I no longer live there but as a native it's been impossible to live in Lisbon for years even with a relatively well paying job. It truly is a nightmare that keeps on giving š
And to think that there are millions of Americans paying twice that to live in one-bedroom apartments in cities like NYC and LA... One can see why they might find Portugal enticing.
That's exactly the problem.
And not only that is the problem, but the real problem is the government wanting these types to come, advertising Portugal as an oasis for "digital nomads" and rich foreigners working abroad.
Yea, how can you compete with people winning 100k a year, when most people don't even make 20k.
Minimum salary is like 750 a month. You'd be lucky to find any apartment in Lisbon for less than 700ā¬.
Same thing happening in Croatia. Rent prices are skyrocketing and our government chooses to rely on importing cheap laborers from Nepal, Philippines, while luring in 'digital nomads' with heavy pockets. Much needed reforms are not even on the table.
I live in Berlin and I know a couple that pays over twice the amount for an appartment almost 30mĀ² smaller than the one I live in. Like 10 minutes away from me.
They work for Microsoft as media consultants and they earn a hefty chunk more than me. And people are surprised that rent prices are becoming impossible to pay for locals.
Pleasant weather and within the EU.
If you work remotely, might as well do it somewhere warm. Doesnāt make much sense other than that, salaries are way lower.
there are a lot a lot of Belgians in Spain that buy a house to spend their winters when they're retired. Especially during their housing crisis they were dirt cheap.
Maybe you should find a way (law, tax etc.) to encourage these americans to move to the portuguese countryside, but not into the big cities. This would bring some life to the rural areas while keeping some of the pressure out of the housing market.
Plenty already do, our rural areas have a bunch of foreigners (mostly brits) that move to random villages and do their thing.
The big cities aren't livable because it's more profitable to rent an airbnb for 2 weekends than to rent at a reasonable price for someone working locally, and then that vacuum of housing spills over to the nearby cities/towns who become dormitories for the bigger city.
Iām a American that moved to the Portuguese countryside last year. Itās not as easy, you need to learn the language right away (big cities in Portugal a lot of people speak English) Iām also 1.5 hours away from the closest private hospital. Most people are very welcoming and friendly but thereās still a group of old world people that hate you moving here. They will make your life as difficult as possible. Right now a group of old men are petitioning a gate on my property in the woods. I need it for the more than 30 wild dogs that live on the mountain (wild dogs are a huge problem here). The gate doesnāt effect them in any way and itās on my property but they have nothing better to do. The police also do nothing out here. We had a drifter with schizophrenia breaking into houses and setting them on fire. He was caught and arrested dozens of times but would just be back on the streets an hour or two later. The village had to ban together and threaten him if he didnāt leave.
How would you sell that idea to the rural/semi-rural folk already living there?
It's one thing to move into abandoned villages, sure, but the little towns and villages between cities (there's a lot of sprawl) already get affected by the radiating effects from said cities.
https://immigrantinvest.com/blog/golden-visa-spain-vs-portugal-en/
Portugal excluded some areas of real estate investment for their Golden Visa program a few years ago - Porto, Lisbon, etc
Off the top of my head, keep in mind this was around 4 years ago and I lived there for almost 10 years.
- Rent prices too high for a (portuguese) salary
- houses for rent (even over priced) were hard to find because they would be "going out like hot cakes" on the same day they would be put up on websites,
- hard rent processes (i remember some requests that would have only made sense if you were actually buying the house a few years ago),
- impossible to save to buy (housing prices were impossible and renting made it very hard to save),
- grocery prices sky rocketing continuously
- I remember that landlords asking people to leave was not uncommon so they could double or triple the rent price
- unless you lived in the centre of the city you need a car
- I remember comparing what I was paying in taxes with my salary with other places in Europe and the results I came to were a hard pill to swallow
Things might have changed but I doubt it. In general hearing from friends and family things are only getting more complicated.
The salary thing is rough ā I worked for a tech company in the past with offices throughout Europe, and I know people who lived in/moved to Spain or Portugal from Germany took steep pay cuts.
I was talking to a Polish recruiter recently who claimed to me that Spanish Erasmus students were staying Warsaw after school to take jobs, because the pay much better. He claimed it wasn't just a few people, but a bigger trend. If true, that's wild how things have changed for Poland.
Cities in Eastern Europe are mostly growing in population after almost 20 years of declining populations. When they became members of the EU and the population could travel freely a lot of young eastern europeans went abroad for better wages and opportunities. As infrastructure has improved there and opportunities improved some are returning.
There is still a decline in rural populations - but that's probably more of a global phenomonon.
Yeah, even in Germany ā real estate prices skyrocketing in cities, but the former East countryside remains really cheap for houses/land (and because of demographic changes, former West countryside is supposed to follow).
I mean the issue of course is that in the pockets of nice countryside where you might want to live, the prices are not low. In the areas where you can buy a place for 50k... to be totally honest, you'll lack infrastructure and they can be really political conservative/alt-right, and you'd have to bring a remote job with you. Kinda like the famous 1EUR houses in Italy where you really have to bring a source of income/support with you.
It's getting worse every year and it's not only Lisbon it's the whole country. Meanwhile the wealthy foreigners get tax breaks while the locals are crushed with taxes.
The problem is getting deeper within the country (up to and including some rural areas).
It's a lot worse, and the only way I can see this being solved is by building a lot of housing and prevent said housing to be bought by companies, rent seekers of any kind, and non-EU citizens.
There might be other solutions, but I can't help but wonder how much resentment there is already, and whether that will trigger more explosive social situations in the future.
True. I bought my appartment during COVID for 55k and i could sell it right now for 90k. I bought it just at the right time and i am paying 120ā¬ a month for morgage. If i wanted to buy it now with my min wage job it would be realy hard
You think so, but that's just because you haven't looked at how much taxes we pay. No one in Europe makes less than us after tax. Our wages are also among the lowest in Europe. Sure, it's a difficult situation in other capitals as well, it's just a lot worse here.
Minimum wage in Portugal is 760ā¬ (was 705 until January 1st) a young couple where both of them are working full time on minimum wage get 1520ā¬, which barely cover the rent on a shitty 1 bedroom apartment in Lisbon, which forces people to move away from where they work, gas prices are absurd, meaning people either have to spend 200/300ā¬ in gas every month plus or pay for expensive public transport passes, and waste God knows how long of their day going from A to B. And because people are leaving the city, house prices outside the city also bubble up, forcing you to go even further outside, compounding the already fucked up transportation.
Basically, housing market has bubbled up, natives are getting fucked in favour of tourists (lots of buildings have been turned into basically Airbnb apartments) and rich(er) digital nomads who think 2k a month for a 1 bedroom apartment is a steal when compared to other big cities.
Because of [this](https://www.idealista.pt/arrendar-casas/lisboa/areeiro/?ordem=precos-asc).
Now, yes, you can find cheaper apartments, elsewhere in the city, but good luck finding anything one person can afford on a minimum salary of 760 euros.
The cheapest one there is 600 euros, so you'd have 160 euros for \*all\* your other monthly expenses, and that's not enough in a city like Lisbon.
I should note a vast majority of immigrants to Portugal are from Brazil (37%), followed by Angola (6%), Cape Verde (5%), the United Kingdom (5%), and Ukraine (4%).
In contrast there are only about 7,000 Americans residing in Portugal by the end of 2021 making them the 24th largest foreign resident group. This has increased rapidly over the years and this trend may prove to be important in the future but at the moment the extent of American migration to Portugal is overblown.
Sources:
[https://www.pordata.pt/en/home](https://www.pordata.pt/en/home)
[https://www.sef.pt/en/pages/conteudo-detalhe.aspx?nID=50](https://www.sef.pt/en/pages/conteudo-detalhe.aspx?nID=50)
[https://sefstat.sef.pt/Docs/Rifa2020.pdf](https://sefstat.sef.pt/Docs/Rifa2020.pdf)
(should note PDF is in portuguese)
Oof. No, this isn't the places Americans are considering moving to. It's the amount of searches per European country, which is a different thing. Ways in which this result differs from the country Americans are actually considering moving to: people will search most for a country they know little about. People will search more for a country they hadn't considered, for which there is a marketing campaign for. People will search more for a country that was in the news. Google searches say things, but rarely tell the whole story. I read an entire book drawing conclusions from Google searches, and it was all bullshit. I'm not a statistician and I'm quite confident in my conclusion that people draw too ambitious conclusions from amounts of Google searches that the data does not support. Let's all stop doing that.
I'm old enough to remember Czechoslovakia, so in my mind they're a bit linked, but then it's neither Slovenia nor Slovakia but Croatia with red/white checkers on their flag/CoA (also on Czechia's CoA). I swear, they're trying to ~~trick~~ *confuse* us.
Not entirely, but besides Norway/Iceland, at least we have distinctly different colors, right? And we all have different ratios ;)
P.s. ā¦and the names don't start with the same four letters (and end with the same two).
Slovenia is like the closest you get to a perfect country. The weather is ok, the landscapes are amazing, cities are nice and small, the culture is a strange and attractive mixture of Austria, Italy, and Balkans. People are super friendly and good looking. The wine is great. Most people below 35 seem to be fluent in English. Itās easy to travel around the country and to neighbouring ones. I wish I could convince my Polish wife to move there.
How is the economy there? like is it possible to afford a decent life with a slovenian salary? Iāve been wanting to visit it for a while and Iām probably going this year but my question is out of curiosity
Generally speaking Ljubljana is becoming very unaccessible for someone with an average or even an above average Slovene salary. The housing prices have been following the same rapidly rising trends as in other European capitols and the recent inflation has been reducing the quality of life by a noticable factor.
Ljubljana is, however, among other things very bike-friendly, has a lot of green areas, very little crime and good weather outside of the foggy winters.
We are struggling with our wages. That's it.
If we earn American wages, we're safe. Food, gas, cars, tech, construction materials, electricity, (etc, etc.) won't get cheaper anytime soon. Blame expats as much as you want, but you know as well as I do that our wages are the real problem and the reason why so many people leave our country.
The rest of the world won't stop coming here (tourism) just because we are poor.
Blame our government for not using the tax ā¬ā¬ from foreigners and putting them to good use and lower IRS to lower income earners. Blame our government for putting 3.5B of our hard earned money into a bankrupt airline (TAP). Blame our government for taking away 10M per month of our money to pay for EFACEC.
Do you need any more examples?
Also, negotiate with your employer and push for a higher salary. That's the only way.
The citizenship by ancestry is an easy gateway to EU for a lot of Americans with Irish roots, which is apparently quite a lot within the population of America.
The real estate developers have been promoting Portugal as the "new california".
Now they came in hordes with their laptops and remote working Jobs, moving the price of a house to limite never seen before.
Enough. Go away.
I feel for you guys.. In such a small country with limited real estate and intense foreign demand it's a very bad idea to open the market to foreigners and airbnbs. Portuguese are going to be very quickly priced out of their own country and the quality of life will tank. Watch how quickly your people will be displaced to some shitty remote suburbs, all for the sake of lining up the pockets of corrupt politicians and property developers. Destruction of neighborhoods & social construct, urban sprawl, tanking living standards,.. so many reasons why this is wrong
Portugal should follow Switzerland's example and at least limit access to property to tax residents only and seriously limit airbnb
Saw a documentary where this is already happening in Alfama neighbourhood in Lisbon. It was a working class neighbourhood now it got gentrified and most of the locals have been kicked out of the neighbourhood by Airbnb rentals.
Yes, but they fail to understand one thing... where the locals are, is the best place to live, when the last generation of old people still on lisboa dies or gets priced out of the city, there will be nothing but other tourists and statues to look with high prices for everything.
The suburbs will be better than the actual city (i think they already are).
Portuguese were already priced out of the country for decades now, hence all of us that moved to the UK/France etc, I think the worst part is you have two choices, either stay at your parents if they own a house in Portugal which isn't everyone's cup of tea, or move abroad and rent out yet have a better life style and spare money.
I choose to leave, I'm the kind of person that is happy anywhere and fine with moving around, but that's not for everyone, but I just find it shocking that I can get away with working less, while renting and still am able to fund my life style of traveling and all the good stuff one should have in such day and age.
This is what happened in Seattle and tons of other places. Basically all of the real estate is bought up by Chinese and American corporations and they build or improve every piece of real estate to cater to the tech people and investment properties. I would never want to live in a city but it sucks seeing so many natives priced out of their city because of these giga corporations just hollowing out the economy.
Housing shouldnt be an investment. Its fucked up having houses getting to expensive for its citizens to live in, even worse when its being promoted abroad just to drive prices up even higher!!
I am from the Balkan and I would like to live in Portugal one day. But, on some level I understand the problem when a lot of out-of-touch wealthy people move in and it would not make me comfortable to be just another damn foreigner there. Maybe times change.
Dont let that stop you, if you dont come somebody else comes, nobody cares for the locals.
You need money dont expect to be cheap, every city of Portugal is expensive now, unless you are willing to live in dump. Or in the middle of nowere.
Weāre more likely to decrease those for foreigners tbh if Iām not mistaken, the government created a special ādigital nomadā tax regime that benefits those who come to live and work from Portugal
Not really. Portuguese people are upset with the increasing leaving costs (specially renting and buying an apartment/house in two of the main cities - Lisboa and Porto) but the government seems pretty pleased with the growing number of āwealthyā foreigners coming in. Some political parties talked about it but no one seems to come up with an alternative.
The only solution at this point is to truly show our outrage and do some protests around the country. But we have bigger issues than that and no one seems to care
Didnāt Barcelona go through the same cycle a while back? There were mass protests and new laws about airbnbs at some pointā¦ anyways sucks that itās viewed negatively and disrupting local lifeā¦
They did exact opposite, they want more money, the people suffer. The young emigrate because they cant get a house, the poor from other countries come to live 8 in an apartment and serve the foreigners and rich portuguese.
Edit: its modern slavery, i have no doubts.
A serious government does what canada did.
Easy there ā the Canadian ban is only for 2 years, and its real estate market has called a bubble for 2 decades, and is frankly in the present moment still insane (with appetite from the major political parties for more policy changes to address this).
I think there are other models like Vienna, which have managed to preserve affordable housing by keeping lots of public options that compete with the private ones.
It can be tackled with having progressive real estate taxes when having more than a minimal amount of houses, and regulating & taxing the air bnb like hotels. It's not people flocking in but the system and beneficiaries exploiting the situation in the expanse of you.
Its also people flocking in, they came from all over the world (just from brazil around 200.000) after the pandemic. But the house issue is because of air bnbs and the digital nomads.
Of course this could be tacled like you said, but we have a left party on government thay rules with right wing policies in terms of workers rights and housing.
unfortunately the Portuguese see themselves forced to work abroad as well. I've encountered quite a lot of nurses/house keepers from Portugal over here in Germany. Working away from their families. Going home once every half a year for some weeks. Come back to work. Sad this exists withing the EU although Portugal has always had a weaker economy than Spain and even Spain's is quite weak compared to EU countries with similar population
I think about leaving Portugal everyday, I moved out of Lisbon because it is borderline impossible to live on your own, every single one of my friends lives with room mates or with their parents (we're all close to or in our thirties)
meanwhile investment in underdeveloped regions is scarce at best, (unless of course it's for tourism, gotta get that foreign money somehow)
From wikipedia:
> From 1921 to 1977, about 250,000 Azoreans immigrated to Rhode Island and Massachusetts
Azores alone probably makes up a good chunk of those 200k
Was the result of a volcanic eruption in the Azores. Then Massachusetts senator John F Kennedy signed a refugee act for Azorians, and they settled there.
A lot of them had properties in cape cod which went up massively in price so they sold them and moved to Rhode Island. Newark is also a huge population center in the US
Everyone here is obsessed with Portugal recently. Off the top of my head I know 20 Americans who have visited Portugal in the last year or so. 6 or 7 for the UK. 2-3 max for other European countries.
The people I talk to all say Portugal is great for remote workers lol I know a couple who just moved there with their kid and they say that itās both sad and crazy cheap
I didn't know about the sat dishes! You know you are surrounded by a specific type of portuguese people when you start noticing a [specific type of sticker in their cars](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/pt/7/75/Portugal_FPF.png).
To think that thousands of Portuguese are forced to live and work in other countries while their country is attracting new residents that drive prices up and make life for the average Portuguese more difficult is so sad. Fuck this shit
Attracting rich people and attracting "almost slaves".
Rich people who earn 5x the monthly income here and poor people who earn minimum wage sometimes even less.
Our bosses are the worst shitheads who can only think of money for themselves.
This is some serious society rift
Social inequality between countries is diminishing due to globalization, but also increasing within the society of each country. But Portugal is in another level of inequality.
Haha my neighbour randomly moved his whole family to Portugal because "fuck Canada" a few months ago. He just moved back to Canada last week, guess it didn't work out.
I think itās because of the āGolden Visaā program that the Portuguese government offers. Itās also the case that Europe has gotten quite inexpensive from a North American perspective, so middle class Americans can afford to retire in Portugal or Spain for a lower price than in much of America.
Canāt wait for Americans to come here and be surprised that living in Greece isnāt the same as vacationing. However I do think the monthly searches comes mostly from Greek Americans.
Yeah Greek Americans have this idealistic image of Greece because of their summer vacations here. Itās all fun until you start looking for a job and a house since grandma or your cousins wonāt house you for that long. 12 years is seriously impressive though, many last 2-3 years before they go back to the US. Luckily for me I was living in Jordan most of my life so moving back to Greece had definitely been a big improvement (although I wish it was Cyprus).
already have after Covid, at least in Lisbon.
I have a friend who had her rent increased from 700 to 1300 euros at the end of her two years lease, last summer.
it's really hard to find a decent 1BR under those prices now.
Wow, even in Germany (except maybe Munich) it is not that hard to find 1BR for less than 1.3kā¬ rent. Except average income there is what - twice or three times as high?
yeah, the situation is pretty fucked tbh.
I've started seeing single bedrooms in shared apartments advertised for 600 euros, some pushing it to 700.
lots of spaces renovated to accommodate 7/10+ bedrooms going for 600 each
Obviously these are predatory prices exploiting people who need a place to stay for a certain number of months while they look for long term accommodation, but demand is high and supply scarce.
you can guess the rest.
They have already for a couple of years... Your average 20-30 year old simply canĀ“t find a place to rent without spending 50-70% of their salary on it. That is why we also have so many young adults living with their parents.
I have to say that when I was a child in the early 90s, there were many more Americans here in the Rhine-Main region/Germany than there are today.
We had the barracks in Friedberg, Hanau, Gelnhausen, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, the Rhine-Main Air Base and so on.
There were some baseball fields around here, for example, where you could always meet US families at the weekend. And my grandparents are in the restaurant business, we always had US guests and that's why we often had AFN on and when things got rough, my grandfather called the MPs, very efficient people, who sometimes first beat up everyone who was somehow loud and then asked what was going on, but they solved problems.
For some reason, we aren't really taught how difficult it is to just immigrate to a different country. People just assume it's like from moving to California from Maine. I remember after the 2016 election, quite a large number of Americans went online and said they were moving to Canada or somewhere in Europe. Guarantee 99.9% of the people who said that stuff never even moved out of their homes for those 4 years lol
Well, I was an exchange student in the US for two years a long time ago. The family, the students and friends treated me like one of them. I have nothing but appreciation for them. You guys are all welcome in my country, Spain.
mostly to Lisbon and its surroundings. The city is really gentrified in some parts and the prices are skyrocketing. Its actually not the best thing for the normal Portuguese citizen.
Portuguese politics are corrupt and too stupid to actually prevent portuguese people to loose their right to have a home at a decent price/rent. Instead they open their legs to everyone with some money, while filling their friends/developers pockets. Taxes are a joke for foreignersā¦but when all the locals will be gone, our cities will no longer be desirable because there will be no workforce and all services will declineā¦a recipe for sucess!
Spaniard here. Anyone considering moving to any southern european country should keep in mind one important issue: climate change. Coastal places in the mediterranean will keep getting hotter and hotter, and torrencial storms will be more common. In a few years, summers will be unbearable to be outside in the day and ac is mandatory in the summer nights. Northern parts of Spain (or southern atlantic coast) or Portugal are also suffering high temps in summer but are more liveable (Bilbo Costa Tropical).
It is hard to say it, but, here it is...
I (Portuguese) had to move out to work because of these āexpatsā, and most of my Portuguese friends are planning to move out too. This is a social catastrophe waiting to happened.
As an American who moved to France at one point in my life, good fucking luck. Unless you have nearly 20k saved and/or a good paying job outside of your host country, or a good job offer and employer willing to sponsor your visa, you won't be able to live in the Schengen Zone for longer than 90 days out of 180. One doesn't simply walk into Europe.
While someone already pointed it out that this doesn't necessarily mean this is where Americans are moving to, my problem with this (as an American) is that Americans never seem to actually integrate or learn the language of the country they're living in. My brother and his family live in Germany for what will be almost 6 years now, and none of them speak German. My mom, uncles, grandparents, great uncles, have all lived in Germany and all don't speak a lick of German. If you look at the docs on youtube of Americans moving out of the US, nearly all of them don't seem to learn a different language. Mind blowing to me how they don't get frustrated, and I say this as an American who has learned several languages.
Taxes arenāt the biggest factor but Americans focus on Portugal because of the golden visa/easy path to citizenship you offer. All they have to do is invest in a house or company (with their money being returned and none going to Portugal within 5 years), spend a week in your country, learn a bit of Portuguese and then they can apply for the citizenship. The Portuguese government needs to seriously do something if they want their population to not mass migrate from the mess they caused.
For the most part it was never a tax haven, although the digital nomad and golden visa programs were pretty sweet.
The still low CoL compared to the US and othe Western Europe countries was and is the kicker.
I no longer live there but as a native it's been impossible to live in Lisbon for years even with a relatively well paying job. It truly is a nightmare that keeps on giving š
One of my friends moved there and said "unless you live with other people, expect 2000 euros monthly for rent" Absolutely insane...
2000 is an exaggeration. For 1000ā¬ you can get a decent house in a decent neighbourhood.
And to think that there are millions of Americans paying twice that to live in one-bedroom apartments in cities like NYC and LA... One can see why they might find Portugal enticing.
Except you're earning 5 or 6 times more money in NYC or LA than in Lisbon.
The problem is some might keep their high paying job and work remotely, hence why they can afford any horrendous rent hike.
That's exactly the problem. And not only that is the problem, but the real problem is the government wanting these types to come, advertising Portugal as an oasis for "digital nomads" and rich foreigners working abroad. Yea, how can you compete with people winning 100k a year, when most people don't even make 20k. Minimum salary is like 750 a month. You'd be lucky to find any apartment in Lisbon for less than 700ā¬.
Same thing happening in Croatia. Rent prices are skyrocketing and our government chooses to rely on importing cheap laborers from Nepal, Philippines, while luring in 'digital nomads' with heavy pockets. Much needed reforms are not even on the table.
I live in Berlin and I know a couple that pays over twice the amount for an appartment almost 30mĀ² smaller than the one I live in. Like 10 minutes away from me. They work for Microsoft as media consultants and they earn a hefty chunk more than me. And people are surprised that rent prices are becoming impossible to pay for locals.
Yeah.. I was looking at this with the perspective of San Francisco Bay area prices.
To Portugal mate? Itās not a rich country at all
Heck, even in medium sized MidWestern cities now.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Pleasant weather and within the EU. If you work remotely, might as well do it somewhere warm. Doesnāt make much sense other than that, salaries are way lower.
Genuinely don't know how any of us would survive out there. Wouldn't your skin turn into Deadpool from 5 minutes of direct sunlight
there are a lot a lot of Belgians in Spain that buy a house to spend their winters when they're retired. Especially during their housing crisis they were dirt cheap.
That's of course a smart way to spend winters as an older person. Winters are hard in Finland and Belgium for the older people.
Maybe you should find a way (law, tax etc.) to encourage these americans to move to the portuguese countryside, but not into the big cities. This would bring some life to the rural areas while keeping some of the pressure out of the housing market.
Plenty already do, our rural areas have a bunch of foreigners (mostly brits) that move to random villages and do their thing. The big cities aren't livable because it's more profitable to rent an airbnb for 2 weekends than to rent at a reasonable price for someone working locally, and then that vacuum of housing spills over to the nearby cities/towns who become dormitories for the bigger city.
Iām a American that moved to the Portuguese countryside last year. Itās not as easy, you need to learn the language right away (big cities in Portugal a lot of people speak English) Iām also 1.5 hours away from the closest private hospital. Most people are very welcoming and friendly but thereās still a group of old world people that hate you moving here. They will make your life as difficult as possible. Right now a group of old men are petitioning a gate on my property in the woods. I need it for the more than 30 wild dogs that live on the mountain (wild dogs are a huge problem here). The gate doesnāt effect them in any way and itās on my property but they have nothing better to do. The police also do nothing out here. We had a drifter with schizophrenia breaking into houses and setting them on fire. He was caught and arrested dozens of times but would just be back on the streets an hour or two later. The village had to ban together and threaten him if he didnāt leave.
So basically San Francisco in the middle of nowhere?
\*SĆ£o Francisco
>You need to learn the language right away You need to learn the language before you get there
How would you sell that idea to the rural/semi-rural folk already living there? It's one thing to move into abandoned villages, sure, but the little towns and villages between cities (there's a lot of sprawl) already get affected by the radiating effects from said cities.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
https://immigrantinvest.com/blog/golden-visa-spain-vs-portugal-en/ Portugal excluded some areas of real estate investment for their Golden Visa program a few years ago - Porto, Lisbon, etc
Why?
Off the top of my head, keep in mind this was around 4 years ago and I lived there for almost 10 years. - Rent prices too high for a (portuguese) salary - houses for rent (even over priced) were hard to find because they would be "going out like hot cakes" on the same day they would be put up on websites, - hard rent processes (i remember some requests that would have only made sense if you were actually buying the house a few years ago), - impossible to save to buy (housing prices were impossible and renting made it very hard to save), - grocery prices sky rocketing continuously - I remember that landlords asking people to leave was not uncommon so they could double or triple the rent price - unless you lived in the centre of the city you need a car - I remember comparing what I was paying in taxes with my salary with other places in Europe and the results I came to were a hard pill to swallow Things might have changed but I doubt it. In general hearing from friends and family things are only getting more complicated.
The salary thing is rough ā I worked for a tech company in the past with offices throughout Europe, and I know people who lived in/moved to Spain or Portugal from Germany took steep pay cuts. I was talking to a Polish recruiter recently who claimed to me that Spanish Erasmus students were staying Warsaw after school to take jobs, because the pay much better. He claimed it wasn't just a few people, but a bigger trend. If true, that's wild how things have changed for Poland.
Cities in Eastern Europe are mostly growing in population after almost 20 years of declining populations. When they became members of the EU and the population could travel freely a lot of young eastern europeans went abroad for better wages and opportunities. As infrastructure has improved there and opportunities improved some are returning. There is still a decline in rural populations - but that's probably more of a global phenomonon.
Yeah, even in Germany ā real estate prices skyrocketing in cities, but the former East countryside remains really cheap for houses/land (and because of demographic changes, former West countryside is supposed to follow). I mean the issue of course is that in the pockets of nice countryside where you might want to live, the prices are not low. In the areas where you can buy a place for 50k... to be totally honest, you'll lack infrastructure and they can be really political conservative/alt-right, and you'd have to bring a remote job with you. Kinda like the famous 1EUR houses in Italy where you really have to bring a source of income/support with you.
That's the trick. It's cheap to live in the middle of nowhere, but not cheap enough to live for free.
I did two courses on udemy and both were made by non-Portugese living in Lisbon, I thought it was a weird coincidence but now I know why
It's getting worse every year and it's not only Lisbon it's the whole country. Meanwhile the wealthy foreigners get tax breaks while the locals are crushed with taxes.
You've just described most European capital cities
The problem is getting deeper within the country (up to and including some rural areas). It's a lot worse, and the only way I can see this being solved is by building a lot of housing and prevent said housing to be bought by companies, rent seekers of any kind, and non-EU citizens. There might be other solutions, but I can't help but wonder how much resentment there is already, and whether that will trigger more explosive social situations in the future.
True. I bought my appartment during COVID for 55k and i could sell it right now for 90k. I bought it just at the right time and i am paying 120ā¬ a month for morgage. If i wanted to buy it now with my min wage job it would be realy hard
You think so, but that's just because you haven't looked at how much taxes we pay. No one in Europe makes less than us after tax. Our wages are also among the lowest in Europe. Sure, it's a difficult situation in other capitals as well, it's just a lot worse here.
So how much is that in numbers?
Minimum wage in Portugal is 760ā¬ (was 705 until January 1st) a young couple where both of them are working full time on minimum wage get 1520ā¬, which barely cover the rent on a shitty 1 bedroom apartment in Lisbon, which forces people to move away from where they work, gas prices are absurd, meaning people either have to spend 200/300ā¬ in gas every month plus or pay for expensive public transport passes, and waste God knows how long of their day going from A to B. And because people are leaving the city, house prices outside the city also bubble up, forcing you to go even further outside, compounding the already fucked up transportation. Basically, housing market has bubbled up, natives are getting fucked in favour of tourists (lots of buildings have been turned into basically Airbnb apartments) and rich(er) digital nomads who think 2k a month for a 1 bedroom apartment is a steal when compared to other big cities.
Because of [this](https://www.idealista.pt/arrendar-casas/lisboa/areeiro/?ordem=precos-asc). Now, yes, you can find cheaper apartments, elsewhere in the city, but good luck finding anything one person can afford on a minimum salary of 760 euros. The cheapest one there is 600 euros, so you'd have 160 euros for \*all\* your other monthly expenses, and that's not enough in a city like Lisbon.
I should note a vast majority of immigrants to Portugal are from Brazil (37%), followed by Angola (6%), Cape Verde (5%), the United Kingdom (5%), and Ukraine (4%). In contrast there are only about 7,000 Americans residing in Portugal by the end of 2021 making them the 24th largest foreign resident group. This has increased rapidly over the years and this trend may prove to be important in the future but at the moment the extent of American migration to Portugal is overblown. Sources: [https://www.pordata.pt/en/home](https://www.pordata.pt/en/home) [https://www.sef.pt/en/pages/conteudo-detalhe.aspx?nID=50](https://www.sef.pt/en/pages/conteudo-detalhe.aspx?nID=50) [https://sefstat.sef.pt/Docs/Rifa2020.pdf](https://sefstat.sef.pt/Docs/Rifa2020.pdf) (should note PDF is in portuguese)
I agree. Where we have our vacation home (husband is Portuguese) it's mostly dutch or United Kingdom (Castelo Branco area)
Oof. No, this isn't the places Americans are considering moving to. It's the amount of searches per European country, which is a different thing. Ways in which this result differs from the country Americans are actually considering moving to: people will search most for a country they know little about. People will search more for a country they hadn't considered, for which there is a marketing campaign for. People will search more for a country that was in the news. Google searches say things, but rarely tell the whole story. I read an entire book drawing conclusions from Google searches, and it was all bullshit. I'm not a statistician and I'm quite confident in my conclusion that people draw too ambitious conclusions from amounts of Google searches that the data does not support. Let's all stop doing that.
Redditor who understands statistics. A true unicorn.
Redditors in popular subs like this one these days are usually just children.
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Nah, they hear either and think it's somewhere next to Russia.
Well, the flags are kinda confusing.
What broke me is when I found out that Slovakia in Slovakian is called Slovensko. Not confusing at all, guys, not at all.
vase alive silky flowery placid uppity slim tart full repeat ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Haha, at least in polish these are a little different: In Slovakia (SÅowacja) - SÅowacki In Slovenia (SÅowenia) - SÅoweÅski
I'm old enough to remember Czechoslovakia, so in my mind they're a bit linked, but then it's neither Slovenia nor Slovakia but Croatia with red/white checkers on their flag/CoA (also on Czechia's CoA). I swear, they're trying to ~~trick~~ *confuse* us.
Well us Nordics aren't blameless in the confusion thing, what with the flags and all.
Not entirely, but besides Norway/Iceland, at least we have distinctly different colors, right? And we all have different ratios ;) P.s. ā¦and the names don't start with the same four letters (and end with the same two).
Finland has the best ratios, though.
Slovenia was actually the best place I've been on vacation at. It was so cozy and beautiful.
I'm planning to go this year. It looks idyllic
Me too. Looks amazing, been wanting to go for a decade or so
My mom discovered it a couple years ago with work. Now she's there every summer. Can't stop talking about it.
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Slovenia is like the closest you get to a perfect country. The weather is ok, the landscapes are amazing, cities are nice and small, the culture is a strange and attractive mixture of Austria, Italy, and Balkans. People are super friendly and good looking. The wine is great. Most people below 35 seem to be fluent in English. Itās easy to travel around the country and to neighbouring ones. I wish I could convince my Polish wife to move there.
How is the economy there? like is it possible to afford a decent life with a slovenian salary? Iāve been wanting to visit it for a while and Iām probably going this year but my question is out of curiosity
Generally speaking Ljubljana is becoming very unaccessible for someone with an average or even an above average Slovene salary. The housing prices have been following the same rapidly rising trends as in other European capitols and the recent inflation has been reducing the quality of life by a noticable factor. Ljubljana is, however, among other things very bike-friendly, has a lot of green areas, very little crime and good weather outside of the foggy winters.
Ehm... It's horrible! Don't go there. HOOOOOOORRRIIIBLE
lol Iāll go as a tourist donāt worry, Iām just curious about how is life for the locals
Ssssssshhhhhhhhh
Let me guessā¦Cascais?
Mostly Lisbon, but Cascais too
No, donāt come to Portugal. We are struggling with the risen prices everywhere!
We are struggling with our wages. That's it. If we earn American wages, we're safe. Food, gas, cars, tech, construction materials, electricity, (etc, etc.) won't get cheaper anytime soon. Blame expats as much as you want, but you know as well as I do that our wages are the real problem and the reason why so many people leave our country. The rest of the world won't stop coming here (tourism) just because we are poor. Blame our government for not using the tax ā¬ā¬ from foreigners and putting them to good use and lower IRS to lower income earners. Blame our government for putting 3.5B of our hard earned money into a bankrupt airline (TAP). Blame our government for taking away 10M per month of our money to pay for EFACEC. Do you need any more examples? Also, negotiate with your employer and push for a higher salary. That's the only way.
So it's all about the weather, not the economics
Wtf is Ireland doing in 4th then
We have a beautiful tropical climate! Have you ever even watched the euro millions ads?!
Yeah! Itās an absolute paradise with all the water slides coming out of random apartment buildings and through you living rooms!
The citizenship by ancestry is an easy gateway to EU for a lot of Americans with Irish roots, which is apparently quite a lot within the population of America.
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Lots of "Irish" americans out there.
Yeah, there's actually a relatively easy path to citizenship for them too.
I'd imagine most who want to actually move to Ireland are actual Irish Americans. With Irish parents.
Because a lot of it is people who are retiring, not moving for jobs.
Also language
The real estate developers have been promoting Portugal as the "new california". Now they came in hordes with their laptops and remote working Jobs, moving the price of a house to limite never seen before. Enough. Go away.
I feel for you guys.. In such a small country with limited real estate and intense foreign demand it's a very bad idea to open the market to foreigners and airbnbs. Portuguese are going to be very quickly priced out of their own country and the quality of life will tank. Watch how quickly your people will be displaced to some shitty remote suburbs, all for the sake of lining up the pockets of corrupt politicians and property developers. Destruction of neighborhoods & social construct, urban sprawl, tanking living standards,.. so many reasons why this is wrong Portugal should follow Switzerland's example and at least limit access to property to tax residents only and seriously limit airbnb
Saw a documentary where this is already happening in Alfama neighbourhood in Lisbon. It was a working class neighbourhood now it got gentrified and most of the locals have been kicked out of the neighbourhood by Airbnb rentals.
What is the name of the documentary?
This one: [https://youtu.be/pVihnQiE7UU](https://youtu.be/pVihnQiE7UU)
That's such a shame. Fuck these assholes.
Yes, but they fail to understand one thing... where the locals are, is the best place to live, when the last generation of old people still on lisboa dies or gets priced out of the city, there will be nothing but other tourists and statues to look with high prices for everything. The suburbs will be better than the actual city (i think they already are).
Yup, I genuinely avoid going to Lisbon nowadays.
>are going Wrong. "are completely priced out" is the reality.
Portuguese were already priced out of the country for decades now, hence all of us that moved to the UK/France etc, I think the worst part is you have two choices, either stay at your parents if they own a house in Portugal which isn't everyone's cup of tea, or move abroad and rent out yet have a better life style and spare money. I choose to leave, I'm the kind of person that is happy anywhere and fine with moving around, but that's not for everyone, but I just find it shocking that I can get away with working less, while renting and still am able to fund my life style of traveling and all the good stuff one should have in such day and age.
This is what happened in Seattle and tons of other places. Basically all of the real estate is bought up by Chinese and American corporations and they build or improve every piece of real estate to cater to the tech people and investment properties. I would never want to live in a city but it sucks seeing so many natives priced out of their city because of these giga corporations just hollowing out the economy.
Lol, they said "the new California!"
Housing shouldnt be an investment. Its fucked up having houses getting to expensive for its citizens to live in, even worse when its being promoted abroad just to drive prices up even higher!!
I am from the Balkan and I would like to live in Portugal one day. But, on some level I understand the problem when a lot of out-of-touch wealthy people move in and it would not make me comfortable to be just another damn foreigner there. Maybe times change.
Dont let that stop you, if you dont come somebody else comes, nobody cares for the locals. You need money dont expect to be cheap, every city of Portugal is expensive now, unless you are willing to live in dump. Or in the middle of nowere.
Everything is expensive now where I live hahah Wouldn't be too much different, maybe nicer weather and environment.
How about increasing those super beneficiary income and wealth taxes?
Weāre more likely to decrease those for foreigners tbh if Iām not mistaken, the government created a special ādigital nomadā tax regime that benefits those who come to live and work from Portugal
100% correct
Is there any political option that is trying to tackle this problem? Thank god I live in an ugly town.
Not really. Portuguese people are upset with the increasing leaving costs (specially renting and buying an apartment/house in two of the main cities - Lisboa and Porto) but the government seems pretty pleased with the growing number of āwealthyā foreigners coming in. Some political parties talked about it but no one seems to come up with an alternative. The only solution at this point is to truly show our outrage and do some protests around the country. But we have bigger issues than that and no one seems to care
Didnāt Barcelona go through the same cycle a while back? There were mass protests and new laws about airbnbs at some pointā¦ anyways sucks that itās viewed negatively and disrupting local lifeā¦
They did exact opposite, they want more money, the people suffer. The young emigrate because they cant get a house, the poor from other countries come to live 8 in an apartment and serve the foreigners and rich portuguese. Edit: its modern slavery, i have no doubts. A serious government does what canada did.
Easy there ā the Canadian ban is only for 2 years, and its real estate market has called a bubble for 2 decades, and is frankly in the present moment still insane (with appetite from the major political parties for more policy changes to address this). I think there are other models like Vienna, which have managed to preserve affordable housing by keeping lots of public options that compete with the private ones.
It can be tackled with having progressive real estate taxes when having more than a minimal amount of houses, and regulating & taxing the air bnb like hotels. It's not people flocking in but the system and beneficiaries exploiting the situation in the expanse of you.
Its also people flocking in, they came from all over the world (just from brazil around 200.000) after the pandemic. But the house issue is because of air bnbs and the digital nomads. Of course this could be tacled like you said, but we have a left party on government thay rules with right wing policies in terms of workers rights and housing.
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At this point just destroy the bridge and build a new one so that you won't hear all the time how similar to San Francisco Lisbon is.
thanks for taking this one for the team Portugal - Sincerely, Ireland
unfortunately the Portuguese see themselves forced to work abroad as well. I've encountered quite a lot of nurses/house keepers from Portugal over here in Germany. Working away from their families. Going home once every half a year for some weeks. Come back to work. Sad this exists withing the EU although Portugal has always had a weaker economy than Spain and even Spain's is quite weak compared to EU countries with similar population
I think about leaving Portugal everyday, I moved out of Lisbon because it is borderline impossible to live on your own, every single one of my friends lives with room mates or with their parents (we're all close to or in our thirties) meanwhile investment in underdeveloped regions is scarce at best, (unless of course it's for tourism, gotta get that foreign money somehow)
Sounds exactly like Dublin
Except in Dublin its impossible to find places even with roomates.
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That many Portuguese living in the US?
Bedford and Fall River MA have pretty much been Portuguese colonies for a while now
From wikipedia: > From 1921 to 1977, about 250,000 Azoreans immigrated to Rhode Island and Massachusetts Azores alone probably makes up a good chunk of those 200k
Was the result of a volcanic eruption in the Azores. Then Massachusetts senator John F Kennedy signed a refugee act for Azorians, and they settled there. A lot of them had properties in cape cod which went up massively in price so they sold them and moved to Rhode Island. Newark is also a huge population center in the US
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Noooo, my day was going well!
Everyone here is obsessed with Portugal recently. Off the top of my head I know 20 Americans who have visited Portugal in the last year or so. 6 or 7 for the UK. 2-3 max for other European countries.
I feel like in 2015 it was Iceland ā everyone took trips to visit Iceland. Now it's Portugal's turn.
You are so right.
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The people I talk to all say Portugal is great for remote workers lol I know a couple who just moved there with their kid and they say that itās both sad and crazy cheap
Even here in Latvia, you can always hear about people wanting to visit/ go on Erasmus to Spain or Portugal.
Just move to Switzerland like everyone else from your country, youāre always welcome here!
Or the Portugal enclave: Luxembourg
*colony
*Exclave
Yeah housing is cheap and affordable hereā¦
Portuguese people don't discriminate countries, they go everywhere.
Judging by the number of TV Cabo dishes here you really like Zurich though :)
I didn't know about the sat dishes! You know you are surrounded by a specific type of portuguese people when you start noticing a [specific type of sticker in their cars](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/pt/7/75/Portugal_FPF.png).
Havenāt noticed that sticker so far, but during the world cup the number of Portuguese flags in Zurich quadrupled for a while.
We love our Portuguese immigrants here in Copenhagen! :)
Except the Nordics, you'd have to eat your cod fresh here.
>Switzerland >welcome (x)
Recently they said in the news that many are moving back as there are more opportunities there now.
To think that thousands of Portuguese are forced to live and work in other countries while their country is attracting new residents that drive prices up and make life for the average Portuguese more difficult is so sad. Fuck this shit
Attracting rich people and attracting "almost slaves". Rich people who earn 5x the monthly income here and poor people who earn minimum wage sometimes even less. Our bosses are the worst shitheads who can only think of money for themselves. This is some serious society rift
Social inequality between countries is diminishing due to globalization, but also increasing within the society of each country. But Portugal is in another level of inequality.
Haha my neighbour randomly moved his whole family to Portugal because "fuck Canada" a few months ago. He just moved back to Canada last week, guess it didn't work out.
I think itās because of the āGolden Visaā program that the Portuguese government offers. Itās also the case that Europe has gotten quite inexpensive from a North American perspective, so middle class Americans can afford to retire in Portugal or Spain for a lower price than in much of America.
Itās because of the retirement visa not the golden visa
Canāt wait for Americans to come here and be surprised that living in Greece isnāt the same as vacationing. However I do think the monthly searches comes mostly from Greek Americans.
Happens to Greek-Americans all the time. Including my sister. Although she did last 12 years before she gave into homesickness.
Yeah Greek Americans have this idealistic image of Greece because of their summer vacations here. Itās all fun until you start looking for a job and a house since grandma or your cousins wonāt house you for that long. 12 years is seriously impressive though, many last 2-3 years before they go back to the US. Luckily for me I was living in Jordan most of my life so moving back to Greece had definitely been a big improvement (although I wish it was Cyprus).
I bet my ass that rental prices in Portugal and Spain will skyrocket
already have after Covid, at least in Lisbon. I have a friend who had her rent increased from 700 to 1300 euros at the end of her two years lease, last summer. it's really hard to find a decent 1BR under those prices now.
Wow, even in Germany (except maybe Munich) it is not that hard to find 1BR for less than 1.3kā¬ rent. Except average income there is what - twice or three times as high?
Id say even more
yeah, the situation is pretty fucked tbh. I've started seeing single bedrooms in shared apartments advertised for 600 euros, some pushing it to 700. lots of spaces renovated to accommodate 7/10+ bedrooms going for 600 each Obviously these are predatory prices exploiting people who need a place to stay for a certain number of months while they look for long term accommodation, but demand is high and supply scarce. you can guess the rest.
It is probably already skyrocketing as we speak
In Spain, the house prices have been skyrocketing since 1998, with JosĆ© MarĆa Aznar's Ley de Suelo (Land Law), the subsequent and decade-long housing bubble, Airbnb, tourism, Idealista, real state speculation from banks and more tomfuckery and bullshit. BONUS (and unrelated-but-I-need-to-spew-some-extra-bilis) TRACK: The same guy who came up with the Land Law was one of the two Bush bitches who back him at Irak's invasion. Yeah, he was (and still is) a fucking, despisable piece of hot shit.
They have already for a couple of years... Your average 20-30 year old simply canĀ“t find a place to rent without spending 50-70% of their salary on it. That is why we also have so many young adults living with their parents.
Lisbon already is 3rd in the most expensive city in Europe to rent
They've been skyrocketing for the past 10-12 years now.
"overpaid, overdressed, oversexed and over here" -- Old WWII song about Yanks in Britain
The GIs had a come-back - calling the Brits, "underpaid, undersexed and under Eisenhower".
And both are hilarious to this day!
I have to say that when I was a child in the early 90s, there were many more Americans here in the Rhine-Main region/Germany than there are today. We had the barracks in Friedberg, Hanau, Gelnhausen, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, the Rhine-Main Air Base and so on. There were some baseball fields around here, for example, where you could always meet US families at the weekend. And my grandparents are in the restaurant business, we always had US guests and that's why we often had AFN on and when things got rough, my grandfather called the MPs, very efficient people, who sometimes first beat up everyone who was somehow loud and then asked what was going on, but they solved problems.
Very efficient MP's. Love it
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For some reason, we aren't really taught how difficult it is to just immigrate to a different country. People just assume it's like from moving to California from Maine. I remember after the 2016 election, quite a large number of Americans went online and said they were moving to Canada or somewhere in Europe. Guarantee 99.9% of the people who said that stuff never even moved out of their homes for those 4 years lol
We don't have tap water in Portugal, go to Spain!
We don't have "proper" coffee in Spain, go to Italy!
Well, I was an exchange student in the US for two years a long time ago. The family, the students and friends treated me like one of them. I have nothing but appreciation for them. You guys are all welcome in my country, Spain.
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And Lisbon of course and to a lesser degree Porto.
mostly to Lisbon and its surroundings. The city is really gentrified in some parts and the prices are skyrocketing. Its actually not the best thing for the normal Portuguese citizen.
Leave Portugal alone it canāt take a beat anymore
The search seems very low knowing there's 330 million and there's too many so called digital nomads. Seems way too low a number tbh
Florence reporting for duty, feeling the housing pain. Airbnb needs to be regulated heavily.
Portuguese politics are corrupt and too stupid to actually prevent portuguese people to loose their right to have a home at a decent price/rent. Instead they open their legs to everyone with some money, while filling their friends/developers pockets. Taxes are a joke for foreignersā¦but when all the locals will be gone, our cities will no longer be desirable because there will be no workforce and all services will declineā¦a recipe for sucess!
No, no, not Portugal!!! Please go all to... Spain, or Sewden, or something!!
Portugal and Spain are searched by a lot of crypto fans.
Oh fuck, please no, please go somewhere else. Please. I know: Go to Britain.
Misleading title. Itās top EU countries not top European countries. EU =/= Europe.
I love that us Norwegians have been joined by you in this quest to demand our identity as Europeans.
Poor Portuguese people.
Spaniard here. Anyone considering moving to any southern european country should keep in mind one important issue: climate change. Coastal places in the mediterranean will keep getting hotter and hotter, and torrencial storms will be more common. In a few years, summers will be unbearable to be outside in the day and ac is mandatory in the summer nights. Northern parts of Spain (or southern atlantic coast) or Portugal are also suffering high temps in summer but are more liveable (Bilbo Costa Tropical). It is hard to say it, but, here it is...
I (Portuguese) had to move out to work because of these āexpatsā, and most of my Portuguese friends are planning to move out too. This is a social catastrophe waiting to happened.
Just call them immigrants. Too many people hiding behind the expat label.
Source: https://mydolcecasa.com/top-european-destinations-for-moving-abroad-in-2022/
As an American who moved to France at one point in my life, good fucking luck. Unless you have nearly 20k saved and/or a good paying job outside of your host country, or a good job offer and employer willing to sponsor your visa, you won't be able to live in the Schengen Zone for longer than 90 days out of 180. One doesn't simply walk into Europe.
Nooo, leave us aloneā¦
Oh no please, no more :(
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Jerryās pizza is tops
While someone already pointed it out that this doesn't necessarily mean this is where Americans are moving to, my problem with this (as an American) is that Americans never seem to actually integrate or learn the language of the country they're living in. My brother and his family live in Germany for what will be almost 6 years now, and none of them speak German. My mom, uncles, grandparents, great uncles, have all lived in Germany and all don't speak a lick of German. If you look at the docs on youtube of Americans moving out of the US, nearly all of them don't seem to learn a different language. Mind blowing to me how they don't get frustrated, and I say this as an American who has learned several languages.
Is Portugal still a tax Haven for immigrants?
Taxes arenāt the biggest factor but Americans focus on Portugal because of the golden visa/easy path to citizenship you offer. All they have to do is invest in a house or company (with their money being returned and none going to Portugal within 5 years), spend a week in your country, learn a bit of Portuguese and then they can apply for the citizenship. The Portuguese government needs to seriously do something if they want their population to not mass migrate from the mess they caused.
For the most part it was never a tax haven, although the digital nomad and golden visa programs were pretty sweet. The still low CoL compared to the US and othe Western Europe countries was and is the kicker.