Jan 10, 2025 | Why would I love living in Portugal
My wife and I have been living in Portugal for the last 2 months. And we enjoyed living here and would love to settle here.
But first…
Our Criteria
Everything should always start with criteria when selecting a place for living. Our was divided into two categories:
Place
Must-Haves:
Warm but not excessively hot climate year-round
A city with a large population nearby
Big water nearby (ocean, sea, large river, or big lake)
Well-developed infrastructure.
Good healthcare system.
Good schools.
Large shopping malls (e.g., Zara, cinemas) within 30 minutes.
Chain establishments (e.g., McDonald's, Starbucks, Taco Bell, Burger King, or similar).
Sports facilities (fitness clubs, tennis courts, swimming pools, gyms, stretching, yoga).
Cozy
Safe
Nice-to-Haves:
Varied landscape (not flat).
Bars and vibrant nightlife.
Large-scale holiday markets and festivals.
Country
Must-Haves:
Effective tax rate of no more than 20%.
Presence of a startup ecosystem.
Nice-to-Haves:
Visa-free with USA.
Portugal
To me, when it comes to select a country for living it’s never about the country itself. It’s primarily about the place, the specific city itself. That’s why you won’t hear anything high-level from me about living in Portugal in general. To us the only key things to consider the ones outlined above.
Startup ecosystem
Even though Portugal’s population is 3-4 times smaller than Ukraine's, its startup ecosystem appears to be much more developed and advanced, with over 4,200 officially registered startups and dedicated government programs like Startup Madeira, which allows companies to reduce the corporate tax rate to 5% for the first five years.
Visa-free with USA
Yes. And the path is relatively simpler than with other European countries:
In year zero, obtain a visa (or other legal permit) to live and work in portugal
In 1-2 years, obtain the residence permit
In 5 years, obtain citizenship
That it, now you can travel to 190 countries with no visa. USA included.
Effective tax rate of < 20%.
A problem here, because it’s a must have for us.
As is, your annual income is more than $100,000 you will end up giving ~38% of that in taxes.
The tax system in Portugal is quite complicated compared to other countries. So my advice to myself would be to get a tax advisor or accountant.
On a positive side, there are a few governmental programs like IFICI (NHR 2.0) and Startup Madeira and our supposed to allow to optimize these taxes to acceptable rates for a long enough period of time. T
This gives us hope that it’s a dead end of us.
Cities
Portimaō
We lived here for 2 months. This small city with ~60,000 population meets all of our criteria except 1 thing: it’s absolutely boring here in the off-season. If you’re like us and like to visit bars and party places, and like to have diversity in your activities, you’d have a hard time here in winter.
To us, Portimaō is an amazing place to buy a holiday house in.
Cascais
An absolutely amazing place. It meets all of the criteria we’ve set for ourselves. It also has a diverse and large presense of Ukrainian community which is also a huge plus for us.
The only downside for would probably be the cost of living. The rental prices are quite large here.
(Next stop) Madeira
We are planning a visit to Madeira for a couple month next time we get to Portugal. The plan is to visit it this year. Let’s see.