Digital Nomad’s Eldorado and the industry demand
The rising workforce ready to scout the world looking for affordable living or new opportunities for their skillset. There is no doubts why Asia is a popular destination for Digital Nomads.
Be it consulting, training or creating startups, South Asian Cities are becoming more and more popular, thanks to the emerging markets where everything is still possible.
Being welcome as a professional
But what about being actually welcome in a country as an entrepreneur? For sure, for countries like Cambodia where I am living, we can get a painless visa-on-arrival that we can extend easily for 6 more as a “job seeker visa”, more than enough to find a job or create a company to ensure easy visa renewals.
Being a digital nomad/expat in Asia on a tourist, job seeker, martial arts or learning visa has big disadvantages that we often do not talk about
- You are not focused on your business while flying under the radar;
- You don’t really participate in the country development;
- Your skills are not being used in a meaningful way;
Most often, the digital nomadic life requires flexibility in where we can work and on a tourist visa or by being forced to create a business or being an employee for medium to long term stay can be problematic for digital nomads.
We can only contribute to the tourist economy (VAT, rent, expenses, etc), but there is a missing link … and a missed opportunity.
Digital Nomads are more often: skilled professionals
I was attending recently to a SMEs and tech startup forum in Cambodia and one of the biggest challenge to keep up the pace in technologies is the lack of skilled workforce. They call this market readiness.
Running a coworking space in Cambodia, I have seen a constant flow of Digital Nomads, from fintech and blockchain experts, to IoT developers, lawyers, health professionals and even employees working remotely while their boss think they are at home in New Zealand.
One thing in common, once their tourist visa, they go to the next country’s maximum tourist visa’s length. Yes, for non-digital-nomads, we are planning our strays by the hypothetical duration of tourist visas.
They were there, we need them, but we let them go.
A Digital Park in Thailand — But a CEO can hardly get a visa
Few days ago, Thailand announced a Digital Park. According to Tech in Asia, 80% of the space available is already booked. The aim of the digital park is to become a global hub, however, it is still extremely complicated to have access to a visa, even for startups and it is not uncommon for their startup CEO’s to apply under tourist visa with forced visa runs to be able to operate.
We are faithful that this is change quickly as recently Thailand announced a start-up camp visa, a good strategy to invite tech experts to set base in Thailand.
A step in the right direction as start-ups often need freelancers and external agencies, often run by location independent professionals.
The Flag Theory or Paying where you are welcome to live?
Many “business setups” savvy entrepreneur are swearing by the flag theory, but the truth is, most people do not require that.
There are numerous advantages of not flying under the radar with your startup and one of them is the ability for your business to be visible and trustworthy to potential clients.
Imagine you are a blockchain expert and want to reply to a public bid with the government or an international organization. You need a real business situation.
Imagine being able to put your nomadic life on travel expenses?
An international recognized option is Estonia. With their famous e-residency and ease of starting a business while not even being in the country makes it hard to miss for solo-entrepreneurs and startups.
Yes, even some travel expenses on your nomadic life.
The digital expat scenario
You are living in Chiang Mai, under a “learning visa” or within your 60–90 days tourist visa. While not being able to really promote your services outside Facebook. You have finally a lead in Bali and need to fly off, this deal would grow your agency and potentially translate into job creations.
Followed by a conference in Singapore that you don’t want to miss and another lead appears in Kuala Lumpur, one question remain:
Could you put this on your travel expenses if you business is based in another country? Probably not.
Home is where your laptop is.
Meet tax regulations for moderns needs
With flexible and updated tax systems, you would be able to deduct those expenses as business travel if you are coming back to your “hub”.
Back at your location, in modern taxation terms for countries such as Estonia means that in the scenario above, it would work because you are coming back where you are original base, Chiang Mai, probably with a monthly stay as a proof. This doesn’t require to be the legal residence of your business.
This information was validated by LeapIN, the reason why many digital nomads have chosen Estonia as the hub for their business.
They help you set up and run your location independent business by taking care of incorporating the company, invoicing, legal compliance, Estonian taxes and day-to-day accounting so you can focus on results and not the boring admin stuff.
I really hope more governments will follow the step, having access to a poll of entrepreneurs, tech startups, and skilled workers for their need to adapt to the demand.
If They Love You They’ll Come Back
The goal of this article is about proving a point, digital nomads are keen to bring skills, knowledge and contributing to an economy if we provide them the framework they are voting for.
Being location independent doesn’t mean to fly away from responsibilities, but about meeting people sharing our values while shaping the future of work.
Do you feel the same?
