Passive Income Visa

My husband and I have a shared family goal to move to Europe. We’ve considered loads of options: going back into international teaching, pivoting to freelancer/digital nomad visas, pursuing my Italian citizenship (but the law changed recently and I am no longer eligible), or trying to find an employer to sponsor a visa.

None of the options felt right. Freelance visas come with a lot of instability, finding an employer sponsored visa felt like a crapshoot, and neither of us wants to return to teaching.

A cheap local cycling trip to Greenville, SC is a good way to save money for a passive income visa!

This week we each came to the same idea independently: passive income visas. These have different names depending on the country. In Greece it’s the Financially Independent Persons (FIP) Visa, Spain has the Non-Lucrative Visa, Italy the Elective Residency Visa, and the D7 Passive Income Visa in Portugal.

Windy December day in the Douro Valley, Portugal, 2022

Here’s how it works: Applicants have enough passive income through savings, investments, or real estate to live off their own money without working. In fact, most of these stipulate that you can’t work on the visa. But they do lead to a path to permanent residency, which is another perk.

So we did the math. Considering a safe withdrawal rate of 4% and unique income requirements, each of these requires somewhere between 1-1.2 million USD to qualify.

Collectively we are about a third of the way there because we save and invest heavily. Until now, we aimed for a monthly savings rate of about 25%. Without changing much, we are about six years away from being able to move to Europe on a passive income visa. However, if we are willing to downsize, earn some side income, and cut spending from other places in our budget, we could speed up that timeline substantially.

Rafting the Neretva River in Bosnia, 2009

There are three steps to speed up investing to reach financial independence quickly and qualify for a passive income visa:

1. Make more money. This can look like finding a new job that pays more, advocating for a raise or promotion, or working side gigs.
2. Downsize lifestyle to minimize expenses. Move to a smaller or cheaper house, go down to one car per household, sell extra household items like electronics or bikes that are sitting around. Cut back on discretionary spending.
3. Invest the difference! Every extra cent goes into diversified accounts: brokerage, retirement, HSAs, HYSAs.

So that’s the plan. I normally think in 2-4 year increments so a 5+ year plan is a bit intimidating but I feel really good about it. It’s a stretch goal for sure but if the reward is that we get to live in Europe, count me in. I’ve already made a progress tracker for our fridge.

Move to Europe progress tracker