r/ExpatFinance

We are imagining moving out of the US, and subletting our home in NYC.. But it seems we’d have to pay a ton of taxes on the rental income once we move to another country. Right now we effectively pay $0 tax on rental because of depreciation expense. European countries i’ve investigated (Spain, Sweden) don’t seem to use depreciation as a true rental expense, therefore the tax amount we have to pay would be high, not to mention we’d still owe taxes to NYC and NY while living abroad. Are there any countries out there that wouldn’t make us pay tax on the US rental income?

After EIGHT MONTHS of absolute hell, HSBC Expat finally released my funds.

Avoid HSBC Expat / Jersey like your life depends on it.

I am dead serious.

This bank will happily onboard you, approve your account, let everything function perfectly normally for months, and then one day suddenly freeze/restrict your accounts and throw you into a never-ending “review process” where you are treated like a criminal while they hold your life savings hostage indefinitely.

That is exactly what happened to me.

I DID NOTHING ILLEGAL.

Every transaction was fully traceable.
Every source of funds was documented.
Every contract existed.
Every payment had an explanation.
I had accountant letters, corporate records, proof of income, proof of wealth, bank statements, everything imaginable.

The funniest part?
I only had around 17 transactions on the account.
Most were directly tied to my employers/ companies I contract for
No shady third parties.
No crypto gambling nonsense.
No random cash activity.
Nothing.

Didn’t matter.

HSBC Expat still turned my life into a complete nightmare for EIGHT MONTHS.

For EIGHT MONTHS:
- my funds were effectively frozen
- I woke up every day not knowing if I’d ever see my money again
- I dealt with endless “compliance reviews”
- I repeatedly submitted the SAME documents
- I waited weeks between responses
- nobody gave timelines
- nobody explained anything properly
- different departments contradicted each other constantly
- every interaction felt disorganized and incompetent

The process basically became:

submit documents → wait 3 weeks → get asked for the same documents again → re-explain transactions already explained → wait another 2 weeks → receive another round of invasive questions → repeat endlessly while your money stays locked.

The level of documentation demanded became absurd and borderline psychotic.

They wanted:
- contracts
- invoices
- accountant confirmations
- source of wealth evidence
- explanations for transactions
- counterparty information
- historical banking records
- business explanations
- supporting corporate documents

At one point they even requested PERSONAL BANK STATEMENTS belonging to the owner of the company I contracted for.

Completely insane.

The people running these reviews in Jersey seem completely detached from reality. The entire operation feels like a bureaucratic black hole run by people who have no coordination internally and no understanding of the damage they cause.

And yes, I’m naming names.

Mark Rabbet, HSBC’s senior review officer, is one of the pettiest clowns I have ever dealt with in my life. He is one of the first people who handles your account review, and he will absolutely drag your case into the ground and put you through living hell. The entire experience dealing with him felt hostile, arrogant, vindictive, and completely devoid of common sense.

He came across as an unbelievably petty, incompetent bureaucrat with far too much power over people’s lives and finances. The combination of arrogance, incompetence, and complete lack of urgency is exactly the kind of thing that destroys people mentally during these endless HSBC “reviews.”

When somebody has the ability to effectively freeze your financial life for months while hiding behind vague compliance language, and then handles the process in the most disorganized and antagonistic way possible, it genuinely becomes life-destroying.

Meanwhile your life savings are sitting frozen while HSBC hides behind generic “compliance” language and refuses to tell you anything useful.

Imagine spending EIGHT MONTHS waking up every single morning thinking:
- Will they close the account today?
- Will they send the money?
- Will this drag on another year?
- Did someone internally lose my documents again?
- Is anybody at HSBC even coordinating this case?

After months of getting nowhere, I had no choice but to hire offshore Jersey lawyers and begin formal legal escalation.

That introduced another layer of insanity involving:
- legal letters
- Appleby (HSBC’s external counsel)
- extension requests
- procedural delays
- ombudsman complaints
- endless chasing
- more waiting
- more silence

I spent over £20,000 in legal fees just to recover MY OWN MONEY.

And the Jersey Ombudsman?
Completely useless.

They basically hide behind “banks have regulatory obligations” while customers are left financially tortured for months with zero meaningful protection.

Even after HSBC FINALLY agreed to close the accounts and release the funds after EIGHT MONTHS, the nightmare STILL was not over.

The outgoing transfers became another disaster involving:
- internal holds
- additional fraud reviews
- failed transfer attempts
- more chasing after the accounts were supposedly already closed

You genuinely cannot make this level of incompetence up.

And the worst part?

After I originally posted about this on Reddit, more than 10 people privately contacted me describing almost identical experiences with HSBC Expat/Jersey.

I personally spoke to:
- someone from Dubai with around $3M frozen
- someone from Belgium with around $1M frozen
- someone from Romania with around $2M frozen

Others told me their “reviews” dragged on for:
- 15 months
- 2 years
- even longer

The stories all sounded terrifyingly similar:
everything works normally at first → sudden restriction → endless compliance review → repeated document requests → delayed responses → massive stress while huge amounts of money remain inaccessible.

At this point I genuinely do not believe these are isolated incidents.

My advice to anyone considering HSBC Expat/Jersey:

DO NOT BANK THERE.

Especially if you plan on holding large balances.

Because the moment their “review team” targets your account, your entire financial life can get thrown into chaos for months or years while nobody gives you clear answers and everybody passes responsibility to somebody else.

My advice:
- stay far away from HSBC Expat/Jersey
- never rely on them as your only bank
- maintain backup banking relationships
- keep records for EVERYTHING
- if compliance gets involved, prepare for war
- get legal counsel early if things start dragging on

I genuinely would not wish this experience on my worst enemy.

If anyone is currently dealing with HSBC Expat/Jersey freezing or restricting funds, feel free to message me. I’ll try to help based on what I learned during this nightmare because almost nobody understands how brutal this process becomes until it happens to them.

Currently my job gives me $1500 every month as housing stipend. It doesn’t matter if I use it to pay for rent or my mortgage should I buy a property here. I’m now toying with the idea of buying the apartment I currently live in.

Background: I’m in a gulf country in the Middle East. I’ve been here for a few years and I like it here very much.

Pro:
\\- residency for me and my family
\\- no property tax
\\- turn housing stipend into my income
\\- even when I leave, my company can keep renting it from me to put staff in
\\- a base for retirement

Con:
\\- slow economic growth. I don’t expect property to appreciate in value. In fact, my landlord has lost money
\\- high maintenance fee for this property, around $3500 per year
\\- potential political instability, although the country I’m in is famously stable

Should I take advantage of the housing stipend to buy a property? Or should I just keep investing? My partner and I have no property in our investment portfolio and we are already doing quite well in stock and precious metal.

Last thing: I’m not in Dubai.

Would appreciate your thoughts.

Mid 30s, male, native English speaker here looking for some advice on relocating to France. I’m deeply committed to learning French and have given myself 6 months of intensive study before needing to source a job and start work again. I’ve been taking classes professionally from AF but am feeling constantly overwhelmed, trying to navigate important lessons vs vocab I won’t see/need again for years.
Self admittedly, I am finding myself comparing my current language level (mid A2) with others in my class. I am also at the stage where speaking is still difficult, but I have 100% tried and will continue to both inside and outside of the classroom. I do ~3hrs of self study (usually 2 of grammar textbook studying/chat gpt sentence translations + 1hr of passive learning, ie. watching a French show, podcast, etc) every weekday + the 4 hours of in class studying every weekday. I’ve been in France for 2-months today but being able to live/work still feels miles away. I’m not expecting things to come in days or even months, but want to ensure I’m being productive with my time here….

I’m looking for advise on;
-how to ensure progress remains without burning out
-any proven study techniques to actually progress vs waisted time
-determining nonsense class vocab vs vocab I 100% need to focus on
-how to handle/manage the isolation of studying
-how to return back to the classroom after years away and navigate/try to remember how you learn
-any open advice/things you wish you would have known before relocating and learning a new language?

*ive moved to support a French native family member

Honestly one thing that surprised me was how scattered everything feels once you’re actually up and running.

There’s one account for formation stuff, another for mail, another for compliance reminders, documents somewhere else, banking in another place again. None of it is that complicated individually but after a while it starts feeling like half the work is just keeping track of where everything is.

Maybe this is just normal and I underestimated the admin side of running things remotely.

Hey everyone

I have been researching the financial side of moving abroad long term and realizing there are a lot of things people don’t really think about until after relocating. Stuff like banking taxes currency exchange savings insurance emergency funds and managing finances between multiple countries all seem more complicated than I expected.

For those already living abroad what is one financial mistake or oversight you wish you had avoided early on? Would love to learn from people who’ve already gone through it.

I’m mapping out a move abroad to accelerate my timelines, but I’m seeing a lot of compliance and financial nightmare stories. I'm trying to quantify if the tax traps, dual healthcare systems, and currency fluctuations end up draining a nest egg faster than US inflation.

Has anyone looked at the math long-term and found moving abroad safer for your portfolio, or did expatriate financial friction (like cross-border tax filing or investment restrictions) make it riskier?

I’m looking for real financial data points.

Edit: really appreciate the thoughtful replies here. One thing I’m realizing is that a lot of the move abroad and save money discourse online ignores the structural friction entirely until you’re already deep into it.

I started digging into this more systematically and have been using Rewire Abroad basically to compare countries side by side, mainly taxes, healthcare systems, cost structures, etc. It’s honestly helped me think about this less emotionally and more like a long-term portfolio decision instead of just escaping inflation.

I currently have a chase credit card. Gonna be moving in the next 2 weeks. I would like to continue using it. Was thinking of opening a charles schwab account, and transferring to it to pay credit card. Anyone have experience with this?

I am a 61M who moved to Thailand from the USA last year

I purchased an AIA IPD, 5 million baht health plan at my bank when I opened an account.

About 11 months later I was diagnosed with stage 1 rectal cancer.

I'm having a hard time communicating with my AIA officer at the bank as well as the hospital where I'm getting treatment because of the language barrier. And can't seem to get clear answers on what is covered with regards to my cancer diagnosis.

AIA had paid for 2 colonoscopies and biopsies so far and denied coverage for my MRI scans and several doctor appointments which they say are OPD.

My surgeon recommended uLAR surgery, which is about 1.4 million baht with 7 day hospitalization. My understanding of my IPD policy is that cancer surgery and treatments are 100% covered.

The hospital said they would support me with surveillance which entails scans and blood tests every 4 months, and colonoscopies every 6 months for 2 years. This would be significantly less money than surgery but it feels like AIA may not cover that because they say that is OPD.

The reason I would rather have surveillance is because depending on who I talk to, and I have had 3 second opinions, and my research with regards to my personal biology, my actual risk of lymph node involvement is between a few percent and 15%. And surgery means serious functional morbidity.

With my diagnosis, am I now locked into AIA and my broker or am I able to work with another insurance company or even another AIA officer who speaks English?

I was told that AIA by my current AIA officer that they have agreed this is not a pre-existing condition and accept my cancer diagnosis. And that my 5 million baht has now increased to 10 million baht, over 4 years.

I had my policy translated, it does seem clear to me all diagnostics and blood work done within 30 days of hospitization are covered as well as 2 post hospitization appointments.

I'm now trying to book my next round of scans and colonoscopy. The hospital said I'm getting the scan at the government hospital in Bangkok and they have a long queue and they set the date, and I can't book a colonoscopy without another in person appointment with the surgeon even though the oncologist has already given me the timing for surveillance. So trying to time this in a 30 day window seems a challenge.

I've tried calling AIA directly once to speak to someone who speaks English but the call was still very challenging and they could not answer my questions with regards to coverage.

Does anyone have any insight or advice?

Will AIA cover my surveillance scans and colonoscopy over the next 2 years or will they claim it's OPD?

I'm frustrated. I ordered a replacement card to France from capital one in December. Never arrived. I've been on the phone with them for over an hour, having spoken to three people, and there's no end in sight.

Schwab got me off the phone in less than ten minutes and the first person I spoke to was able to help.

I've had my capital one quicksilver card for over a decade but I'm going to replace it. Any suggestions?

Hi! So my partner (who is Filipino) and I were planning on moving to PH from US. We would still have a US address. Fidelity told us they “don’t do business with PH” so we aren’t supposed to have an account with them if we move. However, we would still be US citizens with an address here. (Have brokerage and IRA/Roth accnts with fidelity at present.) Also, how would they know we are in PH/for how long we are in PH? 🧐

It looks like Charles Schwab is very expat friendly. Thinking of just rolling over everything there as an option. We would be low income the first year in PH and self employed. Plan to eventually get digital nomad visa (me) and Balikbayan visa (partner).

We have family we’d be living next door to the first year. We could put our money in my partner’s (trusted) relatives bank accnt, and just be the keeper of the passcode so only we could access it.

I thought that because we have a US address and citizenship, we’d only have to worry about wiring money, not about the kinds of accounts we have and with what companies.

Any advice about the logistics of expat finances would be greatly appreciated.. especially if you have experience from US to PH. It seems like it’s “you’re not allowed to do this!” / (subtext: but only if we know about it) type of rules… but idk.

We should and would consult with a expat finance expert. However, I’m interested in peoples’ lived experiences.

I’ve been living outside the US for a few years now and even every tax season feels stressful.

Between foreign income exclusions, reporting requirements, exchange rates, and random acronyms, I feel like I am always worried I missed something important. I tried doing it myself once and spent days combing through forums trying to figure out what actually applied to me.

for people living abroad long term, did you eventually get someone or do you still do everything yourself?

Hi everyone,
I work in personal tax support for foreigners and expats in France. A lot of people I speak with are unsure about residency rules, foreign income, or how to report everything correctly.

If useful, I can post a short overview of the most common mistakes expats make on French tax returns.
What would you most want explained in simple terms?

I am César from LC Finance (Based in France) - SIRET : 525 168 472 00021

US/EU dual citizen here, moving from the US to Germany, and I'm considering direct indexing as alternative to ETFs.

Another possible solution I've been researching are Schwab Personalized Indexing and Fidelity Direct Indexing.

As an US citizen, I need to invest in US domiciled funds, and EU resident, I can only invest in funds that are in compliance with MiFID II, which US domiciled funds are not.

Has anyone gone this path?

Every mortgage calculator I found used monthly compounding. Every retirement tool had no TFSA, no FHSA, no CPP. Every tax calculator defaulted to American brackets.

So I spent the last while building canadacalculator.ca. 22 free tools built around how Canadian money actually works. Correct semi-annual mortgage compounding, TFSA room by birth year, FHSA and HBP stacking, rent vs buy with opportunity cost, CPP and OAS estimates, take home pay for all 13 provinces and more.

https://canadacalculator.ca

No signup, no popups, runs entirely in your browser.

What would you add? This community would be the first to find anything I missed.

Hey all, I recently moved to Spain (from the US) and am on a digital nomad visa. for my finances, I have a capital one checking account and credit card, a Fidelity credit card, my Wise account, and now a Santander account.

I receive my money in USD to my capital one checking. A lot of my monthly bills here in Spain need to come from my Santander account. So to do this, I put money in my Wise account, then, in Wise I've added myself (santander)as a recipient, and I send the money to myself that way.

My first question is, is this the best way? The conversion rate is reeeeally tough right now, but is there anything else I could or should do to make this set up better?

My second question is in regard to using my Spain account vs my American credit card. Is there a reason I should use one over the other? Should I always default to Santander instead of Fidelity? I do not have any international fees, but aside from that, does anyone have any thoughts on what is the most cost effective or best route? Thank you so much for any advice!

Divorced parents, different states, different banks. Dad in guadalajara on banorte, mom in tijuana on banco azteca. $300 to each monthly from my US checking. Same corridor, two sets of recipient details to manage, and not every app delivers cleanly to both.

taptapsend us to mexico deposits to both banorte and banco azteca, no separate fee on the send and the rate has been consistently better than my old wells fargo wire. Lands within 30 to 60 minutes typically. Wise supports both banks too, percentage fee around 0.6 to 1 percent, mid market rate. Remitly supports both, $1.99 flat fee plus rate markup.

At $300 per transfer the three apps come out within 100 to 200 MXN of each other on a given day. Rotate based on which shows higher MXN that morning. Over a year I track roughly $30 to $50 saved by comparing versus picking one and sticking with it.

Real cost win was dropping wells fargo wires for both. Two wires at $35 each per month was $70 in visible fees plus rate markup on $600 total. Roughly $82 monthly cost. Current app flow is about $8 monthly cost combined. Savings of $900 per year for 3 minutes of phone comparison per send.

All transfers fund from my US checking and are exempt from the 1 percent remittance tax that started january 2026. The tax only hits cash, money orders, and cashier's checks as the funding source.

Wife and I are going to amicably divorce in 2027, she has been living in Japan since 2023. She still has a US Verizon phone number I've been paying for for the last three years (esim has just been turned off the whole time).

She is coming home to visit so we can close on the sale of our house next month, at which point we also want to switch banks, and I want to cancel her Verizon service so she will then no longer have a US phone number.

Currently we just have a joint account at our small local credit union so I just put money in there and she pulls it out at an ATM in Japan. I want to basically have her be able to do the same, but without a joint account.

I'm looking for a major US bank where we can both have individual accounts (she can use my address, as I said we are amicable) but where I can quickly and instantly transfer money from my individual account to her individual account, that she can then pull out of an ATM in Japan.

Most important thing here is that beyond initial account setup, it cannot require dependency on a US phone number at any point thereafter - any two factor authentication or anything whatsoever after initial setup has to be able to be done with an email address instead since she's no longer going to have a US phone number once we get this set up and finally cancel her Verizon service.

Is my best option something like having us both have a Capital One 360 checking account with Zelle and use email to set up the Zelle portion?

Or am I barking up the wrong tree altogether by trying to do this as a US account --> US account transfer and I should use a different method where she doesn't need a US account at all?

Used the same debit card for almost 4 years. Worked across two countries in southeast Asia, was the closest thing I had to a constant.

Moved to Portugal two weeks ago. Suddenly there's a 1.5% FX fee on everything I buy. Monthly fee kicked in too because I don't qualify for the free tier anymore without a local salary feeding the account, and the ATM cap is half of what it was.

The local bank route isn't quick either. The non-resident process wants paperwork I don't have collected yet, so in the meantime I'm bleeding money on coffee and groceries.

Went through a version of this last time I moved too. The setup tax of relocating is starting to feel heavier than the move itself.

How do you all handle the card layer when you actually live across countries long term? Not interested in the private banking version. Just the boring problem of wanting one card that doesn't quietly get worse every time my address changes.

I went to to BOG in Tbilisi and it seems to be very easy to open an account. I was told there are options for accounts in Georgian Lari, USD, Euros, and Pounds. Lari accounts can pay up to 10% for fixed term deposits. I realize there is some risk with the currency but it has been relatively stable. The options in Georgia seem fairly good since its not possible to open an account as a US citizen in most countries without residency. National deposit insurance in Georgia only covers 50,000 Lari ($18,695).

My reason for wanting to open an account is to move part of my savings away from the dollar but still get interest. I could hold some savings in Lari but would probably want to put most in a Euro account though interest for Euro accounts would be very low.

Does anyone have experience with banking in Georgia and in particular BOG's SOLO service? Has opening an account in Georgia worked well for other Americans considering the particular complications of our tax law? A 10% interest rate on a Lari account seems good. Are there costs or fees that I'm not aware of and should be considering?