Korea to welcome 'digital nomads' with new visa starting Jan. 1

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-12-29/national/kcampus/Korea-to-welcome-digital-nomads-with-new-visa-starting-Jan-1/1947155

by yladiz • 3 years ago

227 257 3 years ago

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prepend• 3 years ago

This seems like a good idea and hopefully becomes more common in other countries.

The requirement to work for a foreign company and have an income double the average seems to allay the complaint of taking local jobs and consuming local social services.

cassianoleal• 3 years ago

seems to allay the complaint of taking local jobs and consuming local social services

The fact that the visa doesn't allow application to local jobs is enough to stop the first complaint on its tracks.

I wonder how they intend to deal with the seemingly inevitable rise in housing prices that comes with an influx of high earners.

carlosjobim8• 3 years ago

Increasing rents and house prices is 100% to blame the owner/seller. If you want to destroy your own community for your personal gain you can't blame anybody else. Almost 100% of the population thinks it is right for home sellers and landlords to squeeze out as much as they can. Then blame somebody else for the consequences.

fuzzbazz• 3 years ago

The demand in the housing market will fall soon, according to the population pyramid.

KptMarchewa2• 3 years ago

Few thousands or tens of thousands of people are not something that can move the housing market that much.

bjornsing• 3 years ago

Not sure South Koreans are worried about rising housing prices. They have terrible demographics long term.

PierceJoy• 3 years ago

Unfortunately, it doesn’t allay the complaints of driving up the cost of housing for locals. I’m not sure if this is a problem for bigger cities, but there’s been increasing criticism by locals in ski towns and resort cities of remote workers coming in with much higher incomes than local companies can provide and consequently pricing out locals from housing.

unicornmama• 3 years ago

Very surprising. Does Korean culture generally welcome foreigners? Can anyone living in Korea comment on this?

brianherbert• 3 years ago

I fit this category perfectly when I was staying in Korea over 10 years ago. I ended up being there on a tourist visa on and off for a few years. I never had any trouble as a white foreigner but did have a hard time making Korean friends, only because my Korean was fairly basic and I didn’t work in an office or go to university. However, everyone I met was very accommodating, whether I was in places frequented by foreigners like Hongdae or Itaewon or in my now partners hometown which is small enough that most Koreans couldn’t place it on a map.

I walked into the government office a couple times and tried to find a path to a legitimate visa and was told each time I couldn’t do it. I found that the longer I was staying, the less comfortable I was with my status. If there was a path for me to be a legitimate resident, I may have stayed longer than the 3 years I was there.

hiatus• 3 years ago

According to a survey conducted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea among foreign residents in South Korea in 2019, 68.4% of respondents declared they had experienced racial discrimination, and many of them said they experienced it due of their Korean language skills (62.3%), because they were not Korean (59.7%), or due to their race (44.7%).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_South_Korea

OsrsNeedsf2P2• 3 years ago

I've been or seen people denied entry to bars/restaurants/stores based on their skin color, but it's very rare and that's about as bad as it gets. It's not like Japan where you can't go into a sauna if you've got a tattoo.

OsrsNeedsf2P2• 3 years ago

Foreigner living and working in Korea. Racism isn't a problem in Seoul, but as a courtesy I would strongly recommend signing up for Korean lessons while here.

The biggest complaint foreigners have is foreigners tend to only stay for a few years, so you're always losing your close friends. My recommendation is to make sure your friends aren't other foreigners, but it can be hard to find English speakers (especially outside major cities)

ekidd• 3 years ago

My recommendation is to make sure your friends aren't other foreigners, but it can be hard to find English speakers (especially outside major cities)

Korean is not the easiest language for Europeans to learn. But having learned a second language as an adult, I find that speaking the local language is amazingly useful when functioning in a foreign country. It's like, hey, I can talk! And I'm literate. Everything suddenly becomes much smoother and easier. I can hang out with people, make friends, go shopping, navigate an emergency room, and even hire skilled professionals who don't speak English. I can even take college level STEM courses, although it's brutal.

Expat bubbles are weird places. They're certainly useful for people who won't be around for more than a year or two. And getting good at Korean is a much bigger commitment than hopping between Romance languages. But if you're moving between related languages, then you can see significant payoff after 350 hours of work, and you can be able to function as an adult after 1,000 to 1,500 hours. And that's not all classroom time. Some of it can be watching TV, or just hanging out with people.

For any kind of extended stay, I feel like learning the local language is absolutely worth it.

mathverse5• 3 years ago

Nope it does not. Koreans are one of the most closed societies on earth. They are not necessarily racist or anything like that but everything in korean culture is centered around relationships that you built in army, school, work or other activities. Even if you speak korean very well you will never be part of that culture.

bane• 3 years ago

I'm married to a Korean and we've spent a bit of time there off and on. I've studied up on ancient to modern Korean history and have a better than normal understanding of cultural norms. My language skills are sadly still a mess.

I would say that, broadly speaking, yes. Korea today is a bit more welcoming than nearby countries like Japan, China, or Taiwan, etc. Since the last dictator in the late 80s, there's been a general consensus understanding that for Korea to survive as a civilization (being next door to more dominant and better known cultures from Japan and China), it must integrate with the rest of the world, and produce meaningful cultural exports and become valued by the international order. The rise of Korean media is not an accident but part of a long-term series of programs to build viable industries in film, music, food, etc. and have those industries take root outside the country in order to create export markets -- very important when your entire economy is built on being export driven. Almost all of the Koreans I personally know, regardless of industry, would jump at the chance to work with a foreigner if it meant they could do some international business.

Korea is pretty small, so you quickly exhaust domestic travel options. As a result, the average Korean, while being somewhat parochial in outlook is pretty curious about the rest of the world, many now have the means to travel abroad, and they do so pretty often. It's not uncommon to be at the Louvre or the British museum and see tour buses of elderly Koreans unload. The succeeding generations, being better educated and often with better foreign language and cultural skills often just skip the organized group tours and go on their own.

When I first went to Korea, even seeing any signage in English was rare. Today, in Seoul you can usually find "ok" English signage around tourist spots, and it's not as impossible as it once was to find somebody who can have a very basic English conversation. Many vendors will have English language signs and it's atypical to be given "tourist" prices. I'd say in those respects it's easier to get around Seoul than Tokyo for example. If I had to sum up the Korean approach to dealing with foreigners is that "your money spends just as well as anybody else's".

Housing costs, especially in Seoul, can be high. If you are from a U.S. Coastal urban megalopolis area, they'll be comparable. If you have lots of cash on hand, the Jeonse (Key Money) practice can be helpful in helping set a low monthly budget. Outside of Seoul, housing is much more affordable, and to be honest, I find the smaller cities much more enjoyable and they aren't far from all that Seoul has to offer by bullet train. But locals may not be happy if an influx of nomads drives housing prices up. If I had to pick, I'd probably choose either Jeonju or Gwangju to live in (cheaper COL, great food, nice chill vibes in the southwest) or maybe Daegu if you like proximity to hiking in the mountains, and not far from the beaches in Busan. But I'm old, if you want nightlife, Seoul is where it's at.

All this combines to make being there pretty decent for the average foreigner, but not necessarily "cheap" like you might find in Thailand or other typical digital nomad countries. You'll always find assholes or grumpy old people like anywhere, but on the average you'll find most people on the day to day easy enough to interact with, and eager to do business with you. That being said, there are very few protections against discrimination. If something ends up with the police, it's pretty typical for the foreigner's account to be dismissed still -- so there's still some growing pains there -- it's not uncommon for media plotlines to revolve around some ill that a foreigner brought in with them.

With the demographic crash happening, and Korea becoming more of a destination country for foreigners (a little over 4% of the population are foreign and it hosts one of the largest American immigrant populations in the world), I expect there will still be quite a bit of social development occurring as the nation figures out if it can really welcome foreigners in a way that aligns with national aspirations -- but it's likely that we'll see a more cosmopolitan country in the future. The changes just in the last 20 years have been phenomenal to see first-hand.

If you want to see what pretty normal interactions are like with Koreans, I'd recommend the youtuber "Where is Dan", who's on a mission to visit every district in Seoul and practice his pretty basic conversational level Korean with as many shopkeeps and people on the street as he can get on camera. But the interactions are 100% authentic and typical of what a foreigner might find there. https://www.youtube.com/@whereisdan/videos

huimang7• 3 years ago

I (white guy) wouldn't say I was discriminated per se, but in a country that's probably 99.5% monoethnic you do end up feeling like a distinct outsider from time to time. I found that people were generally friendly and helpful, but I also studied Korean hard before I moved there and during my stay.

Businesses can arbitrarily reject you as there are (seemingly) no protections. I saw a (white) guy from Uzbekistan get rejected from a club for no reason other than his nationality.

Black people definitely experience racism in Korea. Not exactly like in the US obviously but it's a real phenomenon that people tend to dismiss.

gedy2• 3 years ago

Not exactly like in the US obviously but it's a real phenomenon that people tend to dismiss.

Dude, black people are are not treated better in Asia than the US, get real.

injeolmi_love4• 3 years ago

welcome foreigners

Kind of, it depends on your ethnicity. Koreans tend to treat white people pretty well. There’s a lot of anti Chinese sentiment, and some anti Japanese. If you have African ancestry they won’t mistreat you but they have very strange stereotypes. There’s currently a “crisis” regarding South East Asian illegal immigrants plus drug smuggling, so if your ethnically from that region keep that in mind.

Korea is not as open to foreigners as for instance Thailand. It’s similar to Japan, being more easy to make friendships but having less State services that are foreigner friendly. Most documents are available in English, and most freeway signs are in both Hangeul and English.

paxys5• 3 years ago

Every country in the world welcomes foreigners that make an effort to blend into the local culture and aren't assholes.

ZoomZoomZoom6• 3 years ago

Can we please start calling this kind of visas for what it is?

Rich people visas are cool, but don't help actual nomads as simply everywhere they exist they put up a prohibitively high threshold on an income (that you can't even prove documentary half the time).

shipscode• 3 years ago

$66k/yr = rich person?

inductive_magic• 3 years ago

Outside of the US? Absolutely. In Germany, you’re classified as rich starting at 60k gross income.

pb0602• 3 years ago

It depends on where you live I guess, in my country (Italy) that's quite a high salary. Anyway "We hope the workcation visa will allow high-earning foreigners to stay in Korea's various regions and vitalize the local economy," doesn't sound as utopic as the title suggests.

skrebbel• 3 years ago

Yes?

ZoomZoomZoom6• 3 years ago

Indisputably.

The highest median income of all countries (Luxembourg) is about half that, give or take. The median income on Earth is somewhere around 5k, I think.

johnfernow• 3 years ago

If you're a single adult (which you probably are if you're interested in taking advantage of this program), $66k/year would mean you are richer than 99% of people on the planet, and your median income would be 20.2 times the global median. [1]

1. https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i?income=66000&c...

So yes, by global standards, $66k/year would mean you are extremely rich. It's even quite a bit higher than the median adult income in developed countries. At $66k/year, you're making about double the average German working adult, and over triple the average Japanese working adult. [2]

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income

I think people often don't understand the grand scale of difference between the developing and the developed world. Yes, there is a cost of living adjustment, and certain things are cheaper abroad (though many things, such as electronics, are more expensive), but people really do consume a ton more in the rich world. Most people don't have cars, and most people live in far smaller homes. Even Europeans live in far smaller homes than Americans: the average new English home is 1/3 the size of the average American home. [3] People in developing countries also travel a lot less. Only 3% of Indians have traveled abroad, vs. 76% of Americans. [4]

The discretionary income, defined as "all the money you have left after paying for taxes and your absolute needs", that most Americans have (all but the lowest 3 deciles) would be extremely enviable by most people worldwide. [5, 6]

3. https://www.businessinsider.com/ons-english-homes-are-a-thir...

4. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/12/06/international-...

5. https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/10/18/the-averag...

6. https://infogram.com/discretionary_income_by_income_decile

deadbabe3• 3 years ago

If you’re a software engineer, which is a very common type of digital nomad, you should qualify instantly with that requirement.

yungporko• 3 years ago

if you're an american software engineer.

UweSchmidt2• 3 years ago

Could you argue a little better who those "actual" nomads are that have no money and want to go to Korea and why they should be able to? I think you don't actually mean the literal nomads that still exist in Africa etc.?

If you can argue well, an appeal to a "we" and to a specific use of language in an online forum won't be necessary.

ZoomZoomZoom6• 3 years ago

I can't really put up a quality argument with my personal example, as it gives away too much personal information, more than I'm comfortable with.

But let's say, if the country of my current residence had the same program with the same threshold, I would most likely not qualify (or just barely) and I surely wouldn't have any means of proving it. However, my financial situation† allows for pretty comfortable living (for more than one person), at least by the local standards.

I think I qualify for the label in question. All my work is done digitally and remotely, and I'm out of my country of origin (although not 100% by choice).

†: Not including the savings.

gumballindie2• 3 years ago

65k USD a year is not rich. Not even 250k.

huimang7• 3 years ago

There are many visas for rich people, like Korea's investor visa (500m KRW - $386,182k). I don't see why any country needs to put in the work for a visa for people who don't have any money.

As I understand it, the whole point of these schemes is to collect money from people who do have it, instead of losing it to the guys who simply do remote work on the "tourist" visa.

make32• 3 years ago

66k USD is very achievable for ppl in the western world

ninja3925• 3 years ago

The big unknown are the tax implication? The article should clarify what it means, at least vis a vis Korean tax agency.

Scoundreller• 3 years ago

Depends on your home country because if there’s a tax treaty, it would supersede the laws.

Sometimes it’s phrased that any income from your home country while you’re in your guest country is only taxable in your home country. Other times it’s just credited against your local taxes (which could cover everything with a lot of paperwork, or could still leave you with an amount owing to cover the gap).

Sometimes even locally earned income is tax free, but that’s usually only for students.

Detrytus2• 3 years ago

Comparing to Barbados: they explicitly state in their "digital nomad" visa conditions: "You will not be liable to pay Barbados Income Tax and therefore will not be subject to any double taxation"[1] So they make it easy for you, no need to read through tax treaties.

[1] https://www.visitbarbados.org/barbados-welcome-stamp

rayiner11• 3 years ago

We hope the workcation visa will allow high-earning foreigners to stay in Korea's various regions and vitalize the local economy," the Justice Ministry said in a statement. "We hope the visa will be an opportunity for us to showcase our country and our culture.

I love the forthrightness. “Come here, spend your money, then leave.”

1-6• 3 years ago

And find a partner, and enlist your son in the military while you’re at it!

deadbeeves• 3 years ago

It's OK. They have mandatory military service, so he wouldn't have a choice on the matter anyway.

rayiner11• 3 years ago

Oh they don’t want you to marry anyone, then you might stay. Also—on average—Koreans aren’t super cool with marrying foreigners. A close family friend was only able to marry an American on condition of them not having kids.

nwoli• 3 years ago

Sounds like a fair trade for both partners

nicbou5• 3 years ago

Is it?

As a digital nomad (well... a potential one) these visas are great, but they don't let me do anything I couldn't do on a tourist visa. Of course it's a lot more advantageous if you're not a privileged national.

But what's in it for the Korean people? They get a small number of relatively wealthy visitors who use housing and infrastructure but don't pay taxes. They likely spend less than other tourists, and use more resources.

In Germany, the freelance visa requires "local economic interest", which translates to having German clients or a reason to work from Germany. Digital nomad visas seem to want the opposite.

toomuchtodo• 3 years ago

That’s the point of every economic visa. Bring value; maybe we let you stay (golden visa or long term residency with potential conversion to citizenship eventually), maybe we ask you to leave eventually.

dkjaudyeqooe4• 3 years ago

Or a tourist visa: come for a short while, then go, leave your money here.

konschubert• 3 years ago

And it can be a win for both sides.

Life isn’t zero sum.

ausbah• 3 years ago

korea’s birth rate is super low, I’m somewhat surprised they don’t want more high income people staying permanently

hn_throwaway_99• 3 years ago

Korea (and Japan) are notoriously xenophobic. They simply (as a general cultural characteristic) don't want people of different races settling permanently in their country.

archsurface• 3 years ago

And take what you've discovered back to your home country. This is why migration is economic warfare on the origin countries.

huytersd• 3 years ago

Hey, and if the immigrant has a mixed kid during that stay they could really use it.

kylehotchkiss• 3 years ago

Great! Not every visa granted needs to be permanent residence. Korea doesn’t need foreigners pushing up already difficult home prices. This is a cool program and they haven’t offered so many benefits it’ll be hard to cut off one day if it causes negative economic effects

rmbyrro3• 3 years ago

It's more like

“Come here, spend your money, enjoy our services and everything we built in the last centuries, then leave.”

thecleaner2• 3 years ago

Knowing the racism in Korea, no thank you.

InSteady• 3 years ago

There's a comment below this one that is flagged and dead, but honestly it sounds exactly in line with what I heard from a guy who lived in Korea for 12 years, eventually getting married and starting a family. Those were basically his exact reasons for moving away, that and wanting to be able to afford a house with a yard for his kids: Difficulty renting, difficulty with banking, language barriers (he was very self-aware that this was on him for not learning the native language, but still a factor).

thecleaner2• 3 years ago

I understand that my comment was reductive but statistics do point to this problem. People don't say this part aloud for some reason. There was even a sting operation in India about Korean restaurants denying entrance to indians while on indian soil which is actually against consumer laws in india (you cannot deny service). There's videos on youtube about the sort of racism that people experience. You need only search YouTube for "koreans racism against indians" for multiple anecdotes. It is the kind of behaviour that would get people in trouble in places like the US. Granted the US isn't exactly a bastion of equality but much better. So even on a nomad visa I would much rather stay at a western country or go to indonesia.

ryzvonusef• 3 years ago

    > The visa requires applicants to have an annual income double the amount of Korea's gross national income (GNI) per capita for the previous year.
 
    > Korea's GNI per capita was 42.48 million won ($33,000) as of 2022, requiring those applying for the visa to have an annual income of 84.96 million won.

Today's google forex rate:

    84,960,000 South Korean Won = 65,487.17 US Dollar

smith70183• 3 years ago

That's actually surprisingly low. For reference, the median US remote employee makes $63,323[1] per year which means roughly 50% of US remote employees are eligible for a Korean work visa.

[1] https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Remote-Salary#Yearly

h1fra• 3 years ago

But it's quite high for the rest of the world

diggan• 3 years ago

I cannot see that page, it just takes me to the homepage. But that sounds a bit high. I wonder how that number looks if you exclude San Francisco/Bay area which probably drives up that number by a lot.

londons_explore3• 3 years ago

Smart move making the figures in the law auto-update each year.

papichulo2023• 3 years ago

I wouldnt be surprise if this exlude 95% of all nomads. Honestly I dont think it will attract many workers, timezone kinda sucks, country is expensive, low english proficiency and not really exotic. Mexico, Spain and most latam looks more appealing.

mixdup• 3 years ago

$65k isn't all that high a salary for someone working in anything adjacent to a technology role these days

vaughnegut• 3 years ago

Having lived there around ten years ago, it's pretty exotic if you're north American, it's cheaper for food and drink, and English proficiency was pretty common.

PrimeMcFly11• 3 years ago

It's more exotic than anywhere in central or south america to most Americans, timezone is easy to get used to, cost of living is cheaper and english proficiency is in fact very high.

netsharc• 3 years ago

65,487.17

Just 0.7% off "double $33,000"...

karol• 3 years ago

Great news, anybody knows what kind of taxes you need to pay over there?

dkjaudyeqooe4• 3 years ago

I don't think you'd be a resident for tax purposes.

cddotdotslash2• 3 years ago

In my experience, while these kinds of visas address personal tax liability, many US-based companies are still unlikely to allow W2 employees to participate due to (very real) tax, jurisdiction, and legal concerns (if a W2 employee is working in France, for example, are they required to comply with laws preventing employers from contacting employees on weekends? Maybe not, but even “fully remote” companies are unlikely to want to spend time figuring it out for one employee).

I think countries who want these programs to take off for employees who aren’t contractors need to invest in messaging and legal support for employers as well.

ciabattabread• 3 years ago

How does this work practically for a US-based company? Since this is a remote work visa, can they even physically work at a Korea-based office or subsidiary?

Also, there's a 17 hour time difference between Korea and Los Angeles.

huimang7• 3 years ago

The workcation visa doesn't allow holders to apply for a job within Korea. Foreigners will need other working visas to do so.

My understanding is there are other visas for people working at a Korea-based office.

It definitely won't work for people who need to be on the same working hours though. I've done that with east coast (13 hours ahead) and it was rough.

CPLX• 3 years ago

Out of sheer curiosity, what's the difference between a 17 hour difference and a 7 hour difference?

I guess the day of the week?

Tyr42• 3 years ago

24 - 17 hour difference is 7 hour difference.

londons_explore3• 3 years ago

I think countries who want these programs to take off for employees who aren’t contractors need to invest in messaging and legal support for employers as well.

The logical thing to do is to allow both employee and employer to sign a document saying "we both agree that the employment laws of X will not apply, and all employment disputes will be resolved by the courts of Y country according to their laws".

X country would make an explicit law allowing digital nomads to do such a thing, perhaps with limits on Y (ie. require the company to have links to Y, or blacklist countries with zero employee protections whatsoever).

paxys5• 3 years ago

There is zero chance any country is going to allow a bunch of foreigners in and say "you are formally exempt from our laws".

bugglebeetle3• 3 years ago

are they required to comply with laws preventing employers from contacting employees on weekends?

Almost certainly they are, as the same is even true with employment across state lines in the US. Labor laws are almost always determined by the employee’s place of residence vs. where the company is located.

cddotdotslash2• 3 years ago

Exactly, and most countries promoting these visas refuse to clearly state what the foreign employers are exempt from or responsible for.

I went through this myself a few years ago. I applied for, and received, a Taiwanese Gold Card (a similar program that allowed for foreign employment). I spent months going back and forth with the Taiwanese office attempting to understand what my employer at the time would be signing up for. They couldn’t give a clear answer on whether my presence would create a nexus for my employer, whether my employer would become responsible for health care program payments, etc. They kept referring me to one of the big four consulting companies. In the end I gave up and never entered.

rmbyrro3• 3 years ago

I don't think this is targeted at large corporation employees. More intended for freelancers, small entrepreneurs, and remote workers of small businesses.

ryanisnan• 3 years ago

My learned advice is if you are thinking about this, find a startup. Most enterprise orgs would not let you do this as a US based employee.

gumballindie2• 3 years ago

The only incentive they need to give is tax breaks. There's no mentioning of it in the article. Taxation being draconian in countries such as the UK, it would attract plenty of talent.

dkjaudyeqooe4• 3 years ago

You probably don't have to pay tax to SK. For similar visas, for example Croatia, no tax is due. US persons would have to pay tax to the US.

pinewurst• 3 years ago

How about a North Korean equivalent for those of us making lower salaries? They could call it the “Kim Possible” Visa!

dkjaudyeqooe4• 3 years ago

No salary required at all. Just check into one of the many hard labor camps. You can enjoy the local cuisine if you manage to catch a rat. If not you don't eat.

slaw• 3 years ago

Vegetarians could eat bark.

injeolmi_love4• 3 years ago

Just keep in mind that the financial system is very locked down in South Korea. Foreigners have very limited access to Korean bank accounts while crypto exchange accounts are completely banned even for permanent residents.

huimang7• 3 years ago

My assumption would be visa-holders will be able to open a bank account. Otherwise it doesn't really make sense.

injeolmi_love4• 3 years ago

You can open a bank account, but the daily limits are low.

make32• 3 years ago

maybe a naive question, but do international credit cards not just work? if you aren't getting paid locally, it shouldn't matter too much?

victords• 3 years ago

I'd imagine not everything can be paid on a credit card. E.g.: Rent.

injeolmi_love4• 3 years ago

International cards usually work.

k4rli• 3 years ago

Incredible that countries still haven't learned that American-salary digital nomads are only harmful to local people. Airbnb all the apartments so locals can't afford in cities anymore.

While I do enjoy my EU salary nomading within EU, those with >5x local salaries have pretty much ruined Lisbon and Porto.

plexman3• 3 years ago

hum, can you explain what 'ruined' means to you?

pb0602• 3 years ago

Don't know that op means but I can relate. Not long ago I was searching for an apartment to rent in my hometown to move closer to my workplace and I noticed that prices went crazy high compared to few years ago, so high that I can't afford them anymore. Students have demonstrated by mounting camping tents near the universities to protest the lack of affordable housing. I'm quite sure it's because owners prefer to rent to tourists than locals (higher income and no taxes, depending on the owner's compliance).

Cities like Venice lost their original character as many locals preferred to move out of the historical center to reduce the cost of living.

Other cities like Florence don't allow new bed and breakfasts to be registered, to try and control housing costs.

tim333• 3 years ago

Some locals probably also make money by renting out the airbnbs, hotels etc. It's how the tourist trade works.

ChadNauseam• 3 years ago

From the government's perspective it may be a wash. If rents go up, home values go up, and homes are also usually owned by natives, so from that perspective it's a transfer from one group of natives to another. And if home values go up it means the government collects more revenue from property taxes and home value appreciation taxes.

paxys5• 3 years ago

It isn't harmful to people collecting rent for those Airbnbs. Or service workers who can demand higher salaries. Or local business that see increased sales. Or the government itself that can collect taxes on all of it.

A large amount of foreign income being spent in a local economy may cause temporary disruptions to the status quo but is overall a good thing. It shouldn't really be a surprise that governments worldwide are encouraging it.

a_vanderbilt• 3 years ago

I'm hoping Japan creates a similar program. Making the move would be much easier if I can do so gradually by living there first.

jdjdjdkdksmdnd2• 3 years ago

im so sad ireland shut down their golden visa program. im looking forward to building a portfolio of passports so i dont have to deal with the shit head border agents anymore.

sss111• 3 years ago

what other countries have you looked at? I'm starting out my career as a new grad in the US but don't see myself getting a citizenship here

jdjdjdkdksmdnd2• 3 years ago

spain

lo_zamoyski3• 3 years ago

They're in the death grip of consumerism, it seems. Consumerism is highly correlated with demographic decline. It shifts the perceived "center of gravity" of value toward the materialistic. Having children is sort of a net loss in the materialist calculus. Imagine a family with 5 children that owns a Honda Odyssey and lives in a modest house, and now imagine a family, with the same upper middle class net income, that voluntarily choose to have at most a single child, but lives in a sleeker house and owns a Maserati and a Porsche. Which looks more attractive to someone steeped in consumerism? Which generates more social approval today? Which is going to appeal more to the careerist? Which is going to look more like Success™?

It's obvious. Large families are no longer imagined as a joyful thing, life affirming, a source of meaning, an honor, and the true wealth of a family in the eyes most. No, large families are for poor people who are too stupid to use contraception, an impediment to consuming shit, because everyone knows that consumption is true happiness.

So it sounds like Korea may be trying to overcome occurring or forecasted economic decline resulting from the worst fertility rate in the world and without mass immigration and having their culture threatened as a result. But barring a miracle, they're just buying time before their inevitable collapse. I dare say it is virtually impossible for a society to turn away from the religion of consumption once it has captured and corrupted a society. The only way out seems to be through the inevitable collapse, as that is the only way the spell is broken. This is tragic.

Fripplebubby• 3 years ago

I think this is a cynical and fatalistic view which considers only some selective viewpoints. I think you'll find that real people are far less materialistic and shallow than you assume, and choose not to have large families for many reasons. Cultures will adapt! Humans are dynamic creatures.

That's not to say we shouldn't consider the consequences of these changes and provide incentives and disincentives to nudge things one way or another, and manage the demographic shifts in order to lessen their shocks.

paxys5• 3 years ago

If I go ask my employer today if I can work out of South Korea for a year the immediate response from HR/legal will be "no way". I'm sure the same applies to the vast, vast majority of the world's population. None of these visas are worth a damn unless all these countries can also sort out the million employment law and taxation issues that will arise from such an arrangement.

cbhl• 3 years ago

Folks looking at this may also be interested in similar visa programs offered in east/southeast asia for context: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan.

Singapore's requirements strike me as especially conservative in comparison (five years leading a co with $30M raised, and that's just one of the "two of three" reqs).

I'd also look at the local tech ecosystem before applying -- Twitch is shutting down in South Korea in 2024 due to sender-pays "network usage fees" in the local Telecommunications Business Act. Also there's legacy technology (esp for online banking) that depends on Internet Explorer and ActiveX due to a home-grown encryption standard built in response to US Export Controls limiting 1990s browsers to 40-bit RC2/RC4, so Windows is still the predominant desktop operating system there.

doix• 3 years ago

A lot of people are complaining about the income requirements. But it seems fair enough that they are trying to attract people that will spend a lot of money and this contribute more to their economy.

They aren't trying to attract people that will live off ramen for a year.

My biggest complaint is the application process:

Those who wish to obtain the visa can apply via Korean embassies in their respective country.

I don't want to go back to my home country and sit there while I wait for my visa to go through! I'm already in Asia, flying back and forth to the UK to get this visa is a pain. It should be an online application process. I feel like they haven't really thought this through.

plz-remove-card• 3 years ago

Anyone know where the details of this visa are located or what the official name of the visa is? The article didn't mention it's sources or have any links.

The website for the embassy nearest to me just linked to here but I'm not seeing it: https://www.visa.go.kr/main/openMain.do

There's mention of a "Working Holiday" visa here: https://whic.mofa.go.kr/contents.do?menuNo=90&contentsNo=38

But it appears to be for working part-time in Korea, not as a digital nomad.

tiimbz• 3 years ago

From the Q&A [0]:

> Can I work with the digital nomad visa?
> No. Travelers visiting under the visa cannot be hired or involved in any profit-making activity during their stay.

Isn’t the point of a digital nomad that you are able to work from anywhere?

[0] https://www.digitalnomadskorea.com/post/everything-you-need-...

Korea to welcome 'digital nomads' with new visa starting Jan. 1

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