Road Racing as an Expat?

Very true. Not much different than immigrating to the US, which I have with my family when I was a teenager. Initially my dad wanted to go to the Netherlands, but it was damn near impossible to do it, so we ended up going with option 2, which was the US. Pre-9/11 was a bit easier, now it's harder, but still easier than some of the western european countries. You pretty much have to have a really good reason to go there, like some sort of specialized job (in other words not something that they have a lot of, like mechanics, nurses, accountants, etc.). You pretty much have to have at least a Masters degree to get some sort of priority. Simply saying "Oh I'm bored and wanted a change, so I want to move to some european country, then find a job when I get there", doesn't work. Not at all. My dad had a job lined up about 12 months before we actually moved here. LOTS of paperwork to be done. Now if you want to go there temporarily, for like 6 months or less...that's much easier. You still need to find something ahead of time. Often times, companies will send people over for weeks or months for training if they have other facilities in other countries. That's easy to do, but moving permanently is a HUGE task. Honestly, the easiest way is usually to get married to a local. Just don't abuse the system...plenty of people doing that already, and governments know that, and their making it harder and harder for the actual honest couples that are going through that.

 

I'll show my ignorance here, but how long could you stay if you were just on an extended vacation? Like if you were rich as hell, could you rent a house in Italy for 5 months, come back to the US for a month, then head back to Italy for another 5 months? At what point are they gonna say GTFO, you're basically living here?

 

You can indefinitely live on holiday in most countries as long as you like. You just have to leave the country and get a new visa coming back in. Called a border run. The more civilized countries might make you stay out of the country for 30 days before reapplying for a visa to try and prevent illegal workers. Most countries will extend your visa on the spot if you take the right steps with the govt and play by the rules. Mexico just gave me 180 days. In Peru now on a 90 day visa. More strict countries will give you a 30 day max. As long as you are/ or they think you are just taking a long vacation its really no problem. Just research and have the proper paperwork done when you get there and that goes along way with immigration.
Just getting my Brazilian visa now and that's the hardest one I've had to do. They require 160.00 USD to start (insane!), going to a certain bank and getting a slip and receipt that the money is in their account, physical passport photo, 3 months bank statements, proof of physical address from where your passport is from, proof of an arrival and departure ticket, a copy of the front of your credit card and some embassies a letter from your employer. After you get all that you have to fill out the online application, upload all of the above. Takes 5-7 days to process. WORST part they hold your passport!!!! I'm in Lima and didn't want to spend another unexpected week in the city!! Made a good photocopy, my entrance/departure card and had someone right a note in Spanish explaining why I have no passport. If anyone has ever been to Peru you NEED to show your passport for everything. Anyways managed to buy a bus ticket, went to Paracas and check in to 2 hotels with out it and a bus ticket back. Pick it up tomorrow and I'm out!!!

 

It can vary a lot, depending on the country and who YOU are (age, citizenship, profession, etc.). Mark gave a lot of good info and examples. To add to that, for example, my grandma who's from Romania, got a 10-year tourist visa from the US. This doesn't mean she can stay for 10-years at a time though. This means she can come and go as she pleases as long as she doesn't stay here for more than 180 days total in a calendar year. So she can either take a 6-month trip, or she can do 10 trips at no more than 6 days each. There might be a few other details in there that I'm forgetting but I believe that's the jist of it. The reason she was able to get one that long is because she's retired, widowed, and old. They look at people like that as "little risk", as in little risk to break the rules and overstay the visa, becoming an illegal immigrant. Older people tend to not do that because they have little to no reason to immigrate at that age. Someone that's 25 and single for example, or even 25 and married, are seeing as high risk, because they're more likely to not leave and settle here, get a job illegally and live off the taxpayers for many years to come.

As mentioned earlier, other countries will be pretty similar to this, but in the cases of some of the western european countries, more strict.

 

Cool. Was just curious, never knew how that sort of thing worked.

 

If you're rich as hell, most countries will give you a residence permit without any difficulties. Fill out the forms, show them your bank statements, and bam! Done. Then you can stay as long as you like, because they're collecting taxes from you.

 

You can get residency and enjoy an accelerated path to citizenship if you buy property in Portugal.

 

Yeah but then you have to speak Portugese which is like a drunk Italian trying to speak Spanish....

 

If you shout loud enough at them they will eventually understand you.

 

Wife and I were in Lisbon and Porto a couple weeks ago. Blown away by how beautiful they were, and how vibrant the city life was. Just awesome.

 

Do they still have really lenient laws regarding drugs in Portugal?

 

I lived in Mainz for 3 years.
Man I miss it.


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I heard from someone that the reason high end California real estate is slowing down was a change in enforcement of a law. Rich Chinese people were buying houses for cash, and for every 500k they spent, a visa was earned for an employee/family member.

They were supposed to be investing these millions in businesses, to provide jobs, but had this work around going for sometime, claiming real estate as a business.

 

That "model" is still going strong