optimization structure there is not really any advantage in staying in UAE when they start taxing corperations. And don't even think about personal income tax. That will be deal breaker for most western expats atleast, and most of the local population will not be able to close the know how gap. Bahrain and Saudi on the other hand are not some lala lands, Bahrain has a long history in trade, they started a big fintech hub, and even AWS chose Bahrain over UAE, and locals are actually are normal working people, same goes for Saudi. They had a programm where they sent more than 250k young people to study abroad, which now pays off. Saudi has a so called "Saudization" which forces companies in KSA to hire locals or pay money to the GOV if they don't hit a certain quota of saudis. This works due a) Higher population than UAE, roughlt 20M saudis b) Young saudis getting well educated. IMO right now its unpredictable where UAE is going to especially with COVID19 hitting the tourism sector.
Well enough of my stupid nonsense about politics lmao
The MM2H program is expensive and Malaysia is quite far from Europe where I have friends, family and customers. Malaysia Airlines also doesn’t have a great network.
Hong Kong or Singapore would probably be a much better choice if one wanted to move to Asia. They both don’t tax capital gains, have territorial taxation and have great airlines. But both cities are expensive.
But with China’s grip tightening on HK and Singapore requiring 183 days in the country per year, neither is ideal for my purposes.
Hong Kong or Singapore would probably be a much better choice if one wanted to move to Asia. They both don’t tax capital gains, have territorial taxation and have great airlines. But both cities are expensive.
But with China’s grip tightening on HK and Singapore requiring 183 days in the country per year, neither is ideal for my purposes.
Yes UAE CC's are in general s**t and they have ridiculous fees and terrible FX rates if you spend abroad.
Well Bahrain isn't boring at all, just a bit smaller and more laidback, tho its the most liberal Gulf Country (They even have gay rights). But yes Gulf Air doesn't cover that much like Emirates or Etihad, but on the other hand, if you are traveling alot emirates might not be the best choice at all since they only have their own membership programm. In the end its all a personal choice which GCC country you like more.
And stay away from Qatar, most ignorant and arrogant arabs I ever met lol.
Bahrain is basically the fun island of KSA where all the saudis go on weekends to drink and party and it has close ties and its easy to port your business to Saudi from Bahrain then from UAE. But if you just do freelance work, you are right it doesn't really matter if you are in UAE or Bahrain.
Looking forward to hear how your journey works out and what you ended up with.
Ditto about the Malaysian airlines. HK and Singapore are both expensive places. 183 days per year is required for all countries but now they are thinking of changing that too as some of the smaller Asian countries are making changes too make it in last 3 years total as they are getting nudged by big brother USA which paved the way for CRS by FATCA. CRS origin was made in USA as CRS is often called global FATCA. Interestingly USA also requires a total of 183 days once in every 3 years. See what I meant that smaller countries are getting lessons from USA for tax revenues.
IMO Bahrain and UAE do not differ that much in terms of quality of life. It more depends if you wanna have a laid back lifestyle or an big city hustle bustle thingy like in DXB.
You can credit Emirates flights to Alaska Airlines, Japan Airlines, Qantas and probably a couple others. So ironically you can actually fly Emirates and redeem the bonus miles you collect on Qatar Airways, or vice versa. ;-)
Would be nice to have a forum meetup maybe.
I thought Qatar and UAE weren't on speaking terms for past few years as Qatar airways wasn't even allowed to land here anymore. I am surprised if Emirates and Qatar Airways have bonus miles with each other. Qatar Airways and Eithad are both superb airlines similar like Emirates
Lmao didn't know about that. Thanks for the tip. Still got plenty emirates miles and since I wanna go to Japan anyways comes the come in handy ha!
Just to be clear, Emirates and Qatar Airways don’t partner with each other.
But Emirates and Qatar Airways both Partner with Japan Airlines and Qantas. So if you collect bonus miles from flying Emirates in Japan Airlines’ or Qantas’ program, you can redeem them on Qatar for example.
But if you already have Skywards miles, you can’t use them on Qatar Airways or transfer them to a different program. But maybe you can use them on Japan Airlines, I’m not sure. You can also use Skywards bonus miles for EasyJet flights, lol.
But Emirates and Qatar Airways both Partner with Japan Airlines and Qantas. So if you collect bonus miles from flying Emirates in Japan Airlines’ or Qantas’ program, you can redeem them on Qatar for example.
But if you already have Skywards miles, you can’t use them on Qatar Airways or transfer them to a different program. But maybe you can use them on Japan Airlines, I’m not sure. You can also use Skywards bonus miles for EasyJet flights, lol.
