[Aachen]

That's realistic if you are there as a tourist who wants the premium experience on everything.

Staying in hotels and eating out daily, we didn't spend 7k when extrapolating our two weeks to a month. Heck, it's still below 7k if you include all one-time purchases like the way there and back, clothing, new expensive hiking boots, etc. I've got a problem with most waterproof fabrics so I didn't have a raincoat, but reading about Iceland, I figured it's worth finding one that works for me, so that's another purchase I count towards my Iceland expenses. All in all still below 7k after extrapolation. (Edit: oh and I forgot that this is for 2 persons. You can't divide by two of course, but some correction factor should be applied.)

I fully agree with anyone saying Iceland is expensive, but if you stay in an actual apartment instead of hotels, don't do a number of guided tours every month, don't rent a vehicle for the whole time you're there (and drive around, though fuel was a surprisingly small part of the final expenses), you'll definitely not need 7k per month.

[lazyasciiart]

They have absolutely no interest in sponsoring visitors. This visa program is intended to bring in well-off professionals who will have plenty of cash to live a comfortable lifestyle and cover a disastrous broken leg or two and still be able to fly back home if they lose their job. That $7k is before taxes, before retirement savings, before health insurance, before your assumed flight home once every month or two...

[Aachen]

That's actually a good point that it's before taxes, I hadn't factored that in.

If you live in a low tax country, you would ordinarily have a lot to spend and be rich, and also have enough money to live off of in Iceland potentially, but might not meet that requirement by even half, whereas someone from a high tax country loses roughly half their income on them and would meet the requirement. Not the fairest method but, as you say, this clearly isn't geared toward charitableness in the first place.

[gumby]

> whereas someone from a high tax country loses roughly half their income on them

Please, typically those taxes go (not completely) to stuff you’d otherwise be paying for from your after tax cash.

One obvious one is health care (which Americans pay much more for than Europeans, just not via their taxes). Less spent on roads: more car maintenance/shorter car lifespan.

One can have a reasonable argument over which should be bundled and which should be unbundled, but to say broadly that one “loses” on taxes is either lazy or ideology.

[pessimizer]

> One obvious one is health care (which Americans pay much more for than Europeans, just not via their taxes).

Interesting ignored fact: the US government spends as much per capita on health care as socialized systems. We also have to match that amount out of pocket, but that's because healthcare in the US costs twice as much, not because less tax money goes to it.

[hamstercat]

It's actually more than that. Last I checked the US government spends much more per capita on health care than any other country on earth. And by a large margin, not quite twice the 2nd country spending the most but almost.

[triceratops]

Ok but if you're from a high-tax country and work temporarily in Iceland you're paying those higher taxes without most of the benefits. You can't access the better healthcare, education, and safer streets of your home country.

[gumby]

You’re getting those benefits in general, though not at that instant, but is the tax you pay on march 28th making every street you drive on that day better? No, it’s smeared around spatially and temporally.

If you’re in Iceland for six months you might not even owe taxes in your home country for that period.

[Godel_unicode]

Americans owe taxes at home forever no matter what*, which tilts the calculus somewhat.

[leoc]

Also, I assume that the Icelanders don't want all that many digital nomads showing up. From their point of view setting a USD7k cut-off limits the inflow and gets them something like the cream of the crop.