Everything Expats Worldwide Need to Know About Visas

Are you thinking about getting a visa to live abroad?

Here at ExpatDen, we created this resource page to help you navigate visa requirements easily and effectively. You’ll find comprehensive information about different visa types, application processes, and requirements.

Throughout the page, you’ll also find additional resources to help you secure the right visa for your expat journey.

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Contents

Do You Actually Need a Visa to Live Abroad?
Choosing the Right Visa for Your Situation
Applying for Your Visa
Understanding Visa Basics
Key Factors That Affect Your Visa Choices
Maintaining Your Visa Status
Extending and Renewing Your Visa
Long-Term Visa Strategies
Red Flags and Common Pitfalls
Regional Considerations
Visa Rejections
Getting Professional Visa Help
1. Lawyers Versus Agents
2. Visa Lawyer and Agent Red Flags
Planning for Life Changes
Resources and Tools
1. Official Sources and Professional Networks
2. Community Resources and Planning Tools
Ten Tips to Apply for the Right Visa
Essential Reading for Expats Looking for the Right Visa

Do You Actually Need a Visa to Live Abroad?

The answer depends on several key factors that every future expat needs to understand before making the move.

Your nationality and destination country: Diplomatic relationships and reciprocal agreements determine visa requirements.
Your intended purpose abroad: Tourism, work, study, retirement, and investment each have different visa requirements.
Length of your planned stay: Short visits often have different rules than long-term residence.
Your tolerance for legal and financial risk: Living abroad without the right visa carries serious consequences.
Available legal alternatives: Some visas let you move freely in regions if you’re a certain nationality.

Choosing the Right Visa for Your Situation

Choosing the right visa helps you plan effectively, avoid common mistakes, and set realistic expectations for timeframes and outcomes. The process varies by country and visa type, but most follow similar general patterns.

Before you apply, you’ll need some common documents such as:

Passport with sufficient validity (usually six months)
Completed visa application forms
Photographs meeting specific requirements
Financial documents

Each country has its own requirements. And you may need to translate and notarize these documents into the local language. That said, the specific visa types below list the documents you’ll need when applying.

Employment and Business Visas

Employment visas typically require a job offer from a company within the country you’re moving to, employer sponsorship and documents, proof of qualifications and experience (such as degrees), and sometimes labor market testing to prove no local can do the job.

Business visas for entrepreneurs often require a detailed business plan and registration, proof of investment capital, sometimes hiring local employees, and meeting minimum investment limits.

Retirement Visas

Many countries offer special visas for retirees. Common requirements include minimum age (usually 50 to 65), proof of pension or retirement income, health insurance coverage, clean criminal background, and sometimes minimum bank deposits.

Thailand’s retirement visa requires being over 50 with either THB800,000 in the bank or THB65,000 monthly income, plus health insurance. Malaysia’s MM2H program offers various tiers with different financial requirements and benefits. Some European countries may require €25,000+ in savings.

Student Visas

Education visas let you live in your host country for the duration of your studies. Requirements typically include acceptance letters from recognized schools, proof of funds for tuition and living expenses, academic transcripts and qualifications, sometimes language proficiency tests, and health insurance and medical exams.

Student visas often allow you to work part-time and may provide pathways to post-graduation work visas, making them attractive for younger expats looking to establish themselves abroad.

Family and Marriage Visas

If you’re married to a citizen or have family in your destination country, family visas can provide a pathway to residence.

To apply for a marriage visa, you have to submit valid marriage certificates, proof of genuine relationship (photos, joint finances, etc.), sponsor’s income or support guarantee, sometimes interviews to verify the relationship, and health and character checks. Of course these requirements vary by country.

Investment and Digital Nomad Visas

Investment visas typically require minimum investment amounts (often US$100,000 to US$1,000,000+), business plans showing job creation, proof of funds and their legal source, sometimes specific sectors or regions for investment, and ongoing compliance with investment commitments.

A growing number of countries, including Bali, now offer visas specifically for digital nomads and remote workers. These visas often require proof of remote work or freelance income, minimum income thresholds, health insurance coverage, promise not to work for local companies, and sometimes proof of accommodation. Thailand’s new Destination Thailand Visa (DTV) allows five-year stays for digital nomads with THB500,000 in a bank account.

Understanding which visa category fits your needs helps you prepare and increase your chances of approval. So be sure to research carefully the requirements and documents of your future host country.

Applying for Your Visa

After you gather all the documents you need for your visa type listed above, you can start applying for your visa. Start planning at least three to six months before your intended move, though some visas may take over a year.

Visa applications come in a variety of methods. Usually you have to apply at an embassy or consulate in your home country in-person or by mail. In-country applications involve applying while already in the host country, often for visa changes or extensions.

Also, many countries now offer online applications (E-Visas). They let you upload your documents and pay online.

Typical timeframes range from one to 10 business days for tourist visas, two to eight weeks for work visas, one to 18 months for residence visas, and three to 12 months for investment visas.

Understanding Visa Basics

Before diving into specific visa types, it’s essential to understand what visas actually are and how they work around the world. Knowing this will help you move abroad with ease.

What visas actually are: They grant you permission from a country’s government to enter, stay, or transit for specific purposes.
Why countries require visas: Countries issue visas for security screening, economic control, resource management, and diplomatic relations.
Different types of visa categories: You can mostly apply for tourist, work, student, residence, family, investment, volunteer, and transit visas.
Visa versus residence permit: Visas let you enter a country for a limited time while residence permits let you live there long-term.
Visa versus citizenship: Citizenship gets you voting rights and permanent status.
Single versus multiple entry: Single entry visas let you enter a country once, whereas multiple entry visas let you leave and re-enter a predetermined number of times.

Think of a visa as a license to stay in a country legally. It functions like official permission with specific conditions.

Key Factors That Affect Your Visa Choices

Several personal factors determine which visas you’re eligible for and how straightforward the application process will be. Understanding these factors early helps you plan effectively and avoid being denied later on.

Nationality and Passport Considerations

Your passport affects your visa choices. Citizens of developed countries generally have more visa-free travel and easier visa applications. For example, US citizens have extensive visa choices for Thailand, while citizens of some countries face more restrictions.

Passport strength factors include diplomatic relations between countries, economic agreements and treaties, historical relationships, reciprocity agreements, and security and political stability of your home country.

Health Requirements

Many countries require health screenings for long-term visas, including medical exams by approved doctors, vaccination records (especially yellow fever), HIV/AIDS testing for some countries, tuberculosis screening, and health insurance with minimum coverage. Some regions like the EU also require mandatory health insurance.

Background Checks

Most long-term visas also require clean criminal records through police certificates from your home country, FBI background checks for US citizens, Interpol clearances for some countries, certificates from any country where you’ve lived 12+ months, and apostille or embassy authentication of documents.

Maintaining Your Visa Status

Staying compliant with visa conditions is essential for avoiding problems and maintaining your legal status. Many expats focus on getting their visa but neglect the ongoing requirements that keep them in good standing.

Compliance

Understanding what you can and cannot do on your visa prevents violations. Tourist visas usually don’t let you work, conduct business, or study in the country. Work visas often only allow work for sponsoring employers.

Student visas may let you work part-time with restrictions. Business visas might let you conduct business activities but not become employed in the country. Residence visas often allow most activities.

Travel

Some visas like those in Thailand require you to get re-entry permits when leaving the country. So keep in mind the processing time and costs, validity periods, and application locations that come with it.

Taxes

Your visa status affects your tax obligations. You may be considered a tax resident if you live in a country for 183+ days per year. You might pay income tax on local and/or foreign income. But you need to check the OECD’s double taxation agreements between your home country and the one you’re moving to.

You might also have to report foreign accounts to your home country. This is true if you’re a US citizen who has to file an FBAR each year you file taxes. Lastly, consider your social security and pension obligations.

Overstays

Overstaying your visa can have serious consequences including daily fines (often US$25 to US$100+ per day), detention and deportation, entry bans (often one to 10 years), difficulty getting future visas, and criminal records in some countries.

Extending and Renewing Your Visa

Understanding how to maintain your visa is crucial. Many expats focus on getting their initial visa but fail to plan for the ongoing requirements of staying abroad legally.

Most countries allow extensions 30 to 60 days before your visa expires. Apply too early and you might be rejected; apply too late and you might overstay. Extending your visa typically includes going through the initial application process outlined in the visa types section above.

Long-Term Visa Strategies

Experienced expats know how to optimize their visa situations and plan for long-term residence. These strategies require forward thinking and careful planning.

Pathways to Permanent Residence

Many temporary visas can lead to permanent residence. Common pathways include work visa to permanent residence (often after two to five years); marriage visa to permanent residence (often after one to three years), student visa to work visa to permanent residence; investment visa to permanent residence; and long-term residence programs.

Understanding these pathways from the beginning helps you make strategic choices about which visas to pursue and how to structure your time abroad.

Multiple Citizenship and Tourist Visa Strategies

Some expats pursue citizenship in their new country, but you must consider dual citizenship policies (not all countries allow it), time requirements (often five to 10 years of residence), language and culture tests, tax implications of multiple citizenships, and military service obligations.

You can use a tourist visa for exploring potential destinations before committing, short-term work projects in visa-friendly countries, maintaining legal status while preparing other applications, and visa runs between longer-term visas.

Visa Runs and Transition Planning

Visa runs involve leaving and re-entering to reset your tourist visa period. They work when countries have generous tourist policies and you have genuine tourism interests. You can use them occasionally and, most times, if you have clear evidence of funds and onward travel. But you shouldn’t use them to live long-term in the country.

You can avoid these issues by:

Planning visa transitions well in advance
Maintaining multiple visa options
Building relationships with local sponsors
Accumulating qualifying time for residence applications
Keeping financial requirements accessible
Understanding timing requirements for different applications

Advanced planning helps experienced expats optimize their situations and maintain maximum flexibility for the future. You can do the same.

Red Flags and Common Pitfalls

Avoiding visa scams and common mistakes can save you significant time, money, and legal problems.

Illegal Work and Violation Consequences

Working illegally has serious consequences including deportation and entry bans, employer exploitation, no legal protections, criminal charges, and difficulty getting future visas.

Policy Changes

Stay informed about changing policies due to political elections and government changes, economic conditions and unemployment, security concerns and international relations, health policy impacts, and digital nomad trends and remote work policies.

Exit Requirements

Some countries have specific exit requirements including tax clearance certificates, final reporting requirements, cancellation of local registrations, proper visa surrender procedures, and documents for future re-entry.

Regional Considerations

Different regions have distinct visa patterns, policies, and considerations that affect expat planning. Understanding regional trends helps you make informed decisions about destinations and strategies.

European Union and Schengen Considerations

The Schengen Area allows free movement among 27 European countries but has specific rules. The 90-day tourist limit in 180-day period applies to the entire area. Work authorization is needed for employment. Student visas often allow EU-wide study, while residence in one country may allow travel throughout the EU. But keep in mind that Brexit has created some issues for UK citizens.

ASEAN Visas and Opportunities

ASEAN offers diverse visa choices for expats including digital nomad visas becoming more common, retirement visa programs in Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, investment visa programs for high-income individuals, special economic zones with preferential policies, and increasing regional cooperation agreements.

Americas and Special Arrangements

The Americas have various regional agreements including MERCOSUR, which lets you move freely among member countries. NAFTA/USMCA facilitates business travel. Then you have retirement visa programs in countries like Mexico, Panama, Ecuador. You also have investment visa programs for entrepreneurs, and varying relationships between countries affecting visa policies.

Some regions offer special visa arrangements through free-trade zones with preferential business visas, economic development areas with investor incentives, tourism zones with extended visa-free periods, and technology hubs with startup visa programs.

Understanding regional considerations helps you choose destinations and strategies that align with your goals and circumstances.

Visa Rejections

Your visa may be rejected due to any number of reasons. Some of these reasons that many future expats face include:

Incomplete or incorrect documents
Insufficient financial proof
Criminal background issues
Health problems
Previous immigration violations
Fraudulent or suspicious information
Failure to meet specific visa requirements
Poor interview performance

If your visa is rejected, you may be able to appeal, but consider time limits for appeals (often 30 to 90 days), additional documents required, legal representation choices, costs and fees for appeals, and success rates for different rejection reasons.

Getting Professional Visa Help

If you know the local language and have the research skills, you can apply for visas yourself. But knowing when and how to get professional help can save time, improve your visa success rates, and help you avoid costly mistakes.

Lawyers Versus Agents

You might think that visa lawyers and agents serve the same purpose, but hiring one over the other depends on your visa situations. Hire a visa lawyer when:

Applying for complex visa types like the Golden Visa
Dealing with previous rejections or violations
Facing legal challenges or appeals
Making permanent residence or citizenship applications
Having significant assets or business interests at stake
Moving to countries like Panama where only visa lawyers can apply on your behalf

On the other hand, hire a visa agent when:

Applying for straightforward tourist or work visas
Needing help with paperwork and procedures
Looking for cost-effective assistance
Requiring local knowledge and connections
Applying in countries like Costa Rica where visa regulations can get confusing

Whether you’re hiring a lawyer or agent, vet them by looking at the following criteria:

Professional qualifications and certifications
Verifiable business registration and licensing
Client testimonials and success rates
Clear fee structures and contracts
Realistic timeframes and expectations
Good communication and responsiveness

Visa Lawyer and Agent Red Flags

Not every lawyer or agent has the same experience and professionalism. So look for these warning signs when hiring someone to help you apply for a visa:

Guarantees for visa approvals
Requests for original passport surrender
Low fees compared to official rates
Lack of proper business registration
No clear refund policies
Poor English or communication
Pressure to apply immediately

Planning for Life Changes

Life changes can significantly impact your visa status and require advance planning. Many expats fail to consider how major life events might affect their legal status abroad.

Marriage and Family

Getting married can open new visa opportunities through marriage visas. It can also impact your existing visa. If your spouse is an expat, you’ll have to go through spousal visa application procedures. Worst case, what happens to your visa status if you get divorced?

If you have children while abroad, they might face challenges. Will they be granted citizenship through birth or descent? You’ll have to consider the requirements to get their passport and travel documents if they have dual citizenship. If your children study abroad, they’d also need an education visa. If you want to accompany them, you’d need a dependent or guardian visa.

Career and Retirement

Job changes can affect your work visa status. This happens when you transfer an employer-sponsored visa, have gaps between employment and visa validity, fail to meet industry-specific visa requirements, or become self-employed or open a business.

When retiring abroad, you have to meet age requirements for retirement visas, submit pension and income documents, have health insurance, and plan your will if you have anything in your home country.

Emergency and Health

Emergencies can create visa challenges. You might face a health emergency in which you can’t leave the hospital and extend your visa. If you have an emergency back home, you’ll need a visa that lets you travel in and out of your host country. What if natural disasters or political instability strike at home or in your host county? Or, what if your documents are lost or stolen while abroad?

Being prepared for these emergencies includes:

Keeping digital copies of important documents
Maintaining emergency funds for unexpected visa costs
Knowing embassy contact information
Understanding emergency visa procedures
Having backup visa options if possible

Resources and Tools

Having the right resources makes visa planning much easier and more successful. Knowing where to find reliable information and help can save significant time and prevent costly mistakes.

Official Sources and Professional Networks

When planning your visa application process, it’s important to check a variety of resources. But because I can’t include every visa resource to every country, I’ll give you the name of the government agency you should check with. Then you can search for that agency in the country of your choosing.

Immigration departments
Embassies and consulates
Official visa application portals
Tax authority departments
Health departments

International resources include:

IATA passport, visa, and health requirements database
International Organization for Migration (IOM)
World Health Organization
Country-specific immigration law updates

Embassy and consulate services typically include visa application guidance, document authentication and notarization, emergency passport services, citizen services and registration, and legal referrals and assistance.

Community Resources and Planning Tools

You’re not limited to just official government agencies. Oftentimes you’ll get valuable visa insights from Facebook groups, professional networking associations, or even ExpatDen’s own Reddit community.

You can also create your own tools to help you plan your visa application timeline. Use spreadsheets with document trackers, renewal reminders, and emergency contact information.

Organize your application with checklists for required documents by visa type, timeline, financial requirements, health examination schedules, and authentication tracking.

Having comprehensive resources and tools at your disposal makes the visa process more manageable and increases your chances of success.

Ten Tips to Apply for the Right Visa

1. Start planning early and understand timing requirements.

You should begin visa planning three to six months before your intended move, not weeks. Complex visas can take over a year to process. Don’t believe people who say visa applications are quick and easy. They’re either talking about simple tourist visas or haven’t dealt with immigration authorities. Proper planning prevents panic applications that often get rejected.

2. Choose the visa that matches your actual purpose and plans.

There are different visa categories for good reasons. Trying to use a tourist visa for work, or a business visa for retirement, creates problems. Think carefully about your real intentions abroad and pick the visa designed for that purpose. Immigration officers can spot mismatched applications easily.

3. Understand your nationality’s specific advantages and limitations.

Some passports open more doors than others due to diplomatic relationships and reciprocal agreements. Research what visa options your nationality provides for your destination country. Don’t assume all passport holders have to meet the same requirements.

4. Prepare financial documents meticulously and maintain required balances.

Money talks in visa applications. Keep required bank balances for the specified time periods. Get official bank letters and statements. Don’t try to borrow money temporarily just for the application. Immigration officers often verify financial stability over time.

5. The most important thing for visa success is your documents.

If you don’t provide complete, accurate, and properly authenticated documents, your application will be rejected regardless of your qualifications. Don’t believe people who say they got by with incomplete paperwork. They either got lucky or are misremembering. Get documents apostilled, translated, and notarized as required.

6. Get professional help for complex applications.

You cannot navigate complex visa application processes through guesswork. Lawyers and agents who specialize in your destination country and visa type are worth the investment. Some people do best with lawyers for high-stakes applications while others prefer agents for routine matters.

7. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and clarify requirements.

The more questions you ask official sources, the better your application will be. There’s no better way to avoid rejection than to understand exactly what’s required before submitting. Contact embassies, immigration offices, and official sources for clarification.

8. Learn to follow instructions precisely.

We sometimes think we understand application requirements but quite often, because of assumptions, we miss important details. This happens a lot with people who rush through applications. They already have it in their head how the process works without actually reading the specific requirements. Never submit anything until you’ve double-checked it against official requirements.

9. Never stop researching until you submit.

Too many times one hears, “I submitted my application and then found out about a requirement I missed.” If you plan on living abroad, any time you put into thorough research will be well worth it. Immigration policies change, and what worked for someone else last year might not work for you today.

10. When immigration officers treat your application routinely, you know you’ve done it right.

As long as your application requires special meetings, additional documents, or extended processing times, then you know something isn’t quite right with your preparation. Immigration officers process hundreds of applications. When yours fits their standard procedures perfectly, it gets approved efficiently. Your goal should be a perfectly prepared application that meets every requirement exactly as specified.