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Field notes on residency, tax and mobility from the desk behind Lucky Nomads. Short, sourced posts as they go out, browsable by hashtag and by jurisdiction.

XJuly 24, 2026
HSBC UK caps payments to a crypto exchange at 2,500 pounds per transaction and 10,000 pounds per rolling 30 days. Nationwide has its own cap. Both published on the banks' own sites. In the UK the binding constraint on crypto wealth is not the tax rate. It is the rails. Roughly 3,340 dollars or 2,930 euros a transaction, 13,350 or 11,720 a month. Credit cards are refused at both, and Nationwide declines card payments to Binance. No regulator ordered it. Both capped in 2023 on their own initiative, pointing to FCA warnings, and since 7 October 2024 the Payment Systems Regulator has made the sending bank liable for reimbursing authorised push payment fraud. The caps run on the whole category, so an FCA-registered venue and an unregistered one hit the same ceiling. A January 2026 survey of 10 exchanges operating in the UK found banks blocked or delayed about 40 percent of payments. On 21 July the Crypto and Digital Assets APPG opened a parliamentary inquiry into it. The tax side gives no cover. HMRC treats an exchange token as located where its beneficial owner is resident, so a UK resident's tokens are UK-situated wherever the wallet sits. The four year FIG regime relieves gains on assets situated outside the UK. Those tokens are not. Staking and mining rewards taxed as income at up to 45 percent, 48 in Scotland. Disposals at 18 or 24. Elsewhere the bank is the on-ramp. PostFinance has sold crypto in its app since 2024, Emirates NBD's Liv since 2025. No transfer to an external exchange, so no cap to hit. The rate is the easy variable. Which would you rather carry, a higher rate with a bank that sells crypto in its app, or a lower one behind a 2,500 pound ceiling? Data from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer I build at Lucky Nomads.
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SwitzerlandUnited Arab EmiratesUnited Kingdom
LinkedInJuly 24, 2026
Leaving Australia does not end Australian capital gains tax. Part of your portfolio stays taxable there, and a Bill introduced on 2 July 2026 would widen that part. Under CGT event I1, ceasing Australian tax residence generally triggers a deemed disposal at market value. Direct Australian real property is not taxed on the way out. It stays in the Australian net, and the gain is taxed on eventual sale. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Accountability for Tax Adviser Misconduct and Other Measures) Bill 2026 is before Parliament, not law. If it passes in the August sittings, the capital gains measures could commence on 1 October. Two changes matter. A statutory definition of real property brings in rights over land, related contractual rights, and things fixed or installed on it. And the principal asset test, one of two conditions that put a 10 percent stake in an Australian entity inside the net, moves from a single reading just before the sale to any point in the preceding 365 days. The 12 December 2006 retrospective start date was dropped. Assets newly caught get no cost base reset, so pre-commencement growth can still be taxed on a later sale. Australia ranks 33rd of 233 on the index I maintain. Tax freedom, at 2.73 out of 10, is its weakest dimension. If you left Australia and kept a stake in an Australian entity, could you show what share of its value was land-linked on any day of the preceding 365 days? Want to see where your own profile actually fits, the free 6 minute diagnostic is in the first comment. Tracked through GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer behind Lucky Nomads. #internationaltax #globalmobility #australia
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Australia
XJuly 23, 2026
Portugal can tax you personally on the whole profit of a foreign company you hold 25 percent of, with nothing distributed. Proving that company has real staff and premises is no defence. That carve-out is EU and EEA only. These are CFC rules. People pick the company's jurisdiction and stop there. Attribution lands on the shareholder, not the company. Article 66 of the Portuguese corporate income tax code, extended to individuals by the personal one, catches a holding of at least 25 percent, aggregated across related parties, once its effective tax abroad falls under half of the Portuguese charge. Then the full profit is imputed pro rata. Not the passive slice, all of it. Outside that zone the way out is not substance. It is a separate gate. Keep the six listed income categories at or below 25 percent of total income and the article never applies. The architecture differs more than the numbers. United States: 10 percent each, once US holders together pass 50 percent, and it tracks citizenship as well as residence Portugal: 25 percent, related parties counted in New Zealand: CFC at 40 percent for a single resident if no non-associated non-resident holds more, attribution to you at a 10 percent income interest One more line a consultant should read twice. An active company escapes on the under 5 percent attributable income test, but income the Act counts as personal services is attributed anyway. Elsewhere the charge never reaches an individual. Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Ireland bind corporate shareholders only, though Ireland's transfer of assets abroad rules reach individuals. Hong Kong, Georgia, Jersey and Isle of Man run no CFC regime at all. The company's jurisdiction sets the corporate rate. Where you are taxed as a person decides if it survives. If you moved the company before you moved yourself, which of the two is setting your bill this year? Data from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer I build at Lucky Nomads.
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BulgariaCzech RepublicGeorgiaHong KongIrelandIsle of ManJerseyNew ZealandPortugalUnited States
LinkedInJuly 23, 2026
16 days in the UK can make you tax resident again. Not 183. The sufficient ties test does it. If you were UK resident in any of the three preceding tax years and you hold four UK ties, residence can return above 15 days in the year. That number is not an outlier. Switzerland attaches unlimited liability at 30 days if you work while you are there. Guernsey at 35 days, once you have spent 365 days on the island over the four preceding years. South Africa runs a three part count stretched across six years. Germany can skip the count entirely, a dwelling you keep and use is enough. Cyprus and India both run on 60 days, in opposite directions. One is a door you walk through on purpose. The other catches people who never intended to be resident anywhere near it. I lined up seven jurisdictions in the carousel, one day count per slide, with the statutory basis for each. The count is the floor. A home, a job, a directorship or a multi year history decides the rest. Which one would reach you first, the country you left or the one you still keep a flat in? Want to see where your own profile actually fits, the free 6 minute diagnostic is in the first comment. Sourced from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer behind Lucky Nomads. #internationaltax #taxresidency #globalmobility
geocompass_tax_residence_day_thresholds (5).pdf
View the full PDF10 pages
CyprusGermanyGuernseyIndiaSouth AfricaSwitzerlandUnited Kingdom
XJuly 22, 2026
One board meeting held in Malaysia during the basis year, on the management and control of the company, and the company is Malaysian tax resident for that basis year. Every other meeting can be held abroad. Incorporation settles which law formed the company. It does not necessarily settle where it is taxed. Two tests dominate residence: that law, and where strategic control is really exercised. Malaysia does not use incorporation as a residence test. Public Ruling 9/2019 puts it on management and control, and one qualifying board meeting there settles it. It ratchets too: once the tax authority establishes residence, it carries forward until disproved. Singapore also runs on control and management, with no incorporation limb. IRAS generally regards a virtual board meeting as having its strategic decisions made in Singapore when at least half the directors with that authority, or the chairman, are physically there. Gibraltar goes further. Under section 74 a company is ordinarily resident if management and control is exercised there, or exercised abroad by persons ordinarily resident in Gibraltar. Those people carry residence with them. Estonia is the mirror image. Established under Estonian law means Estonian resident, with no domestic management test to lose it by. Its own tax authority warns this alone exempts nothing abroad: run it from another country and you may create a permanent establishment there, taxable on the profits attributed to it. Four jurisdictions, four answers, and incorporation settles residence in only one of them. If a tax authority reviewed your structure tomorrow, which country would your board minutes point to, and would the facts agree? Data from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer I build at Lucky Nomads.
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EstoniaGibraltarMalaysiaSingapore
LinkedInJuly 22, 2026
Türkiye scores 2.1 out of 10 on currency stability, the lowest of the 16 citizenship by investment programs tracked. The entry ticket is USD 400,000 of property under a three year resale restriction. The threshold is set in dollars. The asset you end up holding is not. And the conversion is not optional. Since January 2022, the foreign currency has to be sold to the Central Bank through a Turkish bank before title can pass. The lira amount from that conversion is what goes on the deed. So the move into lira is compulsory, and the property then cannot be sold for three years. Over the three years to mid July, the lira lost 44 percent of its dollar value. Annual inflation was 32.11 percent in June and has stayed above 30 percent since December 2021. The five Eastern Caribbean programs score 9.05 to 9.50 on the same measure. Their currency has been pegged to the US dollar since 1976. The property can rise sharply in lira and still leave the holder behind in dollars when the restriction lifts. Citizenship is the deliverable, subject to approval. My read is that the three year exposure is the real price, and that it is a currency position before it is a real estate one. If you were pricing this route, would you hedge the lira leg over the three years, or treat the property itself as the hedge? Want to see where your own profile actually fits, the free 6 minute diagnostic is in the first comment. Sourced from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer behind Lucky Nomads. #citizenshipbyinvestment #globalmobility #turkiye
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Turkey
LinkedInJuly 21, 2026
Vanuatu scores a perfect 10 on Tax Freedom, with no general income tax, no corporate income tax and no capital gains tax, and still lands at 62.55 on the Lucky Nomads World Index, ranked 140th. The tax core has held for more than three decades across governments. No general personal income tax, no corporate income tax, no capital gains, no wealth or inheritance tax. Companies under the International Companies Act carry the statutory tax exemptions granted to offshore companies. The costs are just as measurable. Flight connectivity scores 2.5 and market depth 3.2, both near the bottom of the 23 dimensions. It is not literally tax-free either, a 15 percent VAT applies and rental income can carry a rent tax, and no double tax treaty is in force. The passport lost EU and Schengen visa-free access in February 2023, made permanent in 2025. Banking and mobility both carry friction that price cannot fix. It fits a narrow brief, low-cost portability and Vanuatu-side tax neutrality on foreign-source income, and little else. The full carousel scores all 23 dimensions so you can read the whole shape before you commit. Where would a zero-tax base actually rank once your own income, banking and travel needs are weighed in? The free 6 minute diagnostic is in the first comment. Link in the comments.
Vanuatu, scored across 23 dimensions by GeoCompass (12).pdf
View the full PDF10 pages
Vanuatu
XJuly 21, 2026
An Estonian sole trader can lose close to a quarter of net business income to social tax, before a cent of income tax. A Georgian sole trader can owe no mandatory social contribution at all. Same flat-tax reputation, opposite social bill. Where it applies, the self-employed carry it in full, with no employer to split it, and it can cost as much as the income tax. Six self-employed contribution regimes, from 33 percent down to no mandatory charge, and no two are built on the same base. Estonia: 33 percent, but on net income divided by 1.33, so about 25 percent of net income between a floor and a cap, then deducted before income tax. Czech Republic: about 22.8 percent of tax profit under the standard calculation, social security and health combined. Andorra: 22 percent, but on a tiered notional base tied to the national average salary, not a share of income. Above high prior-year income it flattens to about 9,700 euros a year (11,100 dollars), the same at 60,000 or 600,000 net. Portugal: 21.4 percent for standard self-employed workers, or 25.2 percent for individual entrepreneurs. On most services the base is 70 percent of revenue, so 15 or 17.6 percent of gross. Gibraltar: 20 percent of gross earned income, hard-capped near 2,785 pounds a year (about 3,750 dollars or 3,280 euros). Georgia: no mandatory contribution for the self-employed. Joining is voluntary, and 4 percent if you opt in. The rate alone does not tell you what you pay. The base, any floor and any ceiling decide the rest. On six-figure service revenue, Gibraltar's cap comes in far below what Portugal's standard regime charges. Where it is owed it is not dead money. It finances pension rights and, depending on the country, health or sickness cover. But it is a yearly cost no income-tax table shows. When you built your shortlist, did you price the social contribution as a rate, or as the amount it charges on your real profit? Data from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer I build at Lucky Nomads.
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AndorraCzech RepublicEstoniaGeorgiaGibraltarPortugal
XJuly 20, 2026
By default, the Netherlands can tax you on investment returns you never earned. For 2026 it assumes your investments returned 6 percent and taxes that at 36 percent. Unless you prove a lower return, that bill lands whether the market rose, flatlined or fell. This is Box 3, the tax on savings and investments. Since 2001 it runs on a deemed return, a fixed rate the state assumes you earned, not what you actually got. For 2026 that rate on investments is 6.00 percent, taxed at a flat 36 percent, so 2.16 percent of your invested value every year, above an allowance of 59,357 euros per person, near 67,900 dollars. Residents are generally taxed on worldwide assets, so a foreign broker counts. A single resident holding 1,000,000 euros of investments on 1 January, with no deductible debt, faces a default Box 3 bill of about 20,300 euros a year, near 23,200 dollars, even in a year the million ended worth less. A conventional realization-based capital gains tax waits for a sale and taxes only the gain. Box 3 applies to the assets you hold, whether they gained or not. It took two Supreme Court defeats to crack that. The Christmas ruling of December 2021, then the rulings of June 2024, held that Box 3 may never tax more than your real return. Since July 2025 you can report your actual return and pay the lower of the two. A total Box 3 return you document as negative is reduced to zero. But the fiction stays the default, and the burden sits on you. To claim the lower amount you report the real figure and must be able to prove it, cannot deduct most costs, and a loss does not carry forward. From 2028, if the bill now before the Senate holds, the system moves to taxing actual returns. On the 233 jurisdictions I score, the Netherlands is a strong base, top tier on healthcare, banking and quality of life, near the floor on tax freedom. Box 3 is a real part of why. For a large portfolio the question is not the 6 percent or the 36 percent. It is who carries the burden of proof in a flat or losing year. Would you hold serious assets where the tax office assumes a positive return and leaves you to document the loss? Data from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer I build at Lucky Nomads.
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Netherlands
LinkedInJuly 20, 2026
Hong Kong sits 9th in the world on absence of corruption and has no general capital gains tax. On fundamental rights, it has dropped from 29th to 67th in a decade. For a globally mobile investor, Hong Kong still reads as a clean, low-tax finance hub. The low-tax case still stands. The rights case is not the one it was in 2015. Profits tax tops out at 16.5 percent, with no VAT and no estate duty, on a territorial basis. On the index I maintain that reads as 9.0 on tax freedom and 9.2 on wealth protection. Its 9th place globally for absence of corruption, in the 2025 WJP Rule of Law Index, is a top-10 result. The rights layer moved the other way. On that same index Hong Kong ranks 24th overall, just behind France and Uruguay. Underneath that, fundamental rights fell from 29th in 2015 to 67th in 2025, and constraints on government powers from 25th to 63rd. The 2020 National Security Law, which applies to offences against Hong Kong committed from abroad even by people who are not Hong Kong permanent residents, and the 2024 Article 23 ordinance, which broadened the national-security offence framework, sit within that decline, though it began before either. For a passive holder of capital, the asset side still holds. The harder question is whether an expanding national-security apparatus that already reaches speech, across borders, stays fenced off from capital. For a base you would park capital in for two decades, does an elite tax and property regime offset a fundamental-rights rank that fell from 29th to 67th, or is the trajectory the thing you actually price? Want to see where your own profile actually fits across the full set, the free 6 minute diagnostic is in the first comment. Tracked through GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer behind Lucky Nomads. #globalmobility #ruleoflaw #hongkong
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FranceHong KongUruguay
XJuly 17, 2026
Since 2020, EU law has required every member state to impose exit taxation when a corporate taxpayer moves assets or its tax residence out of that state's taxing jurisdiction. The rare one is personal: of the 233 jurisdictions I track, 16 tax you, the individual, on gains you never sold, the day you walk out the door. Entry rates get all the attention. Almost nobody prices the personal exit. In each of the four below, the day you stop being tax resident, your covered assets are marked to market and the unrealised gain is taxed, with no actual sale. Germany, Canada and Australia deem a disposal. France taxes the latent gain directly. Nothing was sold, so nothing came in. The tax can still fall due, on a gain you never cashed. Narrow, aimed at large holdings: France: the default 31.4 percent flat tax on latent gains. It catches residents of at least 6 of the last 10 years whose household directly or indirectly holds securities worth more than 800,000 euros, about 915,000 dollars, or rights representing at least 50 percent of a company's profits. Automatic deferral inside the EU, and the charge is wiped after 2 to 5 years if you keep the securities. Germany: for long-term residents, a direct or indirect holding of 1 percent or more in a company at any point in the last 5 years, taxed up to about 28.5 percent at the top rate before church tax. Since 2025, large fund and ETF holdings too, under separate fund-tax rules. Seven interest free instalments on request, generally against security, wherever you move. Broad, aimed at your whole portfolio: Canada: most of your worldwide assets deemed sold at once, up to about 27 percent depending on the province. You can elect to defer until you sell or otherwise dispose of them. Australia: for non-temporary residents, most CGT assets outside taxable Australian property are deemed sold when residence ceases. Foreign shares, ETFs and crypto are generally caught. You can elect to disregard the gain, keeping the assets in Australia's tax net until a later CGT event or your return to Australian residence. Some of these charges vanish entirely if you meet the conditions. Others defer collection, or keep the asset in the country's tax net until a later disposal. Either way, the move changes the timing, the paperwork and your liquidity exposure. You have modelled the tax in the country you are moving to. Have you modelled the bill the one you are leaving sends on your way out? Data from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer I build at Lucky Nomads.
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AustraliaCanadaFranceGermany
LinkedInJuly 17, 2026
Costa Rica just ended a five-year residency incentive. The routes stay open, the temporary perks do not. The durable advantage was never in that package. Law 9996, the post-COVID incentive layered on top of the existing Investor, Rentista and Pensionado routes, reached the end of its five-year window on 14 July 2026. The law does not vanish, and anyone already granted the incentives keeps them for ten years. What closes is the right of new applicants to elect the package. Among the perks, a one-time duty-free import of household goods and up to two vehicles, an income-tax exemption for the amounts declared as income to qualify, and a reduction in the property transfer tax. Those perks are relocation sweeteners. The structural advantage sits elsewhere, and it did not move. The country taxes individuals on a territorial basis, so genuinely foreign-source pensions, dividends, rents and capital gains generally remain outside the Costa Rican tax base. No net wealth tax, no inheritance tax. On the index I maintain, that lands Costa Rica 25th of 233, tax freedom 8.61 out of 10, geopolitical stability 8.55, among the highest in Latin America. None of it was built on Law 9996, and none of it carries a scheduled sunset. One honest caveat. The 150,000 dollar investor floor is the one now in limbo. The statutory basis for the 150,000 reduction was time-limited, the prior general threshold was 200,000, but the current regulation still states 150,000 and no official post-expiry clarification has been identified. Treat the operative floor as unsettled, not as a done increase. So the temporary perks closed to every new applicant. The residency routes and the territorial base did not. When a five-year incentive lapses but the territorial tax base is untouched, does the expiry change where Costa Rica sits for you, or was the incentive never the point? As of this week. Want to see where your own profile actually fits, the free 6 minute diagnostic is in the first comment. Tracked through GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer behind Lucky Nomads. #globalmobility #residencyplanning #costarica
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Costa RicaUnited States
LinkedInJuly 16, 2026
Seven European countries market a flat tax for newcomers. Underneath the label, five completely different machines. Cyprus exempts your dividends. Portugal and Spain flat-rate your salary and largely free your foreign income. Greece and Italy charge one fixed sum a year on covered foreign income, whatever the amount. Malta taxes your foreign income only when you remit it. Switzerland taxes what you spend, not what you make. Same label, five different mechanisms. I lined all seven up side by side in the carousel, with the 2026 numbers and what each one actually covers. The trap is reading the headline rate as the deal. A 0 percent, a fixed EUR 300,000 and a CHF 435,000 minimum taxable base are not comparable until you know the base each one sits on. Lowest rate, or the most predictable fixed cost, which would you optimise for? Want to see which base actually fits your own profile, the free 6 minute diagnostic is in the first comment. Sourced from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer behind Lucky Nomads. #internationaltax #globalmobility #wealthplanning
geocompass_expat_tax_regimes_carousel (8).pdf
View the full PDF10 pages
CyprusGreeceItalyMaltaPortugalSpainSwitzerland
XJuly 16, 2026
A US citizen shields 15 million dollars from federal estate tax. A non-American who never lived in the US shields 60,000 dollars. Above that line the same tax, climbing to 40 percent. Same Apple shares. A shield 250 times smaller. This is US federal estate tax, and it turns on citizenship and domicile, not on how many days you spend there. A US citizen, or anyone domiciled in the US, is taxed on their worldwide estate with a 15 million dollar exemption in 2026. Someone who is neither is taxed only on US-situs assets, and the shelter collapses to 60,000 dollars. The first 60,000 are wiped by a credit. Above that the marginal rate opens at 26 percent and climbs to 40 once the taxable base tops 1 million dollars. The trap is what counts as US-situs. US real estate, yes. But also stock of any US corporation, Apple, Nvidia, a direct position, even when it sits in a brokerage account in your own country. The situs follows the issuer, not where the shares are held. A treaty can soften it, lifting the shelter or narrowing what is taxed. The US has estate tax treaties with only about 15 countries. UK, France, Germany and Japan are in. China, India, Brazil, Mexico and most of the world are not. No treaty, and you are back to the 60,000. So it is not the US brokerage account that triggers this, it is holding US-situs assets directly. Shares in an Irish UCITS ETF, structured as an investment company or ICAV, are generally not US assets even when the fund holds only US stocks. Same S&P 500 exposure, a non-US wrapper, and the situs trap falls away. The custodian never mattered. The structure around the asset does. The dividend withholding on US stocks gets priced to the basis point. The estate tax on the very same shares almost never gets a look. Hold US stock directly, and you are neither a US citizen nor US-domiciled: do you know which side of 60,000 your heirs land on? Data from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer I build at Lucky Nomads.
geocompass_estate_tax_situs_card.png
BrazilChinaFranceGermanyIndiaJapanMexicoUnited KingdomUnited States
XJuly 15, 2026
In France, if you die leaving three children, you can freely give away only one quarter of your own estate in full ownership. The other three quarters are reserved for them by law. This is forced heirship. The ratios are set by Article 913 of the Civil Code. One child and you control half. Two children, a third. Three or more, a quarter. Under French law, your will cannot set it aside. It is not a French quirk. It runs through the civil law tradition. Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and, in its common regime, Spain all reserve a share for descendants. Across the Gulf, Muslim estates generally follow Sharia shares, with wills generally capped at a third, subject to local rules and heir consent. A few systems keep no fixed reserved share for children at all. England and Wales, and the United States in every state but Louisiana. A will can leave a child nothing. In England and Wales a child can still ask a court for provision, but that is discretionary, not a share. In participating EU states there is one lever. The EU Succession Regulation, for deaths on or after 17 August 2015, lets you elect the law of a nationality you hold, which can switch the reserve off. It is not clean, and the rules keep moving. France built a claw-back on French assets in 2021, but in June 2026 the European Commission accepted Paris's reading that English family provision already counts as protection, so an English election should not trigger it. Germany went the other way, refusing chosen English law for a child's compulsory share in 2022 where the ties ran deep. Moving can shift your tax exposure. Forced heirship is far stickier, and the escapes are partial and contested. Everyone prices the rate. Almost nobody asks who holds the pen. Before the tax, one question. Do you decide who inherits, or does the law. Tell me where I am wrong. Data from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer I build at Lucky Nomads.
geocompass_forced_heirship_france.png
FranceGermanyItalyPortugalSpainSwitzerlandUnited States
LinkedInJuly 15, 2026
On my jurisdiction index, the Czech Republic ranks 5th in the world out of 233. It is the top 5 country almost no advisor ever names. The HNWI conversation runs on zero tax and lump sum regimes. Dubai, Monaco, Switzerland, the usual names. The Czech Republic wins on none of that. Its tax freedom score is a middling 6.6. Yet it lands 5th, ahead of Ireland, New Zealand and the UK. The reason is that it has almost no weak spot on the things that make a base actually work. Safety 8.3, healthcare 8.7, banking 8.5, justice 8.1, open society 8.6, wealth protection 8.3, all on a 10 scale, at Central European cost rather than Western European cost. Two honest weaknesses. Weather scores 5.0 and air connectivity 5.2, so it is a grey winter and a secondary hub, not a sun and flights base. But if your filter is institutions, safety and rule of law per euro spent, rather than a headline tax rate, the index keeps surfacing places like this that never make a glossy shortlist. When you weigh a base, how much does a strong tax score actually pull you, versus boring things like healthcare, courts and cost? If you want to see which of the 233 actually fit your profile, not the marketed few, the free 6 minute diagnostic is in the first comment. Sourced from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer behind Lucky Nomads. #globalmobility #relocation #Czechia
geocompass_czechia_rank5_card.png
Czech RepublicIrelandMonacoNew ZealandSwitzerlandUnited Kingdom
LinkedInJuly 14, 2026
A US citizen can move to Puerto Rico, keep the passport, and pay 0 percent on island-sourced interest and dividends, and on gains from securities bought after residency begins. Act 38-2026 rewrote the clock. File the Chapter 2 application on or before 31 December 2026 and the rate is 0 percent. File from 1 January 2027 and it is 4 percent, with six years of prior non-residency to prove. The exemption tracks appreciation, not realisation. Gains that accrued before the move get neither rate. They are taxed at 5 percent only if recognised more than ten years after residency begins and inside the decree window. Recognised at any other time, they fall back to ordinary Puerto Rico rates, which are higher. The ordinary rates are the point. Corporate tops out at 37.5 percent, personal at 33 percent, plus a capped 5 percent gradual adjustment tax above USD 500,000. Tax Freedom scores 4.9 out of 10 here, the second weakest of the 23 dimensions GeoCompass scores. The 0 percent does not exist outside the decree. The decree has a price. USD 15,000 per year, fixed, regardless of income, for its entire life. A principal residence bought, not leased, within two years, from a wholly unrelated seller, and held throughout. Puerto Rico scores 67.93 out of 100 overall. Rank 80. Full profile in the carousel. Want to see where you actually rank, the free 6 minute diagnostic is in the first comment. #internationaltax #hnwi #relocation
Puerto Rico, scored across 23 dimensions by GeoCompass (18).pdf
View the full PDF10 pages
Puerto RicoUnited States
XJuly 14, 2026
The UAE has no personal income tax. Its 9 percent corporate tax still reaches freelancers. Exceed AED 1 million of turnover from business conducted in the UAE, about 272,000 USD, and you are a taxable person. A relief you have to claim has been zeroing the bill. It runs out with tax periods ending after 31 December 2026. In the pitches I read, one word does all the work. Zero. The rule is federal, and it is longer than one word. The zero is real, and it is conditional. Salary is out of scope at any amount. Personal investment income is out, but only where the investment activity is conducted for your own account, is neither run through a licence nor legally required to be, and is not a commercial business. Real estate investment income on UAE property is out on the same licence test. Business activity is the other side of it. A natural person carrying on a business in the UAE falls inside the federal corporate tax once turnover from it exceeds AED 1 million in a calendar year. Turnover, not profit. Then 0 percent on the first AED 375,000 of taxable income, about 102,000 USD, and 9 percent above. And the trigger is the activity, not the paperwork. The FTA guide works an example on a man restoring jewellery on a visit visa, AED 1.7 million of turnover. Taxable person. The free zone does not rescue him either. A natural person cannot be a Free Zone Person. The 0 percent qualifying rate is built for juridical persons with substance, audited accounts and qualifying income. A freelance permit does not buy it. Here is the piece that has been absorbing all of this. Small Business Relief. An eligible resident person at or below AED 3 million of revenue, about 817,000 USD, in this period and in every prior one, who elects it on the return, is treated as having no taxable income. Ministerial Decision 73 of 2023. It only covers tax periods ending on or before 31 December 2026. No extension announced. On the law as it stands, from 2027 a consultant whose UAE turnover clears the threshold pays 9 percent on taxable income above the first AED 375,000. On AED 1 million of taxable income, that is AED 56,250, near 15,300 USD or 13,400 EUR. 9 percent on the slice above AED 375,000 is not a heavy rate. That is not the point. The rate is what a jurisdiction advertises. The perimeter is what it charges you, and the relief covering the gap has an end date. If your base was picked on the word zero, how many other zeros in your plan have a perimeter you never read? Tell me where I am wrong. Data from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer I build at Lucky Nomads.
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United Arab Emirates
XJuly 13, 2026
Ireland taxes your EU domiciled UCITS ETF every eight years. You never sold it. Revenue does not care. The paper gain is deemed realised, 38 percent of it due in cash, and a fresh eight year clock starts. It ranks 8th of 233 on the index I maintain. Almost nobody prices it. The trigger is Irish tax residence or ordinary residence, not a Dublin address. Arrive with a fund bought years ago and its purchase date, not your landing date, sets the clock. Scope. Irish funds and equivalent offshore funds across the EU, EEA and OECD treaty states. A fund authorised as a UCITS counts as equivalent. The test is the fund status, not the ISIN prefix. Since 2022 Revenue no longer confirms a US domiciled ETF sits outside. You test equivalence yourself. Bought on or after 1 January 2022, the clock runs from your purchase date. Bought before, under the old guidance, and found equivalent, it runs from 1 January 2022, first hit in 2030. Direct shares: 33 percent CGT on disposal, EUR 1,270 annual exemption, allowable losses offset other capital gains, dividends taxed as income. Funds: 38 percent, no exemption, no loss offset between funds, and a taxable event every eight years whether you sell or not. An Irish fund whose units sit in a recognised clearing system deducts no exit tax, the normal setup for a listed ETF. An offshore fund never deducts it. Either way you self assess and you pay it yourself. It is prepayment, not double taxation. Year eight is credited against the final bill, so the total should not exceed the tax on the real disposal. But the cash goes out early, and money that leaves the portfolio does not compound. Budget 2026 cut the rate and left the clock. The reform roadmap, promised for early 2026, then summer, still has not landed. The rate sets the size of the bill. The clock sets when you pay it, and early is where it quietly costs you. If the roadmap kills the clock and leaves the 38 percent, does Ireland come back onto your list. Data from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer I build at Lucky Nomads.
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IrelandUnited States
LinkedInJuly 13, 2026
Monaco's corporate tax is 25 percent, exactly France's rate, with no permanent reduced band for small profits. And it is the internationally facing trading business, the one a founder brings, that pays it. Sovereign Ordinance 3.152 of 19 March 1964 runs the opposite way round from every offshore assumption. A business carrying on an industrial or commercial activity in Monaco, whatever its legal form, sole traders included, is taxed once 25 percent or more of its turnover comes from operations made outside the territory. Stay below that line and no profits tax is due. Reach it and you are in. Two carve-outs worth knowing. Foreign turnover is not about where the client sits, Article 3 tests where the goods are destined and where a service is used or exploited. And a company whose activity is receiving patent, trademark or copyright income is taxed whatever the split. Take a company over that line, 200,000 euros of taxable profit, distributed in full. • France. A qualifying SAS pays 15 percent on the first 42,500 euros, then 25 percent. Corporate bill, 45,750 euros. • Monaco. No such band. For an established company, corporate bill, 50,000 euros. Higher. • The distribution. France applies the 31.4 percent flat tax on the dividend by default in 2026. Monaco applies no withholding and no personal income tax. • Net to the founder, about 105,800 euros in France. And 150,000 in Monaco. That 150,000 assumes what most coverage leaves out. A genuinely resident shareholder with no personal tax elsewhere. French nationals who moved to Monaco after 13 October 1957 are generally taxed in France under the 1963 convention, and a US citizen still files with the IRS. Every euro of the advantage is created the moment the money leaves the company. None of it inside. On the index I maintain, Monaco scores 9.61 out of 10 on tax freedom. That score is earned on the personal layer. The internationally facing business pays 25 percent. So for a founder still running the company, the question is timing more than geography. Would you move before the exit, or only after it? Want to see where your own profile actually fits, the free 6 minute diagnostic is in the first comment. Sourced from GeoCompass, the jurisdiction intelligence layer behind Lucky Nomads. #internationaltax #monaco #corporatetax
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FranceMonacoUnited States

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Lucky Maillard, Founder of Lucky Nomads

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