5 Tips For Anybody Who Is Contemplating Becoming An Expat

There are many things that you will have to consider if you want to live abroad and these are just five of our top tips.

Each year thousands of individuals decide to move permanently abroad and to make a new life for themselves and their families in a foreign land. For a significant number of these people this proves to be one of the best decisions that they have ever made, but for many other people their dream quickly turns into a nightmare. Below are a few of the many things that you will need to consider.

� Make certain that you really do wish to move permanently abroad.

There is a saying that the grass is always greener on the other side and it is all too easy to conjure up a heavenly picture of life in the country of your choice. But, when you arrive, you may well discover that in fact the grass is much greener back home. It is also normally the case that your view of a country as a holidaymaker is very different from that as a resident.

Not only must you visit the country several times before deciding to live there, but you need to make your visits at differing times of year and for increasingly lengthy periods of time. You should also try 'living' in the country by renting a house or apartment and living as far as possible as you would be living as a resident and not as a holidaymaker. If you still feel that moving is the correct choice after spending several months or so 'living' in the country, thenthere is a pretty good chance that you would not regret your decision.

� Make sure that you fully understand the immigration rules for the country concerned.

Look carefully at the current immigration policy of your chosen destination and also take a look at its past history on immigration and any known or rumored plans for change.

In many cases you will need to meet strict visa requirements and these could be inconvenient, expensive and leave you with little security. The absolute last thing you wish to do is to sever your ties with home, buy a condo and settle the kids into school only to find that you are unable to extend your visa and have seven days to get out of the country.

� Examine your financial position very carefully.

Think very carefully about how you intend to support yourself in your chosen country. For instance, do you plan to seek employment after you arrive to provide you with an income, or will you fund yourself from saving, investments or retirement income from home?

If you want to seek employment abroad then how simple is it going to be to find work? If you are lucky enough to find work, what sort of salary can you expect? Will they permit you to work at all? Many countries will require you to have a work permit and these are sometimes issued only in particular circumstances or for employment requiring specific qualifications or skills. In the vast majority of cases your visa will expressly say that you are not allowed to seek employment.

If you are going to fund yourself from sources at home, do you have enough resources not simply for today but for the next ten or twenty years or more? If you are going to be receiving retirement income abroad will it keep pace with rising costs? In many countries you are allowed to draw retirement income abroad but, if you decide to do so, you lose any cost of living increases and your income will be pegged at the level at which you start to draw it overseas.

� Think about what you will do with your assets back home.

If you own your home will you rent it out, sell it or simply leave it empty? What will you do with your furniture, car and other personal possessions?

Your home of course is a great deal more than a simple asset as it also gives you a link to your home country and affords you an address back home which may be extremely useful if you do not have friends or family who would be happy for you to use their address. Just wait until your credit card expires and your credit card company tells you that they will only send the replacement card to the address to which the account is registered in your home country.

As far as your other possessions are concerned you can of course dispose of many of them if you want to, retaining only those or especial sentimental or real value, or you could take them with you. But how simple will it be to ship things abroad and what will it cost? You will need to look carefully too at the rules in your chosen country. Some countries will allow you to bring just about anything you wish into the country, but others will have very strict limits on importation or charge high import taxes. For instance, in many cases it will be far cheaper to buy a new car than to import your own car and pay high import duty and possibly to have to have the vehicle adapted to meet local requirements for registration.

� Examine the provision of healthcare.

You may be fit and healthy today but, if you are considering moving overseas permanently, then the time will come when you will need to make use of the local healthcare facilities. So, just how good are the facilities and how well do they stand up against the facilities that you have grown accustomed to?

Yet another very important factor is the availability of public healthcare. If you come from a country that has publicly funded healthcare, such as the United Kingdom, then you might be more than a bit surprised by the cost of medical treatment when you are living in a country with only private healthcare. Of course, if you are accustomed paying for your own healthcare, you could be very pleasantly surprised to discover that you obtain the same or better medical treatment at a fraction of the cost.

Whatever the case, however, this is something that you need to examine very carefully and you will most certainly want to have some form of expat health insurance plan.

This short list of only five tips is far from exhaustive but it will hopefully provide you with a starting point and get you going in the right direction. Deciding to become an expatriate is a huge step and one that requires a great deal of careful thought.

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