LIVE THE
DREAM
‘A cool destination to just start over’:
Burned-out millennials are flocking to Portugal
Published
Tue, Jun 14 20229:09 AM EDT
Here’s why
millennials are starting over in Portugal
Alexandra
Ryan-Yavaşca wanted to settle down in her childhood hometown of San Diego,
California, to raise a family with her husband Utku.
But due to
soaring housing costs, the 34-year-old can’t afford to live there like her
parents — a teacher and public relations professional — could on middle-class
salaries. Her childhood home, purchased in 1996 for more than $300,000, is now
worth more than $1.2 million.
In the
summer of 2021, the Yavaşcas moved to Lisbon, Portugal, citing the affordable
cost-of-living and laid-back culture as key reasons.
“It’s
liberating to leave America,” Alexandra says. “Where can you live in the center
of the city in America and look at the ocean and eat fresh seafood and work in
your freelance entrepreneur lifestyle?”
The
Yavaşcas are part of a wave of expats and digital nomads settling in Portugal
in search of a better life. The number of foreign citizens living in Portugal —
more than 714,000 — is at an all-time high, making up about 7% of the
population in 2021, according to the Portuguese Immigration and Borders
Service.
The number
of Americans residing in Portugal is at its highest level in more than a
decade, according to agency data. There were about 7,000 Americans living in
the country at the end of 2021, more than double three years earlier. The U.S.
is the 24th most represented country among foreign residents in Portugal.
As the
pandemic and remote work transform the way we live and work, people are moving
and changing careers based on what fulfills them most.
“Previously,
it seemed like Portugal was the destination to retire. And now it seems like
it’s a cool destination to just start over,” says Mateusz Zurek, 35, who moved
to Lisbon from Poland in early 2021 to co-found a restaurant with his
American-Canadian business partner, Jahmarley Grant, 28. “The barrier to entry,
to open a business is super low,” Grant adds.
The number of Americans living in Portugal is at its
highest level in more than a decade.
I’ve spoken
to dozens of people who moved to Portugal in the last few years, to start a new
venture or revamp their lifestyle. Many spoke about their move with a sense of
renewal and hope, like they could finally live the life they envisioned, one
that seemed unattainable where they came from.
What is it
about this small European country, about as populous as the state of Georgia,
that holds so much promise for so many people? In late 2021, I traveled to
Portugal for the first time, to find out.
Portugal is
cheaper than many Western countries
What many
foreigners say draws them to Portugal is its low cost of living and high
quality of life. If a basket of goods and services cost $1 in the U.S., it
would cost 57 cents in Portugal, according to 2020 World Bank data.
The reason
Portugal is cheaper than many Western countries is because the country “is
poorer,” says Portuguese economist Ricardo Reis, a professor of economics at
the London School of Economics and Political Science. “A lot of the costs of
the services that you buy are labor costs. Portugal’s poorer. Wages are lower.
Therefore the costs of most things that require a lot of labor are cheaper.”
As an
American tourist from Los Angeles, California, daily living in Portugal feels
cheap. One evening, I enjoyed a three-course meal — including soup and salad,
fresh fish, ice cream, and sangria — for about $17, in the small seaside town
of Carvoeiro. A three-hour boat ride along the Algarve coast cost $30. An Uber
ride across town in Lisbon at nearly 1 a.m. on a Friday night set me back about
$19. In comparison, I cry inside anytime I need a late night Uber in Los
Angeles or New York City, my previous home — typically costing me $50-$70.
I met a few
Americans who have significantly upgraded their standards of living since
settling in Portugal.
Samantha
Hayden says she always lived in a “closet-sized space” in Singapore and New
York City. After moving to Lisbon in the summer of 2021, the 32-year-old
consultant now rents a three-story house, complete with two offices, a dining
room and a garage, just outside the city center.
Shar Wynter
spent three months in Lisbon in 2020, before officially relocating from
Atlanta, Georgia in the summer of 2021. The 37-year-old’s monthly expenses now
range between $2,100-$2,500/month, compared with $4,000-$5,000/month in
Atlanta. She spends $1,250/month on a renovated one-bedroom two-bathroom
apartment in the city center, with a balcony and plenty of natural sunlight. In
contrast, Wynter was paying $1,800/month for a studio apartment in Atlanta.
Foreign
residents also have access to the country’s free national healthcare.
Portugal is
often referred to as “the California of Europe.” Except you get California
temperatures and beaches without California prices. I visited in October and
enjoyed sunny 80-degree weather for 10 days straight.
There’s
natural beauty, but also culture. Expats tell me they haven’t struggled to
assimilate. Much of the Portuguese population speaks English because they learn
it in school from an early age and they’re generally welcoming to foreigners.
Portugal is
also safe. The country ranks as the fourth-most-peaceful nation in the world on
the Global Peace Index, which assesses things like crime rate, violent
demonstrations, political stability, and involvement in domestic and
international conflict. The U.S. ranks #122.
Racial
violence in the U.S. motivated Wynter and her friends to move to Portugal.
“Black Americans will normally find that they’re treated well here and won’t
have the same type of lethal racism that you see in the U.S.,” Wynter says.
“I really
came here for a lot of healing, honestly,” says Diara Parker, a 32-year-old
equity consultant who moved to Lisbon from Madison, Wisconsin in early 2021.
“Healing from past traumas, healing from all of the things that make the U.S.
the U.S. — that in a lot of ways keep us in these really rigid boxes. And for
me, as a black woman doesn’t really give me the space to thrive, and to be my
full, authentic self.”
I also
spoke to many expats recovering from burnout, who told me they’re finally able
to find personal fulfillment beyond work.
“I used to
almost fear requesting vacation. And here, my office is shut in August,” Hayden
says. “Especially in a lot of big cities in the States, there’s a real focus on
the grind, and kind of getting ahead and rising up the ladder. I think here,
there’s definitely a much more balanced approach. Family is huge. Spending time
with friends is huge.”
As a
freelancer living in Lisbon, Ryan-Yavaşca says she doesn’t have to work
eight-hour days to get by. That frees her up to prioritize her family and
well-being.
“We
alternate sometimes who works, who takes care of our child. And we don’t have
to check in with anyone,” she says. “Coming from America, this is impossible. I
couldn’t just take days off, say I’m closing my computer for the next four days
to go on a meditation retreat.”
Parker says
she’s finally learning to savor all the simple moments in life. “I never
thought that I would enjoy hanging up my laundry outside … and to pull out the
clothes and to smell the fresh air. To be able to focus on myself and thrive as
a full human that’s not just a worker bee is life-changing, really.”
‘I wouldn’t
have started this business in America’
Despite the
laid-back culture, a lot of young workers aren’t moving to Portugal to slack
off. It’s somewhere many expats feel capable of taking a risk and starting a
new venture.
When you
can afford to live somewhere comfortably without working around the clock, “I
think it makes it a lot easier to have space to pursue your creative
entrepreneurial desires and aspirations because you have time,” Wynter says. In
December 2021, she launched the Xpat App, a mobile app that connects black
expats around the world.
During the
pandemic, Margo Gabriel was laid off from her job in academia. Then the
35-year-old moved from Boston, Massachusetts, to Lisbon in 2020, where she can
finally “pursue a lot of my creative projects that I’ve had on the back burner
for literally years,” she says. Gabriel is now a full-time freelance food and
travel writer, whose clients are mostly based in the U.S.
In 2021,
the Yavaşcas launched Sebze Lisboa, an Anatolian and vegetarian kitchen that
caters events, fills to-go orders, and hosts pop-up dinners. “I wouldn’t have
started this business in America, because first of all, there’s food
regulations, business licenses, high fees to get things started,” Alexandra
says. “There’s so much bureaucracy and red tape that you have to go through
that I can’t even imagine in two weeks, we could have a start-up business.”
In
contrast, “starting businesses is quite easy in Portugal,” says economics professor
Reis. “You can open a business in one hour with a relatively limited amount of
paperwork.”
Portugal is
becoming increasingly known for its start-up scene, mostly concentrated in
Lisbon. Funding to tech startups headquartered in the country grew to over €180
million in 2021, up from about €1.2 million in 2016, according to the 2021
Portugal Startup Outlook.
According
to the report, a third of founders who established startups in Portugal between
2015 and 2020 were not Portuguese.
Many Portuguese locals ‘are very frustrated’
As more
people come to start anew and build their dreams, Portugal as a country is also
undergoing a dramatic transformation. I saw lots of cranes and construction in
Lisbon, bringing to life the infrastructure necessary to serve the city’s new
inhabitants and visitors.
In some
ways, the city is getting a whole new lease on life. And in other ways, what
makes Lisbon authentically Lisbon is being stripped away.
Tech sales
executive Luisa Pilo has lived in Lisbon on and off for more than 30 years. She
says she has seen the city transform dramatically in that time — from a “quiet
city, small town … in need of a lot of love” to a much more “cosmopolitan” hub.
Pilo says
the influx of new residents and tourists has resulted in a “better city, more
mobility, better housing.” She describes her life as “better, more colorful.”
Longtime
Lisbon resident Luisa Pilo shows me what used to be a traditional Portuguese
jewelry shop
But not all
this change is positive. Many locals and small businesses have been priced out
of the city center due to rising rents. Furthermore, many apartments have been
taken off the market and converted into short-term vacation rentals.
Living in
Portugal isn’t cheap for those earning local wages. The monthly minimum wage is
about $800. The average annual wage in 2020 was about $28,000, according to
OECD data.
“They are
very frustrated. If you talk to a lot of Portuguese, especially before the
pandemic when tourism was booming, people were fed up,” Pilo says.
Overall,
Reis says the growth in foreign residents and tourism has a positive impact on
the country, because it stimulates the economy and helps create jobs. “You have
people that come with high skills, that come with desires to create businesses,
that come with buying locally produced goods,” he says.
Lifting
Portugal out of recession
Attracting
foreigners was all part of a government plan to help lift Portugal out of
recession in the 2010s. As recently as 2015, people were not moving to Portugal
for a better quality of life and more opportunity. In fact, young workers were
leaving the country.
“Between
2010 and 2012, Portugal went through a fairly deep recession associated with a
sovereign debt crisis,” Reis says. “What that implied was that the lack of job
opportunities, as well as quite large increases in taxes to pay for those past
debts — led to many young professionals especially to leave the country looking
for jobs, a little bit all over the European Union in particular.”
Unemployment
peaked at about 18% in 2013, while GDP shrank three years in a row, between
2011 and 2013.
To help
stimulate the economy, Portugal welcomed immigration in a couple different
ways: the relative ease of obtaining a residence visa and tax benefits for new
foreign residents.
Moving to
Portugal is relatively easy
The most
common visa, the D7, requires applicants to show monthly income of at least the
Portuguese minimum wage, currently €705. Demand for the D7 has “increased
exponentially in the last two to three years,” says Mary Kuffel, an investment
advisor at Get Golden Visa.
She notes
the D7 is “very attainable” with proof of income, and getting one doesn’t
involve too much bureaucratic headache. The entire application and approval
process typically takes around six to seven months, says Bernardo Corrêa de Sá,
legal counsel for Get Golden Visa.
Another
increasingly popular option is the Golden Visa, for those who invest €250,000
to €1.5 million in real estate, an investment fund, a charitable donation, or
other options.
After five
years of holding a residence visa, you can apply for permanent residency and
then citizenship. The relative ease of obtaining a Portuguese visa makes it one
of the most popular options for foreigners seeking a European passport, Kuffel
says.
Corrêa de
Sá says he has numerous U.S. clients seeking D7 and Golden visas in order to
obtain EU citizenship. “They want a plan B … for political reasons, for safety
reasons.”
Portugal is
incentivizing immigration by giving foreigners a tax break under what’s called
the non-habitual resident tax regime. New foreign residents are tax exempt on
any taxable income they receive from abroad. That means, if I moved there, I
would not pay taxes in Portugal on the income I earn from CNBC for the next 10
years, as long as I’m being taxed in the U.S.
These
incentives seem to have worked. But very few people I spoke to mentioned them
as reasons for moving. Their motivation was the promise of a better life.
Growing up,
I mostly heard about people moving to the U.S. to chase the American dream. But
now it seems like many Americans are chasing that dream elsewhere, like in
Portugal.
The article
”‘A Cool Destination to Just Start Over’: Burned-out Millennials are Flocking
to Portugal″ was originally published on Grow (CNBC + Acorns).
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