Retiring overseas might save you a huge sum of money and allow you to live an expatriate adventure in retirement simultaneously. How poetic it might seem, you can’t just pack your bags and set off to your destinations. Retiring abroad, such an important decision, requires your great effort in planning ahead and getting ready for it. In order to give you a hand in the complex preparation, we have summarized some of the most crucial points-to-note for you at a glance!

1. You Might Need a Visa
   Retiring in a place is totally different from traveling there. You need a visa for legally reside there for a longer period of time and the right to buy or rent an apartment. For example, in Mexico, one of the most popular places for retirement, there is a comprehensive legal and statutory Immigration Policy. If you want to be a long-term resident but not economically active, you need a Permanent Resident Visa, which requires you to satisfy one or more of the requirements, namely, family connections, minimum income/investments, or political asylum. You also have to state your intention to be there. One important point to note is applying for a visa takes time. So remember to start applying it earlier!

2. Health Care needs
   You don’t usually retire when you’re in your 30s. Most of the time, you need quality health care during your retirement age. Hence, you have to be sure about the relative cost and quality of heath care in the country where you want to retire. Some of the new retirement communities tend to have hospitals relatively smaller in scale, which they might not have adequate equipments for handling emergency situations or complicated medical therapies. Therefore, you need to look into the medical care coverage of the specific area you want to retire. For instance, the proximity to the metropolitan area from your place so as to estimate your access to more physicians and available hospitals and clinics for more promising quality of medical care services.

3. Mind the Tax
   In case you are too used to the really low tax rate in Hong Kong, you certainly need to bare in mind that taxes elsewhere are way higher than that of Hong Kong! Some places require you to pay pension as well. Take Canada, another popular retirement place, as an example, Canada residents (those who stay longer than 183 days) are taxed on their worldwide income. Your investment income such as your dividends, interests, royalties and rental income are also taxed as ordinary income. As for your capital gains, only 50% of it is taxable. Here are the tax rates: income of C$43,953, 15% of it will be taxed; C$43,954 – 87,907, 22% of it will be taxed; C$87,908 – 136,270, 26% of it will be taxed; and over C$136,270, 29% of it will be taxed. Therefore, check the tax rate before you go!

   

4. Rent First
   You never really get to know a place thoroughly even if you travel there a lot, unless you actually live there for a longer period of time, experiencing local people’s life there. It does take at least 6 months or more for you to realize if you surely like a place or not because staying years in the same place involves a lot of factors affecting your own feelings. Thus, it is always better to rent first before you really buy one and commit to a particular area. Another advantage of renting is that property ownership comes with extra costs. As a property owner, you are obliged with the relevant property tax or even grounds-keeping, let alone the insurance, maintenance and repair fees. All these add up to a huge sum of money which you might not want to spend. On the contrary, if you rent, you are not liable for any of these. You can make use of our website https://www.spacious.hk/en/hong-kong to know more about renting!