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Why Portugal Tops The List For Living Or Investing In Europe

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Jan 31, 2018
in Lifestyle, Portugal
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condos on a seaside cliff in the algarve
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The World’s #1 Place To Be In 2018

Europe is comprised of 44 countries according to the U.N…. though I count 46… and, until the U.K. executes its exit, the EU includes 28.

Among these I put Portugal at the top of the list for anyone looking for a place to live, retire, invest, or formulate a Plan B in Europe.

What’s so special about Portugal?

I haven’t been to every country in Europe yet, but I have spent time in nearly every one. I’ve also invested in many and lived in two. Portugal stands out from the crowd in this part of the world for two reasons.

First, Portugal offers a competitive residency-through-investment program. You can invest as little as 280,000 euros in a piece of property in this country and qualify for residency under its Golden Visa program. That program requires you to be physically present in Portugal just seven days a year on average.

This means you could put a backup residency plan in place that you could maintain simply by taking a Portugal holiday each year.

If you don’t want or don’t have the funds to invest in real estate to qualify, you could obtain residency in Portugal by showing as little as 1,200 euros a month in income from outside the country. The downside here is that this residency option comes with a bigger in-country presence requirement of 183 days, enough to make you a tax resident in Portugal.

However, the second advantage Portugal offers compared with the rest of Europe is its Non-Habitual Resident (NHR) program. This unfortunately named program isn’t about residency but taxes. Once you have established legal residency, you can apply for NHR status. If you qualify, you enjoy significant tax benefits for your first 10 years of residency in this country.

Of course, other European countries offer residency through an investment in real estate (including Spain, Ireland, Malta, and Latvia, for example), and other places in Europe qualify as low- (even lower-) tax jurisdictions. In Portugal, though, these advantages are coupled with great weather, low costs of living and of real estate (30% lower on average than anywhere else in Western Europe), and the ability to get by with English if you locate yourself in an expat area such as Algarve or Lisbon.

Portugal’s sunshine has been attracting Northern Europeans for decades. The Algarve enjoys more than 3,000 hours of sun a year, more than most any other destination in Europe. While summers can be warm, even hot by some standards, reaching into the 90s, most of the year is comfortable, with lows in the 40s during December and January.

One downside to the Algarve is that many of the towns are seasonal. Restaurants and services shut down when the tourists go home.

The good news is that all those tourists haven’t jacked up prices. You can take a friend out for a nice dinner in a nice restaurant for 15 euros a person even in the heart of the tourist zones. Venture off the tourist path in the Algarve, and you can enjoy an excellent meal for less than 10 euros a person. You’ll have more fun, too.

Another significant benefit for anyone shopping for a Plan B destination is that you don’t have to learn to speak Portuguese if you don’t want to. Many locals speak English. While some may not be able to debate global economics with you in English, I’ve met few Portuguese who couldn’t get by in English, and in my experience many are fluent.

What about culture? This is Continental Europe, with all the cultural trappings you associate with that status. Portugal is also one of the most historically rich points on the planet.

That said, you’ll find greater cultural options in France and Italy. That is partially a result of population sizes. Portugal is a country of only 10 million people, with 1.3 million living in the Lisbon area.

What about safety? Old maps of Europe show the southwest corner of Portugal as the end of the world. This country is surrounded by water and Spain, meaning limited access. As a result, Portugal has been spared the refugee crisis that other European countries are struggling through.

Portugal enjoys low violent crime rates. The only real safety concern is petty crime in the tourist areas.

What about air access? You have good options for daily flights from the United States to Lisbon. From there you can connect or drive easily to anywhere else in the country. From Lisbon, Faro, and Porto, you have many direct flight options to destinations across Europe.

Again, Portugal makes the grade whether you’re looking to live in Europe full-time, to invest for capital appreciation (thanks to undervalued pricing) and cash flow (thanks to the healthy tourist trade), or a Plan B.

All things considered, I say again: This is your top choice in Europe right now.

Indeed, we here at Live and Invest Overseas go further in our endorsement of this country. Portugal, we say (and we believe we know whereof we speak) is not only your top choice for living or retiring in Europe… it’s your top choice, period.

For the fourth year running, we’ve named Portugal as the world’s #1 place to spend time in 2018.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. To help me make the point, I’ve invited a series of Portugal expats to share their stories with you… starting tomorrow…

Stand by.

Kathleen Peddicord

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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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