313: El Salvador: Is This Emerging Latin American Country Worth The Hype?

The Expat Money Show - With Mikkel Thorup

It seems like every day, a Private Client or subscriber to our newsletter asks me about El Salvador. I can’t say I necessarily blame them; with everything Bukele has done, from turning around the violent crime situation to legalizing Bitcoin, there are plenty of reasons for expats to take an interest in the direction of this emerging Latin American country. But having not been to El Salvador myself for twenty-some-odd years, I decided to take a long weekend trip down there to meet up with a few business contacts and check out how things had progressed since I had last hitchhiked through it as a much younger man. This episode is my full report from the trip and my thoughts on El Salvador’s potential for expats.

TODAY’S EL SALVADOR TRIP REPORT:

• Hear about the good (I’m still thinking about the pupusas!), the bat (that’s not a typo…), and the ugly of my hotel and Airbnb stays in El Salvador.
• Listen in for the inside scoop on some of the quite frankly terrible things I learned about El Salvador for expats, which mostly centers around the unfavourable tax situation.
• What about the visas? Tune in as I discuss all the available options for expats to live legally in El Salvador.
• Is Bukele really going to be giving out 5,000 “free passports,” as he proclaimed in a tweet? Hear what my El Salvadoran insiders had to say.
• How does the proposed $1 million “Freedom Visa” stack up to other regional citizenship-by-investment programs? Hear my thoughts on this pricey offer.
• What about company structures? I dissect whether El Salvador could be a viable option for forming offshore companies.
• How does El Salvador’s banking system stack up to its neighbours? Discover what I learned about finance in the nation.
• Lastly, hear my final analysis of whether El Salvador could serve as a potential Plan-B destination for expats.

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RELATED EPISODES

306: Nayib Bukele's El Salvador: An Oasis of Decentralization - Dr. Jack Kruse 304: Expat News: Bukele's Bitcoin Bank, Portugal Shuns Expats, & Milei's Record Surplus 287: Expat News: Canadian Exodus, Panama's Visa Boom, & El Salvador's Pricey Citizenship See you all next Wednesday!

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