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    Whether you’re looking for fun and sun, a peaceful retirement, or the chance to earn some extra income, you’ve got a real world of opportunity open to you… In short, we’ve done our best to narrow down your best options, but only you can decide the right country for you.

    • Spain
    • Portugal
    • Panama
    • Belize
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    • Cyprus
    • Mexico
    • France
    • Montenegro
    • Browse All Countries

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  • Budgets

    How Much Will It Cost You To Live Overseas?

    The only honest answer is, we have no idea. And neither does anyone else. The only one who can answer that question is you. Here’s the most important thing to understand about budgeting your new life overseas…

    Super Cheap

    • Chitré, Panama
    • Santa Marta, Colombia
    • Phuket, Thailand
    • Dumaguete, The Philippines

    Cheap

    • Medellin, Colombia
    • Boquete, Panama
    • Kyrenia, Cyprus
    • Hua Hin, Thailand
    • The Algarve, Portugal

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 Free Belize Guide

DISCOVER BELIZE

REEF RUINS, RIVERS, AND RAIN FOREST, PLUS EASY RESIDENCY AND TAX-FREE LIVING

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Home Countries Belize

A World Of Options In Belize

by Lief Simon
Nov 27, 2024
in Belize
0 0
A Caribbean beach with a pier and palm tree in caye caulker belize

Adobe Stock/Fotos 593

I’ve been spending time and money in Belize for more than 20 years. It’s not the white sand or the blue-green sea that attract me.

Sure, the beaches are beautiful, but I’m not much for sunbathing.

Belize got my attention two decades ago and has held it since because it’s a custom-built offshore and tax haven.

The country offers good options for planting many offshore flags… from a bank account to residency, a second passport, an offshore structure, a self-sufficient lifestyle, and a seriously tax-advantaged set-up.

International banks in Belize are among the few in the world that will open an account for you without requiring you to visit the bank in person. Of course, they, like all offshore banks today, will insist on “know-your-client” due diligence and paperwork, but you don’t have to get on a plane to go through that process.

Belize banks also have low account minimums compared with bigger private banking centers. You can open an account in this country with as little as $500… and that account would give you access to multiple currencies, including the British pound, the euro, the Swiss franc, and the Canadian dollar (or the U.S. dollar if you’re Canadian).

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Banks in other jurisdictions impose minimum balances starting at $100,000 for an account providing easy access to multiple currencies.

If you have $100,000 or $1 million to fund your offshore bank account, you have more options. However, if you’re just starting out with your flag-planting efforts or if you’re working with less available capital, Belize can be the best and easiest starting point for banking.

That’s banking, which is the flag I recommend you address first.

Next comes residency.

In this context, Belize is again a top option. The country offers one of the most straightforward retirement residency programs available anywhere.

The income requirement of $2,000 is higher than that for other options in Central America and even for some European jurisdictions, but the required time in country each year is only 30 days.

You can set up a second (or backup) residency in Belize and maintain it by taking a couple of two-week vacations there each year… or you could live there full-time if you wanted.

One downside to residency through the QRP is that it doesn’t lead to citizenship. If a second passport is an objective, your option is to go the permanent residency route.

That requires you to spend an uninterrupted year living in the country, and you’d simply renew your tourist visa every 30 days for a year. Once you have that year under your belt, you can apply for permanent residency… and you can come and go from the country as you like.

After five years of permanent residency, you can apply for citizenship.

Looking for a structure to house your offshore business activities?

A Belize IBC (International Business Company) isn’t taxed in Belize because it can’t do business in Belize. If you want to do business in Belize, you’ll need to use a local Belize company instead.

A Belize LLC can also be a good choice as the holding company for offshore investments—for example, real estate in different countries. Again, thanks to Belize’s jurisdictional approach to taxation, you’d pay no taxes in Belize on income or capital gains from your non-Belizean investments held in the Belize LLC.

Banking, residency, structures, and taxes are all great reasons to be looking closely at Belize… and here’s one more…

This country is one of the world’s safe havens… an ideal place to escape the troubles of the world. No terrorist cell is paying attention to Belize, for instance.

Meantime, this country boasts an abundance of fertile land and fresh water, meaning loads of opportunity for growing your own food and embracing an off-grid lifestyle to whatever extent you’re up for. Build a house with solar panels, and you could easily live completely off-grid in this country.

You could set up your personal Plan B in Belize and then put it on a shelf where it’d be ready for you and your family should you decide the time has come to bug out.

Belize is close and easy enough to get to from the United States and Canada.

All major U.S. carriers offer daily flights to Belize City… or you can fly into Cancún, which is serviced by flights from most secondary cities in the United States thanks to Southwest Airlines, and then drive down the coast to the border. Friends come and go from Belize this way all the time.

Stay diversified,

Lief Simon signature

Lief Simon

Editor, Offshore Living Letter

Tags: 'Belize''Expat Life''Invest Offshore''The World’s Top Retirement Havens'Belize QRPlive overseas
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Lief Simon

Lief Simon

Lief Simon has lived and worked in 7 countries on 5 continents and traveled to more than 75 countries. His real estate investment career began with a $5,000 down payment on a three-flat building in Chicago. Less than three years later, Lief sold the building for a leveraged return of 3,000%—$150,000 in profit after closing costs and commissions.

From there, he turned his attention overseas and has bought property in 24 countries including France, Croatia, Portugal, Ireland, Belize, Spain, Argentina, Cyprus, Romania, and beyond. Thanks to his decades-long career as a global property investor, Lief has built a multi-million-dollar portfolio that includes rental properties, significant land holdings, and 7 personal residences.

Lief has established residency in 3 countries and acquired a second passport from Ireland.

In 2008 Lief and wife Kathleen Peddicord made the most important investment of their lives—a 215-acre oceanside finca, known as Los Islotes. There, on Panama’s largely undiscovered Veraguas coast, they’ve installed underground electricity, water, and internet and built a forever family home that sits at the heart of their ultimate vision: a gold standard private residential community for those in search of a true safe haven escape.

Lief’s latest book, “Cowboy Millionaire—The New American Pioneer,” collects all the wisdom he has learned in three decades of living and investing outside America.

He offers advice on international diversification in his twice-weekly Offshore Living Letter and monthly Simon Letter dispatches. For real estate investment opportunities, check out his monthly Global Property Advisor service.

If you’d like to meet Lief in person, join him for one of our upcoming in-country conferences. You’ll find further details here.

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To Live Overseas?

Super Cheap

  • Chitré, Panama
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  • Dumaguete, The Philippines

Cheap

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  • Boquete, Panama
  • Kyrenia, Cyprus
  • Hua Hin, Thailand
  • The Algarve, Portugal

Affordable

  • Valencia, Spain
  • Cascais, Portugal
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