[paxys]

Pretty sure no work visa in the world grants the right of citizenship or permanent residence. I imagine for a lot of freelancers though demonstrating a sustained 3500 EUR/month income for at least 6 months prior to the application might be difficult.

Overall this is very encouraging though, and I hope more countries start to realize the net gain in attracting such people who will contribute to the economy by paying taxes and potentially starting their own companies down the line.

[owenversteeg]

Well, plenty can lead to it eventually, usually offering some kind of pathway. Even the US provides pathways to permanent residence (and then citizenship) through employment.

But yeah, I agree. 3500/mo is ~4000 usd/mo or ~48k USD/yr. Lots of traveling freelancers probably won't be able to show a minimum of that sustained for 6 months. I'd bet the bar was set intentionally high though, because they're bound to spend a good bit of that directly into the local economy.

I wonder what countries will follow. I imagine there's got to be plenty of poorer/smaller countries thinking about it... A few people making $4k/mo adds little to a country like India or China but in a tiny country that could easily become a decent sized cash transfusion to the local economy.

[disabled]

> Well, plenty can lead to it eventually, usually offering some kind of pathway. Even the US provides pathways to permanent residence (and then citizenship) through employment.

The US has a lot of visas for longer term professional work, that do not allow you to obtain the right to permanent residency or citizenship, at least on paper (for example, one way to get in: these individuals however, are allowed to get married to a US citizen and can theoretically, at least, get in that way).

So, the US and Estonia are not much different, in this respect. But, in these situations, what it comes down to, in order to stay long term: formal in-person connections in the respective country.