[user_named]

Expats complain about bureaucracy everywhere. A German expat in Sweden will complain about Swedish bureaucracy. A Swedish expat in Germany will complain about German bureaucracy.

It does not mean anything. Expats complain about everything.

[Beltalowda]

I moved back to my native Netherlands after several years abroad and encountered significant problems with the bureaucracy, more so than in any foreign country I've lived. I don't think it's an expat problem, rather it's a "if you fall slightly outside of the happy path then you can expect to run in to a lot of trouble"-problem. It's just that expats are a group of people that fairly frequently tend to fall outside of the happy path.

[smueller1234]

This is it, 100%. Anything non standard and you get the long forms instead!

By the way, I've lived in a few European countries and researched many others. The Netherlands was by far the easiest/most efficient in terms of bureaucracy.

[Beltalowda]

> Anything non standard and you get the long forms instead!

If only. Instead you run in to catch-22s and simply get a shrug and "it's not possible".

The big downside of being the "easiest/most efficient" is that it deals with exceptions poorly; once you fall outside of the "efficient" workflow you're screwed. Lots of people run in to problems with this and people literally become homeless because of this. Ironically, it's easier if you're actually homeless and sleeping on the street – as opposed to being homeless and having enough money to stay at hotels or are temporarily staying with friends – as there are some special exceptions for people registered at the salvation army and such.

[MaxPengwing]

This is exactly why I a native Swede had to leave Sweden for Ireland. Im now back in Sweden and jesus christ the bureaucracy is insanely streamlined and optimised for the upper middle class happy path people. Everyone else is looked upon with confusion and disgust.

[wink]

My favourite story of this is where "falling out of the happy path" included my parents being self-employed and the sheer surprise that people can have wildly differing income per month :P

[jacquesm]

This is my main reason for having a BV in the first place: to ensure that even though the business takes in very variable amounts of money my private income stream is extremely regular. It makes taxes a whole lot simpler. The only thing I still have to take care of privately are the occasional dividend payment but that's an easy thing to do.

Anybody with > 100K euros in income from consultancy (which should be most of them!) living in NL should consider doing the same thing. There is some overhead but that's easily farmed out to an administrator.

[piva00]

I'm interested to hear if you ever compared with Sweden, just for the sake of curiosity. As an immigrant here coming originally from a very bureaucratic country (Portuguese + Italian levels of dysfunctional bureaucracy, with a Latin American cherry on top) I found bureaucracy here a complete breeze. I basically only need the internet to do 90%+ of my bureaucratic needs with the odd visit to an agency's office for getting documents expedited (national ID, driver's licence, etc.).

As far as I can compare with some immigrant friends in the Netherlands I feel Swedish bureaucracy is on the same level or even less burdensome than the Dutch one.

[itwillbegoneto]

I have a Dutch neighbor who married a Turkish woman. They run a couple of successful companies, and their goal is to relocate to Rotterdam where his family is from. He wanted to incorporate a company in NL, and transfer his current business there. Because he lives abroad, despite being a Dutch citizen, he was not able to open a business bank account, so he was not able to open a company on his own. His options were to move home or get everything executed in his brother's name until he's ready to move (which he choose).

Of course, he also complains heavily about the bureaucracy here, which is equally broken but in a different way.

[nibbleshifter]

I have heard the same from some Dutch people I know, particularly around the topic of the tax office.

[AYBABTME]

Agreed. Expats don't remember the bureaucracy they had to deal with in their own countries, because they did it:

    - over the years
    - step by step
    - with the help of their parents

or simply their parents took care of most things when they were young/born/growing up.

Then they arrive in a new country and realize what it's like to administratively become a functional resident. You probably got your first bank account in your teenage, your national IDs as a newborn, etc. Then you move elsewhere and you need to create all these things from scratch and discover them also.

[nokya]

Fully agree. I will add two things.

First, most "digital nomads" who interact with the public administration and institutions (e.g., banks) are not standard customers. Employees often have no clue how to deal with them and many processes contain manual steps that require someone's validation or approval, and often target a very small group of individuals (those tasked with "dealing with" foreigners). It can slow down things.

Second, Portugal is particularly well known for having great ideas and conferences about digital transformation but completely lacks the ability to deliver within its own ranks. To its defense, most citizens cannot easily purchase services online, either because lack of money, or because lack of computer literacy/equipment, or because they don't even have an online payment mechanism. These factors greatly limit incentives for a rapid digital transformation, which incidentally, is precisely what digital nomads crave for.

The comparison with Switzerland was made earlier, it matches my argument: 1) widespread computer literacy and modern endpoint equipment 2) widespread access to online payment solutions 3) the population is used to pay-as-you-go public service (vs. all-inclusive taxpayer service expected by citizens in most EU countries). These combined greatly encourage the deployment of efficient online interfaces.

[ankushb]

Clearly you haven't been to the efficient country like Singapore, Switzerland.

[AYBABTME]

Off course YMMV. But that's not the rule in general.

I have recent experience with Korea which is overall quite efficient in fact, and yet it's still a struggle to figure out what I need to do, how to do it, and language barriers don't help.

[user_named]

If a Korean goes to your country and they only speak Korean, is it going to be easy for them?

[notch656c]

If they go to California places like the DMV will provide them a free Korean-English translator service. Under AB 60 an undocumented Korean could get a driver license and a free translator service to obtain it. If I am an undocumented immigrant in Korea will they provide a translator for me to get state ID as an "illegal" immigrant?

Honestly I would be shocked if you could point me anywhere else in the world where a Korean could be illegally staying, go to the motor bureau and not only get a free translator but get an official state ID and driver license.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/customer-service/interpreter-s...

[ornornor]

Swiss bureaucracy is expensive but it’s swift, easy, and very cordial. I’ve never lived anywhere that was so good on paperwork. Exchange my non EEU drivers license? A week flat and about 100.-. Getting a residence permit? 100.- approx and less than two weeks. Questions about your tax return or filing? An email to the cantonal tax office and you’ll get an (encrypted answer) within a few days.

That’s only about the government though, private companies are hilariously terrible at customer service or paperwork especially compared to US/Canada.

[soco]

You mean, private companies are "streamlining their customer service" or whatever the name of the day is. And it's not only in Switzerland, everywhere it's just incredibly hostile, to the point where you feel like smashing some office windows just because.

[ornornor]

It feels more like the general attitude is “you should be glad we’re letting you give us your money. Now shut up and go away.” You’ll never get an apology, never get an easy refund because they goofed up. No. You’ll struggle, waste your time, and get nowhere.

But I guess this is an EU thing compared to what I’m used to in Canada and the US.

[Gud]

Seconded. I moved from Sweden to Switzerland (Aargau) and I was in awe of how little nonsense there’s been.

[unity1001]

This is likely the best comment in this thread.

[louison11]

No, Portugal is different. To give you perspective: it takes 2-3 years to exchange a foreign driver license (most foreigners I know drive illegally by now), a lot of administrations frequently “lose” applications and ask you to do it again when they have too much backlog (this cost me hundreds of dollars in back and forth, certified documents etc in the past).

It’s also very common for administrations to have no one answering the phone/email. And most administrations are appointments only. So often, you kind of have to drive to different places, maybe different city halls, and hope that someone has a contact with an internal e-mail address and can hook you up. That’s just how it works. It’s the most barbaric administration and closest to a third world country I’ve experienced, and I’m French, so I know something about red tape.

[user_named]

Takes 18 months to get permission for your foreign spouse to move to Sweden. It then takes 12-18 months to get into the social system - you register quickly, but for the bureaucracy to actually add you into the system takes that long. So no, you're wrong. Portugal is not different.

[louison11]

It's not really the delays that make Portugal different, arguably most countries have long delays, it's the lack of reliability, transparency, and responsiveness.

I don't know Sweden. But we're a family of expats with multiple citizenships, so I deal with bureaucracy in 4 countries on 3 continents. Most countries have streamlined procedures, provide tracking numbers, addresses to send things in, phone lines... So it's long, but you know what's going on and what to do.

Here, even lawyers don't even know what to do. For a similar situation to get my partner a visa from within the country, we simply couldn't speak to anyone. Even the lawyer told us "well, you might have to wait a year or two to see if they re-open their ability to take new appointments." We eventually were able to get through after hustling like crazy, me driving to many different city halls to speak to officials there. Someone eventually knew a colleague there, and got us an appointment for 6 months later in a city 3 hours drive away. We showed up, it was a butcher. Their Google Maps pin was not even in the right place. Cherry on the cake. After getting turn-by-turn instructions from the butcher (who apparently does that 10 times a day), we eventually found their office.

Idk, never been to Sweden but I don't think you can compete with that :-D

Now I get it, they're vastly understaffed, Portugal is a small country. They're doing what they can.

[user_named]

You don't understand. It's not about Sweden, Germany, Portugal. As an expat you always deal with this. Indians waiting for green card lottery and then another 100 years? But I'm sure you will come up with a reason why that's different. You need to take a step back and become aware of yourself.

[ls15]

Public offices love to slap fines for being late on people. I think people should be entitled to the same fees if the offices are late.

[martindbp]

That was not our experience 8 years ago, it was much faster.

[bwb]

To note, this isn't always true.

My family moved to Portugal in late 2020. Covid played havoc as they had to find ways to digitalize many things their offices were doing. It took my wife 9 months to get her DL exchanged and me 11 months.

During that time, you are not driving illegally; you are driving from your foreign license. As long as you have the paper with the exchange info and a picture, you will be fine.

It also helps if you hire a relocation expert who knows the system. We paid ~$1,500 to a Portuguese American lady who helped us with everything. She handled setting up all our health care, apartment negotiation and contract review, set up all our utilities and phones, all our residency paperwork, DL exchange, bank account, and more. I highly recommend her and any group like her. They know how to work the system. My mom does similar back in the USA for newly arrived expats for companies.

Covid was a real shock to office-heavy organizations; it has been a mad scramble to change culture, paperwork, operations, etc. I think they are doing decent and hopefully, in 5 years, it is night-and-day difference.

I've lived in Egypt as well... the bureaucracy there worked really well (before revolution). I just had to go to a giant building and spend half a day there, done. Sure I had to taxi to a DSL place to pay, but that was pretty easy as well.

[llampx]

> It also helps if you hire a relocation expert who knows the system. We paid ~$1,500 to a Portuguese American lady who helped us with everything. She handled setting up all our health care, apartment negotiation and contract review, set up all our utilities and phones, all our residency paperwork, DL exchange, bank account, and more. I highly recommend her and any group like her. They know how to work the system.

In the third world, that's called a tout, and they're a symbol of corruption and inefficiency. The only thing missing seems to be bribes paid to move your papers from one desk to the other faster.

[bwb]

Not sure what 3rd world means anymore as the cold war is over :), but I think I know what you mean.

What they are called now is a "relocation expert", and they help set everything up for you. They are in no way a symbol of corruption or inefficiency, but rather a professional who knows the system. IE, to get a DL you go this office, you fill out this form, you fax it to x, etc.

Do I wish everything was 100% online and designed with high UX standards? Sure, I also would love if it rained M&Ms on Fridays at 4.11pm :). Both of these things are not going to happen.

[louison11]

Hey neighbor! So glad it was faster for you. My experience is that these things vary greatly based on where you apply, and pure luck. I know people in the Algarve who have been waiting for 3 years. And people who applied in Lisbon and got it like you within 1 year.

[bwb]

Ah good point, I know our person who helped us had some good tricks like using offices not in Lisbon which were busier. We live up North so it was all very easy.

[notch656c]

Most third world countries with such bad/slow bureaucracy solve those issues with bribery. I'd hate to live someplace that both has low corruption and such high bureaucratic burdens.

[slaw]

Could you give some examples of these countries?

[ykshev]

Bali, $100 and you have a valid driving license in one day. Without a bribe it's almost impossible even apply

[notch656c]

lmao

[csomar]

There is bureaucracy and then there is bureaucracy.

Here is an example: Malaysia and Indonesia. Each country has its own bureaucratic nightmares but you can make useful comparisons.

Malaysia: Easy to get a phone number. Easy to get an internet hotspot to get data. Reliable internet. Internet is fully open (no censorship).

Indonesia: Hard to get a phone number. Confusing choices and prices with Whatsapp/FB mingled in the choices. Have to submit your passport photo to some dodgy dude, who has to get a certain authorization. Took half a day for the Internet to activate. Data is not very reliable. Heavy censorship (not even Reddit works!) so have to get a VPN to do any meaningful browsing.

So sure as an expat you'll face bureaucracy but some countries' issue is beyond bureaucracy, it's that the process is fundamentally broken and no one gives a shit. This makes you lose significant time for relatively simple things (at least in other countries).

[Beltalowda]

> Heavy censorship (not even Reddit works!) so have to get a VPN to do any meaningful browsing.

This depends on your ISP I believe; Telkom blocks Reddit, but I believe others do allow it. You don't need a VPN to bypass it, DNS-over-HTTPS will do as well.

In general things in Indonesia seem to be ... complicated. Just buying something at the local Indomaret sometimes seemed to involve typing an entire essay on a computer.

[louison11]

"some countries' issue is beyond bureaucracy, it's that the process is fundamentally broken and no one gives a shit." Haha. Love it. That sums up a lot of Portuguese administrations sadly.

[fy20]

I'm not sure about Portugal, but a few years ago my wife was studying in Spain on a study abroad program. She is from another EU country, and we'd visited Spain a few times, so figured it would be easy. Pretty much every step of the way we encountered so much more bureaucracy (I am an immigrant to her country) than we could even imagine. She spoke Spanish, but if she didn't it would have been a million times harder.

For example we wanted to get internet in the apartment we were renting. The local ISP (Orange) said that we needed a Spanish bank account, we said that we had a European account so could make an IBAN transfer, but apparently that wasn't an option. So we went to the bank and they said my wife needed a letter from the police. So we went there, and after showing all her university documents and waiting there for half a day, she got that. By that time the bank was closed, so we went back the next day, and after another few hours she had a bank account. We made a transfer of a few hundred euros from our other European account at home, then once it arrived a few days later, went back to the ISP. They took our details and the first payment, and then we figured everything was fine.

A month later the first bill came and we tried to pay but it was declined, tried to log into online banking and that was blocked too. We went back to the bank (BBVA) and they said our account had been closed due to suspicious activity (the only transaction we made was the initial payment for the internet) and there was nothing they could do. So we went to visit the ISP with the intention of paying in store, but they said it wasn't an option. We explained the situation and said there was nothing they could do, we could only pay with a Spanish bank account. In the end we had to get a friend to make the ISP payment for us, every month while we were living there.

Compare this to where we live now. You simply make payments to an IBAN bank account, so it can come from anywhere in Europe. If you need a local bank account, you can easily do so in any bank (I opened an account before I was officially living there, i.e. without any local ID, just my passport) or use something like Revolut. If you need to get a local phone number, you just go to the supermarket and buy a prepaid SIM for €1 - no ID needed.

[deanCommie]

This is a fairly long story but only one part of this seems like genuine "bureaucracy":

> We went back to the bank (BBVA) and they said our account had been closed due to suspicious activity (the only transaction we made was the initial payment for the internet) and there was nothing they could do.

That's an absolute nightmare (though I don't understand how you weren't notified, or what the recourse typically is for accounts closed due to "suspicious activity".

The rest can be summarized as:

* A business wants billing from a local bank account (not universal, but not unusual)

* Opening a local bank account needs some information confirming your identity, which the police can do.

* Getting these forms isn't instant

* Banks don't have long opening hours

[fakedang]

In the UAE, I downloaded an app, submitted my docs and my details, and got my card the next day (I went to a bank branch - not the branch of my account but just a random branch to get it printed on the spot, even though they offered home delivery, because I wanted to see the process).

In the UK, I visited a nearby Lloyd's branch and got my account open and my stuff in under an hour.

In India and Switzerland, the bank sent a representative to my place, where they did everything from a handheld device, including verification. Done in an hour and got my card by mail in 1-2 days.

The stuff you mentioned in your summary are excuses and not valid ones at all.

[hknmtt]

When i was was apartment hunting in barcelona 7+ years ago and failed straight for weeks to get a single reply on idealista, and went to the real estate agencies and found they had siestas, still, in barcelona, i quit the country. good to visit, not to live.

ps: when i wanted a bank account, the people there acted like they didn't spoke english, until it was clear they won't give me an account, then suddenly english was not a problem.

[nachomg]

No, they don't have "siestas". In Spain usually all retail closes from 2pm to 5pm. I wouldn't expect to go to a UK venue and have a normal dining timetables (for me as Spaniard), because I understand things work different there.

[2-718-281-828]

mr nacho trying to justify a Spanish tradition. fair enough. but I'm still bold enough to complain about it. it's super annoying when restaurants close from 2 to 5. also I doubt anybody from the foot soldiers actually takes a siesta. it's most likely just basically a variation on unpaid work or being on call unpaid. so, nobody benefits of it except the owners who just optimize the schedule for their purposes.

[mchaver]

Unfortunately cold emails are generally ignored. The general etiquette in Spain is that you have to establish a relationship with someone in the business before they respond to emails, and then it also depends on the individual if they like to use email or not.

[TomSwirly]

> and went to the real estate agencies and found they had siestas, still, in barcelona,

I'm not seeing your issue here. This has been well-known for a century, so don't show up during the siesta time.

"I want to live in a foreign country, but they need to change to be like my home country!"

[user_named]

Why didn't you learn Spanish?

[TheLoafOfBread]

Oh, I had lot of negative experiences with BBVA in USA. Those guys has no clue how to do SEPA payments, declining regular debit card payments on e-shops like DigiKey as fraud (according to them I am suppose to train their systems so it will stop doing that) and in general their support sucks.

[pixard]

Where do you live now (if you're comfortable sharing)?

[ggambetta]

Had similar awful experiences with Santander and ISPs in Madrid :(

[Arnt]

You moved to another country and did one single banking transaction there in a month? That seems like something you have to actively try in order to do. Right? Why did you try?

[Arnt]

I see someone downvoted me. Perhaps because it was just an idle question and quite insubstantial?

Thinking about it now, it seems a little bigger than I realised when I wrote it.

I too moved to another country and got a bank account. When the people at the bank asked what I needed, I said something like "well, I'm here to stay and will need all the things regular people have, an account, a card, probably a house loan someday, can you advise me about what I should get today?". Maybe I hadn't yet decided that I wanted to stay for decades when I said that, but the person behind approved of the answer, I could tell.

Saying something vaguely like "I'll do the minimum necessary here and whatever possible in my old country" simply isn't a great way to talk to the people at the bank, at the immigration authority, at the waterworks, all the people who can make your move simple or less so.

[ggambetta]

No. I'm an expat in Switzerland and dealing with the government and other institutions has been great - can't even call it a bureaucracy.

For reference, I found the UK pretty sensible, Spain frustrating, and my native south american country a nightmare.

[Izikiel43]

Argentina!

[ggambetta]

Uruguay, close enough!

[stanislavb]

Well, that's not exactly always true. I've had zero problems with bureaucracy since moving to Australia. My case has been that everything just works - minimal human involvement, and when it's present - it's pretty optimized.

I think that due to the high cost of labour (highest minimal pay in the world) and lack of labour due to higher speed of development - whatever that can be automated has been automated.

[dzhiurgis]

Same experience in NZ - you only start to see how hopeless europe is when you come back. I had 0 interaction with gov clark in nearly a decade in NZ, while in europe any sort of errand would require in face meetings. Even some digital forms would just email the form to a person in ivory tower for validation, who’ll tell you to visit office anyway…

[simongray]

Europe is not one place with one single bureaucracy.

[dzhiurgis]

Of course some places are better, but overall it's clearly blind to own faults.

[sofixa]

"Europe".

Counterpoint, in France the vast majority of bureacratic things can be done fully online. Last time i had to go in person was for a passport/ID card, so there are multiple good reasons (photo, biometric info, confirm your identity) for that. Some of the websites are not great, and sometimes they send you a confirmations by mail, but otherwise a pretty painless experience.

[dzhiurgis]

Do you still need 3pieces of paperwork or permits just to buy a car?

[nmfisher]

Except when you're an expat in a country that actually knows what it's doing, like Singapore. Bureaucracy here is A+, and is the yardstick we should measure every country against.

[ls15]

What's wrong with complaining about sprawling bureaucracy? I can only see downsides and no upsides. Don't you want it to be eliminated? I think people are not yet complaining enough.

[sofixa]

Unless you can complain with actionable complaints (It'd be great if i could fill this form on a website instead of on paper and mailing/faxing it), it literally serves no purpose.

[ls15]

Actionable advice: eliminate this step in the buraucracy that does not serve a purpose. When can I expect implementation of my idea?

[blakblakarak]

I'm an English immgrant in France - lots of my compatriots complain about French bureaucracy but in all honesty it's far more efficient and accessible than it is in the UK.

[8ytecoder]

Slightly off topic but I see this often enough and I’m curious to know, when do you call someone moving to another to work an expat instead of an immigrant.

[vineyardmike]

You immigrate (verb) into a country. That makes you an immigrant (noun) of your new country.

You emigrate (verb) out of a country. That makes you an emigrant (noun) of your old country.

You expatriate (verb) to a country, from your homeland. You are an expatriate (noun) (aka expat) if you live in a country other than your native one.

For example, an American-born man who moved to Germany for part of their career and is living in Vietnam for retirement would be an American expat, who immigrated to Vietnam and emigrated from Germany.

You are often all 3 of them at once, depending on perspective. Colloquially, expats usually emigrate out of their homeland for specific reasons, usually either climate, culture, taxes. Eg. someone would expatriate to Portugal to take advantage of the tax scheme (this article), or maybe expatriate to Mexico for 'better' weather, or maybe expatriates to Paris for the cultural experience.

It is often assumed or implied that an expat has no intention of "integrating" in the culture of their host nation. Eg. an American in Mexico that moved for the weather wouldn't raise children there or apply for citizenship, but simply enjoy retiring on the beach and taking advantage of the cheaper CoL. They may still primarily speak English and seek out fellow Americans-in-mexico to socialize with instead of the locals. Conversely, a full Mexican family (parents+kids) that moved to America "for a better life" may not be considered an expat, since they intend to become citizens of America and raise their family as Americans. That is why expats sometimes have a poor reputation in their host nation, compared to other "immigrants".

[distances]

I moved abroad on a work assignment. As soon as I decided to stay in the country long term, I stopped calling myself expat and labeled myself an immigrant instead.

[vkou]

Someone moving from a wealthy country to a poorer one is an expat.

Someone moving from a poor country to a wealthier one is an immigrant if they intend to stay for life, and a migrant if they don't.

That's why you have American expats living in Thailand and Mexico, but Thai immigrants and Mexican migrants living in America.

[mmarq]

The English speaker divides humans into 3 categories:

- White people with the burden (see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden )

- White people without the burden

- People of colour

When a person in the first category moves to another country, they are an expat; people from the other 2 categories are immigrants or migrants, as they prefer to say nowadays.

For instance I’d have to take a significant pay cut if I wanted to be the British prime minister but, belonging to the second category, I am an economic migrant. An American or Swedish teenager working in a Starbucks in Berlin is an expat.

[weberer]

Expats are usually on temporary visas and don't apply for citizenship.

[blitzar]

immigrant is a person legally or illegally coming over here and stealing all our jobs and taking all our benefits and not even working or speaking the language.

expat is a person moving to another country and getting paid a high salary.