RWL195:Exploring Georgia’s Digital Nomad Visa and Remote Work-Life Balance

Remote Work Travel Destinations

Speaker 1

0:00

Hello, it's Alex from Remote Work Life. I hope this finds you well, wherever you may be, and it's the time of year for me when I'm starting to think about holidays and I'm starting to think about travel, and that's probably because you tend to see a lot of adverts pop up on places like YouTube and Google and on TV and wherever it is you tend to see the travel companies, the airlines, talking about travel and pulling those, all those sort of images in your mind to get you thinking about travel and starting to get you to book your travel destinations. But for me, it's more than that. Living in some, living somewhere like London, it's where you've got the hustle and bustle and the busy traffic and the noise and the pollution or this sort of thing and I've got kids you think about quite often, or at least I do. Anyway, I think about where else could we go, what else could we be doing, what other destinations are there?

Speaker 1

1:03

I've been in London for a long time. I used to travel around a lot more. I guess I used to be a bit more of a had a bit more of a nomadic lifestyle, although I was traveling within the UK, not necessarily internationally, but since I've had children. I've been a bit more settled, more sedentary, I guess you could say More work from home, work from co-working spaces. But as you get older and you see your children playing and especially somewhere like the UK where the weather's cold, where there aren't as many opportunities to go out and play for the kids or the weather's not conducive to going out as much and there's all these different kinds of things and the dark nights, etc. You've got quite young children. You may not think about these sorts of things as much, but if you're in a sort of a different climate, maybe, or yeah, so that those these are all thoughts that have just started to sort of enter my mind, and that my children are over an age where we've done a little bit of traveling, we've done a little bit of holiday traveling, where we've me and my wife, we've we've worked wherever we've been, so hotels, or where it is Airbnb, etc. But yeah, I would love to do travel a lot more. I think, and it's kind of inspired me to start to make, to make a list of different places that not just a welcoming but are sort of conducive to remote workers and are conducive to that, that whole lifestyle Not necessarily digital know-back, some.

Speaker 1

2:45

As I said, I'm not I'm not a digital know-back by any stretch of the imagination, but the digital nomad wave is definitely still there. It's, it's, it's I don't know if it's at its peak, but it's definitely something that countries and cities are trying to tap into. And it takes me back to a conversation that I had with Sandra Rausch of Safety Wing, where we have having this conversation. He was saying to me that countries and cities are going to start to compete for digital nomads, remote workers, and this was at the height of the pandemic, or at least, was it the height? No, it wasn't the height, it was at the entry point, I guess, of the pandemic. But even at that point it was apparent that countries were gearing up to attract digital nomads. And, like I said, I've made a list of different countries and I'm sort of embarking upon some research at the moment where I'm looking into these different countries.

Speaker 1

3:56

And these are countries not just within Europe, but countries Asia yes, considering Asia, considering North America, south America, caribbean islands well, you don't often hear some of the Caribbean islands mentioned in terms of digital nomads is my remote work, but nonetheless I'm doing my research and there's lots of different aspects, as you can probably imagine that you want to look into when you're doing your research for a place where you can live and work, and I mean when I say live and work, I mean just on a short term basis. I think one of the things that topped my list is obviously safety and all that sort of thing is important, but internet speed, that's one big thing, because obviously without internet, literally it all kind of grinds to a halt. So, yeah, I'm just putting together a rough list and if you've got any ideas as well, please reach out to me. In fact, even better if you've actually visited some of the countries that I'm going to be highlighting, because I'm going to do one country each week in the part. I'm going to feature one country each week and it may be every other week. It depends if I can get some sort of cadence, some sort of rhythm into this whole thing, because it's quite something quite different for the podcast and I thought that my research might be able to help you if you're also in the sort of thought process of holidays and planning and researching different destinations for yourself, your family as well, I think, because again, when I talk, when I mentioned safety just now, something that's family friendly. Well, at least, at the very least, is yeah, every family person wants that. Every mom, every dad, every carer, every sort of caregiver, wants to be able to do that and they want to know that they are safe wherever they travel. And especially when you've got kids, because you kind of I don't know about you, but as a father, I'm probably pretty overprotective of my kids. But, yes, I digress slightly, but what I want to do in today's episode is because, part of my research, I've identified a few things I've identified top of my list at the moment, not necessarily for any particular reason, but for Georgia as one of the countries that has come to light in my research, and Georgia seems to be again one of those countries.

Speaker 1

6:46

Back to what I was saying about Sandra is that one of those countries that is openly trying to attract digital nomads, remote workers? Why do I say that? Well, I say that because they have introduced, as of December 2023. Let's have a look. In fact, let's see. There's a website that I'm looking at.

Speaker 1

7:17

This is why I'm kind of hesitating, but it's called visaguideworld and this has like a bit of a summary in terms of what Georgia has to offer and, in fact, I got my years wrong, because it's not 2023, but in 2020, again back when we were having the conversation with Roush sorry, sandra of Safety Wing, georgia introduced their digital nomad visa called Remotely From Georgia. So I don't know, actually, if this is still. Again, you may be able to tell me if you've been there or sort of are planning to go there yourself or been there yourself. They introduced that back in 2020, called the Remotely From Georgia visa, and at the time that they introduced it again, I'm going to have to dig deeper into this and, again, the idea of this show is just to give you some ideas as well as myself as well, give you a starting point for your own research, because I'm not going to dig too deeply. But in looking at this particular article, basically what they've said, what they're saying, the idea of this Remotely From Georgia visa is it provides an opportunity for long-term stays, so six months and up to a year, which, if it's still apparent, if it's still the case, then that's really good and that would suit my purposes, because I wouldn't plan to stay that long. I wouldn't plan to stay that long. In fact, I probably wouldn't even need to say I don't know Would I need a work visa while I'm staying. I wonder Again if you're a visa expert and you want to come on the show, you want to talk about visas and visa applications and all that sort of thing, the ins and outs of travel, then I would welcome you on the show to demystify some of the things that I am talking about, because lots of this doesn't necessarily it's not my wheelhouse.

Speaker 1

9:36

This is not my wheelhouse at all. As I said, this is just me openly riffing and sharing my thoughts on what I can see on this page here of this particular website. So, according to the website as well, there's a few things I've picked out. In fact, let's see there's about 10 things I picked out which make it make this article appealing and make the whole idea of going to Georgia appealing. So I've talked about the digital nomad visa, the fact that they're trying to openly attract people like me who want to work remotely, so that's a good starting point.

Speaker 1

10:16

Number two on this list the visa application process. If it applies to me I don't know if it does, because I don't think I'll be staying for six months it would be lovely if we could, but I don't think we will be. But again, I haven't made my decision yet. So the visa application process is simple Love to hear that and can be completed online. Even better, I'd be surprised if they had had a paper based system in place so it can be completed online with a processing time of 10 business days Superb, so that's. That's another advantage. Definitely, you don't want processes that take too long, even though I guess some I've come across others that take too long. I've come across others that take less. I've come across some that take more. But, yeah, we can live with 10 days, especially as we're not thinking immediately about going anywhere. What else? There are no application fees, so it's always good not to have to shell out any money for this sort of thing, given that we're thinking about going there to spend money anyway. So no application fees are required for obtaining a Georgia digital nomad visa. So that's number two the application process sounds pretty good to me. And number three, visa entry visa free entry, so Okay.

Speaker 1

11:36

So another thing that kind of answers the question that I perhaps asked earlier on is that Georgia allows citizens from 95 countries to enter visa free and stay for up to 365 days, including flexibility for digital nomads and again this particular article that I've got, which probably I should link to in the, in the sort of show notes, gives a whole list of the different countries that that this applies to. So Australia, botswana, lithuania, ukraine, antigua Barbuda, bahrain, estonia, finland, andorra, slovenia yeah, the list goes. I'm not going to read every single one of the 95 different countries, and obviously I'm looking for the UK and it is there, so that would be a good point for me. There's Germany, there's St Vincent and the Grenadines, bulgaria, ecuador, japan, portugal, norway, monaco, luxembourg, costa Rica, kuwait. So countries from literally every continent. They're very liberal and very when I say they, georgia is very open to welcoming people by the sounds of it, which sounds very good. So, yeah, so Georgia allows citizens from 95 countries to enter visa-free and stay for up to 365 days, providing flexibility. That's great. So that's number three on the list. Number four on the list the tax benefits. So what it's? Again, I don't know if this applies to me, how it applies to me as somebody who wants to potentially, potentially, stay in the country for a period of time, not necessarily six months to a year, but let's see tax benefits until the 183rd day of stay.

Speaker 1

13:30

Digital nomads in Georgia are not required to pay taxes After 183 days, the income tax is approximately 20%. So that's in itself is attractive, but, again, I'm not an expert on this area of the tax, et cetera, and I'm not sure how up to date this information is. So, again, this is something that you should research yourself. The stuff that I'm giving here. Let me just say this is not necessarily advice. It's just me opening up and, I guess, sharing some of my thoughts with you. So, on anything I say today, please seek your own independent advice and do your own research, and don't say that Alex from remote work life told me so because, yeah, as I said, I'm not an expert in any of these aspects, whether it comes to the visa, whether it comes to the travel, et cetera. This is me just sharing information that I've found on the internet. So, in terms of the tax benefits, the individual entrepreneur scheme allows digital nomads to pay only 1% on their first $155,000 of income, providing a favorable tax scheme. Again, yep, seeking your advice on that. I don't know how favorable that is because I haven't compared it to any other country. Again, I've just really started the research here and I'm not necessarily saying that I am gonna go to Georgia, but it's just something that, as I said, it's on my list.

Speaker 1

15:01

So, number five, bank account accessibility. Until sorry, unlike some countries, georgia allows digital nomads to open a bank account upon arrival, simplifying financial transactions and enhancing the overall experience. That's really good because, yeah, as much as there's contactless payments, we all need, I think, some form of some method of you know, saving, storing the money that we get, whether it's physical dollars or some sort of virtual currency. We need bank accounts. I don't know how open, obviously, these banks are to you know the decentralized currencies, we don't know. But then again, it's something to research, something for you to research, something for me to research. So, yeah, bank account accessibility. If that is the case, as they put it here, you know that you can open up a bank account upon arrival. That's pretty good, it's pretty handy.

Speaker 1

16:06

What else do we have? So, affordable living costs. Now, this is subjective because you know what's affordable to one person is not to another, but it says here the cost of living in Georgia and I don't really understand what this means but is $698. I think I need to look at that a bit more. Is that the monthly cost of living? Again, something I need to do a bit more research on, because, yeah, it's always good to know in advance what the cost of living may be and then, in that way, you can then compare it to where you are currently and see if it adds up, see if it stacks up. But, yeah, that doesn't really make sense to me, maybe. Yeah, I think that needs clearing up, I think that needs to be looked into by me, by you. So, the cost of living, and if you do know, if you've been to Georgia, if you understand the cost of living as compares to something like London, for example, or the other big cities in the world, then get in touch, hit me up on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1

17:17

What else? Internet speed? That's a good one. That's near the top of my list as well. So what it says here, this is number seven on the list. By the way, georgia offers a good internet speed of 30.28 megabits per second, ensuring reliable connectivity for remote work. Now, that's okay, that's all right.

Speaker 1

17:46

I mean, again, somewhere like London, you're probably expecting around the 60 plus in terms of some of the more connected areas. I know some of these internet companies. They will say one thing you don't necessarily get what you pay for, but it's a little bit better than 30.28. But it's something that you can live with. I mean, for me, again, if I was going somewhere like Georgia for a short stay, yeah, I could live with that for a while, and if it meant I had to take some sort of mobile internet to tether my computer, then I would do that. But, yeah, something to consider. And I think, as I build, maybe what I'll do is I'll continue with these comparisons and then, well, continue with these sort of overviews of these different countries and what that then does. It helps me to build like sort of comparisons of the different facets, the different sort of features of each country.

Speaker 1

18:54

So, internet speed, that was internet speed. That's number seven. So, yeah, number eight on the list and something I was touching on before. Yet, living in a metropolitan area like London, especially if you're living right in the center, it's cars, it's traffic, it's road, it's concrete, it's noise pollution, it's light pollution, it's all those different sorts of things. You don't often get to see the natural side of London unless you really go out and look for it. There are definitely different places you can go, but you have to travel to get to it. You have to travel through lots of traffic to get there.

Speaker 1

19:33

So number eight on the list is natural beauty and culture. So what it says here Georgia boasts beautiful landscapes, including mountains and beaches, lovely offering opportunities for activities like hiking and skiing. The country is described as beautiful and welcoming, with excellent food and the oldest wine, so there's a lot there to be optimistic about when it comes to Georgia. Again, this is just information I've got off the internet. If you know about Georgia, as I said before, and you've been to Georgia, let me know If you're from Georgia, if you're listening from Georgia, and you can sort of corroborate all these different and invert common facts that I'm putting away, then get in touch. So natural beauty that's number eight.

Speaker 1

20:22

Number nine so let's see eligibility criteria. I think I've covered that. So I mentioned, yeah, 95 countries. So yeah, I've already covered that and that's kind of that's definitely positive, the fact that Georgia is open to so many different, so many different countries and citizens of different countries that it's really good. Sorry for the background noise there. It's open to citizens of different countries and they're eligible to apply for the Georgia Digital Nomad Visa. So that's number nine on the list.

Speaker 1

20:59

And then let's have a look. Application requirements. So the application requirements essentially, what they're saying is clear information on required documents for the application process valid passport, proof of business or employment, medical insurance you probably need to have that and I think in some of these longer term processes, one thing I've learned is that medical insurance is something that you're gonna need to think about getting or get in advance. So, again, do your research to see which suits your circumstances best. Again, I mentioned safety wing at the top of the show. Have a look at safety wing. There are many other different medical insurance companies, but, yeah, safety wing is one that is known pretty well in the community of remote workers and digital nomads, so that you know it's good to have something, that's good to work with a company that knows digital nomads and has been there and has done that in terms of supporting digital nomads.

Speaker 1

22:07

So, yeah, but yeah, that's it for my list for today. In terms of you know a country that is on my list to do some more research, maybe I'll, once I've got a bit more information, I'll share a bit more as I get it. But yeah, if you're considering traveling, please, as I said, get in touch on LinkedIn, let me know where you're thinking about and let me know what research you've done and if you're a visa expert, if you know about these different countries, if you've been to these different countries, if you live in these different countries, always open to hear from you. But that's it for today from me, from the Remote Workhouse Podcast. Listen out for the next episode and I will catch you on the next episode. All the best.