That is one way to get over your fears, to stare them in the face and drive through them. Not all of us are going to be brave enough to do that.
If I were starting now, knowing what I know now, I wouldnât do it. It isnât worth the wait and bother that people are clearly suffering now. There are other options that would meet my requirements. It might be worth it for some others, of course; personal requirements vary.
Do I have regrets now, am I going to back out? No, not really. I started earlier and had a few good breaks and managed to miss just about all the kerfuffle, so my experience has been basically fine. But that isnât an option for anyone starting new.
What I would ask myself:
do I know what my actual goal is in going through this process? is it well-defined, or is it based on a vague and fuzzy desire? I donât even mean âEU citizenshipâ but âwhat am I trying to achieve by pursuing RBI/CBIâ?
have I reviewed all options that get me to that goal? am I pursuing the right option?
how badly do I want the end result? how much of a risk am I willing to take to get it, really?
do I really understand all of the risks and costs? All the information you need is here at NG of course, but you have to dig for it in a huge, huge pile.
(Really, what might be useful here is pinned threads added to the PT GV Guide page. There are a few threads here that contain the bulk of the useful info around the topic of fund selection, fund risks, PFIC and taxes, citizenship, paperwork, etc. Several of us have dumped a lot of time and thought into posts in those threads and while the details may change, the core principles donât. )
If you have this part down, then I think itâs easier to take tommigunâs advice and walk into the fray.
I totally agree about knowing your objective. My objective was to get a european passport (again, having lost it through brexit). I am on track to get that objective. However, I did not read this forum before starting, so actually believed the various websites which described the process⊠this is the ONLY place I have found realism. The reality is that it takes about 5x as long to do anything, and you are treated like shit by the authorities. But, you get there in the end. If you KNOW that before going it, it really helps as you know what you are getting into! My main frustration came through the slow learning of how inefficient the process is and how wrong most of the guides are!
The change to backdate the waiting time to when I applied has a large impact on my current views. It was a massive plus on the end of a years-long string of âminusesâ.
You lost the european passport by brexit. It implicitly means you are british. Have you considered the option of living in Ireland and getting the Irish passport? If you could go the irish option, it is much cheaper and surely you will get it within reasonable amount of times.
If you are US citizen, it does not help. If you are english, you are allowed to live in Ireland freely. English people can live in Ireland for 5 years and then apply for citizenship. I do not know about Irish GV. What Iâve just mentioned is the zero cost pathway to get irish citizenship for english people.
If your life is flexible enough to mean you can move to another EU country full-time, then there are a number of options other than the PT GV. I think most people selected the GV because they canât move easily at this stage in their lives.
Itâs definitely made me give up my fear of flying. At this point, who cares if the plane goes down. At least I wonât have all these Portuguese Problems to deal withâŠ.
Which index funds work for the GV fund route? I have no found any, but it would be nice to have index funds as a choice with low expense ratio, no management fees or carried interest. I donât love the choices available for the GV funds
Based on my own research, I found three âindexâ funds that are open-ended. I say that with quotes because I am not sure if they are really tracking any index. These three are more like mutual funds with a collection of Portuguese companies.
@BM2024 , as you can see, these are not really âlowâ fees by US standards (there are ETFs in the US that have expense ratios as low as 0.02%!).
The key thing about these funds is that they are all open-ended which is great for GV since we donât know when our process/journey would end with all these AIMA application decision backlogs.
The nice thing also about open-ended funds is that should you decided to quit the GV process, you can redeem/resell the funds any time and re-invest the money somewhere.
It might be worth asking that question again of BPI⊠Itâs possible weâre all assuming theyâre not FATCA compliant based on a conversation someone on here had with them five years ago.
