Living and working abroad without citizenship?

Question

I was thinking today about the idea of moving out of the US and living abroad. I was thinking that if I made a life out of working while traveling, do I still need to be a citizen of a country? Saying this seems like a stupid question, but I was thinking that if I was abroad long enough, am I still a citizen of my home country?Does anyone have any information about how to look at this? I guess it would be really difficult to live and work abroad without a country affiliation. Has anyone that frequents HN live abroad and if so can you share how its working for you and any points that are important?

keikobadthebad · Accepted Answer

For US citizens, even if resident abroad and paying taxes there, you must explain your taxes to the US too.In fact you have to pay big bucks to disclaim your US citizenship (and corresponding tax obligations), being able to just quit it by magic is a distant dream you don't have to concern yourself with...

not_your_vase · Answer

> if I was abroad long enough, am I still a citizen of my home country? Every country has their own set of rules and laws dictating how and when one loses their citizenship. Being away for a long time is usually not such a method.There are a couple of stateless people around the world, you can find some articles about them in Google. In theory it can work. In practice they seem to face endless hurdles, as every form starts with the unskippable question "nationality?" - and "stateless" isn't an accepted answer. Usually this is where the process stops. (Also it could be a part of "10 things programmers believe about citizenship" listicle)

ChumpGPT · Answer

My first thought is how will you travel if you're not a citizen of any country? Were you suggesting giving up your citizenship or did you mean a resident of any country? You need a passport to travel.
If you are a US Citizen and leave the US for more than 6 months approx, you are no longer considered a resident. If you choose to go to Europe you can only stay in the Schengen Area for 90 days every 180 days. You could go to UK and stay for up to 90 days and a list of other countries. You will still need to file your taxes every year with the US Gov and if you didn't pay taxes in any other country you will need to pay the US Gov. Otherwise you will need to make over 127 k USD outside the USA before you pay taxes on anything above that. Canada/Europe can be expensive, Eastern Europe/Asia/South America will be cheaper. You will probably need to move to a new country every 90 Days.
It's very complicated and every country has different rules and how long you can stay. Doing it for a a few months of the year (like spend a summer in Europe) is probably much easier. Every year you can choose another part of the world for 3 months.

al2o3cr · Answer

If you'd like to prototype this and see what happens:* fly to a foreign country* throw away your passport* try to fly home