Semi nomad questions

[dustynet]

Hi,

Ive read a few threads relating to people / boats roaming around the sunnier parts of the world. Im curious about how this is achievable in the current climate, for the regular Joe?
What got me thinking about this was reading a thread about boat tax and "resetting the clock" by leaving a country for a day or thereabouts and I wondered if something similar was achievable with people/visas?

Lets say I buy a boat and want to spend at least half of my time basking in the sunnier parts of the world, while still owning a house in the UK (possibly renting this out for pocket money).
Forget about the income side of things, and without looking to work in each port, how is this achievable from a visa / visitor perspective?

Reading up on the Schengen side of things, If I play under the tourist visa, I can only visit Schengen countries for 90 days in 180, so where do people go outside of this 90 day window before they can re-enter again for another 90 days?

I guess questions are:

• Do EU countries have any issues with people doing 90 days in, 90 days out repeating cycles regularly? If so is this generally bad practice?
• Which countries have a problem, would this be the case for most or just a couple?
• Where do seekers of warmth go when in the 90 days out period?
• Are there any well known ways of reducing the days burned in country such as anchor off-shore by x miles? is this accepted practice?

If people choose a different approach to the visa situation, what do you do?
This is for the common man, not for people able to drop 1Million+ into foreign economies etc?

Im not looking to do anything naughty, just looking at the most efficient use of visas, and visa days so as to extend my time in warmer climates, living on a boat but still being able to shelter in harbour as and when the whim takes me.

Thanks

 

[newtothis]

Hi,

Ive read a few threads relating to people / boats roaming around the sunnier parts of the world. Im curious about how this is achievable in the current climate, for the regular Joe?
What got me thinking about this was reading a thread about boat tax and "resetting the clock" by leaving a country for a day or thereabouts and I wondered if something similar was achievable with people/visas?

Lets say I buy a boat and want to spend at least half of my time basking in the sunnier parts of the world, while still owning a house in the UK (possibly renting this out for pocket money).
Forget about the income side of things, and without looking to work in each port, how is this achievable from a visa / visitor perspective?

Reading up on the Schengen side of things, If I play under the tourist visa, I can only visit Schengen countries for 90 days in 180, so where do people go outside of this 90 day window before they can re-enter again for another 90 days?

I guess questions are:

• Do EU countries have any issues with people doing 90 days in, 90 days out repeating cycles regularly? If so is this generally bad practice?
• Which countries have a problem, would this be the case for most or just a couple?
• Where do seekers of warmth go when in the 90 days out period?
• Are there any well known ways of reducing the days burned in country such as anchor off-shore by x miles? is this accepted practice?

If people choose a different approach to the visa situation, what do you do?
This is for the common man, not for people able to drop 1Million+ into foreign economies etc?

Im not looking to do anything naughty, just looking at the most efficient use of visas, and visa days so as to extend my time in warmer climates, living on a boat but still being able to shelter in harbour as and when the whim takes me.

Thanks

If looking at the western med, you options are sail the western med for three months, drop down to Tunisia/Morocco for three months, back to western med for three months, home for winter [if you think the Med is sunny and warm in winter, you've not been there].
Eastern Med, you have a few more options with Croatia (for now), Montenegro etc not yet in Schengen, and also Turkey. Again, home for winter.
Nothing to stop 90 on, 90 off.
There are rumoured ways of extending days, such as checking out then hiding in bays before you actually leave, but you never know when you'll get caught out doing that.

 

[steve yates]

Simplest way seems to be to work with the schengen shuffle. They have no problem with 90 days in 90 days out, and your out months, if talking med, can be morroco, croatia, montenegro, turkey and tunisia.
I have read that Gibraltar is not in schengen, and that it is! so not sure which is true, but its a bit small to spend a lot of time around anyway.

Seems it should be relatively simple to get a 6 month longstay tourist visa for france, and use that to enjoy a leisurely cruise down to the med, as your time spent in france on this visa does not count towards your 90 day allowance in schengen.

I think it would be advantageous sometimes to use 6 weeks or 2 months of your schengen time, then 6 weeks or a month in non schengen, swapping a month about after that for a while.

You can leave your boat in a schengen country and fly home for a while too.

You cannot pop out for a day and reset the clock, it is a constant rolling count. What you can do is reset the clock for your boat, as once it has been in the eu for 18 months it is taxable, but 24 hours in international or non eu waters will reset that particular countdown to zero and give you another 18 months.

As someone planning the same thing, this is what I have been able to ascertain, but never having done it, take it with a pinch of salt I'm sure otyhers will correct me if wrong anywhere.

 

[lustyd]

The simple answer is to look at the visa requirements for the country you're visiting and obey them, and to always have a plan of where to move to next. The 90 day Schengen thing is a distraction from the actual visa requirements if you're planning to stay longer. It's a convenience for tourists who may move about, but you can certainly get visas for individual countries and stay longer. If you're planning to do Portugal, Spain, Italy then check those countries and see what you need and how to apply.

 

[PlanB]

There's loads of stuff on Liveaboard forum about this.

 

[duncan_m]

• Do EU countries have any issues with people doing 90 days in, 90 days out repeating cycles regularly? If so is this generally bad practice?

Its not 90 out, 90 in more like 90 in 180 out taking account of the rolling aspect. But yes schengen shuffle.

Biggest issue we've had is finding anyone who cares enough to stamp our passports or look at them. If you're flying in out its definitely important as they care a lot more in airports. This summer met plenty of people not on any radars. Hard as some countries like france/spain require all passports on sign in. Not for refueling though.

• Which countries have a problem, would this be the case for most or just a couple?

No as long as you don't overstay you're fine.

• Where do seekers of warmth go when in the 90 days out period?

Kenya is nice, good flights from Italy. Many other options available.

• Are there any well known ways of reducing the days burned in country such as anchor off-shore by x miles? is this accepted practice?

Only really worthwhile sailing down. Go to the main port, tell them you're sailing non-stop to a non-schgen country. Then have something break, stop for repairs and explain with pleading eyes that you had planned to go direct to gib/Tunisia etc but had to stop.

In reality not worth the pain once in the med for a day or two saved.

 

[Daverw]

Recently seen many of the digital nomads on YouTube having more issues with visas etc, post covid seems to be taking out some of the hiding, just yesterday watch an Australian and Swedish couple try and extend his to be told no you’ve got 12 days to leave. Seems to be harder for many as they different nationalities but not married.

 

[Kelpie]

This whole subject only arose this year at the end of the transition period, and what's happening in practice is slightly complicated thanks to Covid, so people are still figuring out what to do. Although these rules have applied to 3rd country nationals since the creation of Schengen, so it shouldn't really be such a surprise.

One point in your post jumped out at me- you can't just "anchor X miles offshore" to buy time out of a country. Water sheltered and shallow enough to anchor in will be within the jurisdiction of a country, and generally monitored in some way by the authorities.

 

[duncan_m]

Not an issue if you're retired..but it's perfectly possible to travel around the world on a near constant basis. By boat and or land.

 

[V1701]

Caribbean also possible to bum around pretty much indefinitely, or at least was when I did it for a couple of years about 15 years ago. Bear in mind hurricane season, places best avoided, covid...

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Seems it should be relatively simple to get a 6 month longstay tourist visa for france, and use that to enjoy a leisurely cruise down to the med, as your time spent in france on this visa does not count towards your 90 day allowance in schengen.

Just had a reply on a query of mine to the French embassy on this one. You may have seen it on the French Canals thread, but I'll repeat the gist of it here for anyone who hasn't.

You can get an extended tourist visa for France - up to 6 months (you aren't considered a resident), or a 6 months to 12 months visa (you are considered a resident). These are in addition to the Schengen 90/180 rules, so you could use a 6 months visa then start your Schengen 90 days to get a total of 9 months. However, if you spend more than 6 months in any year in France you are counted as a resident for tax purposes. This means that you cannot use the TA rules that allow you to take your non-EU VAT paid boat and not have to pay EU VAT. So if you add the Schengen 90 days to a 6 month visa you need to spend it somewhere other than France. A French visa between 6 and 12 months immediately makes your boat liable for French VAT on arrival. You can also only have one 6 month tourist visa per year. So after 9 months you have to leave the Schengen area and apply for another 6 month French tourist visa for the following year, but your boat can stay. Your boat has to leave the EU for a day every 18 months to continue the TA.

 

[dustynet]

Sorry for the delay in response, all very busy with life getting in the way of planning an adventure

Thank you all for the responses. Its all very enlightening and makes for interesting reading.
I guess from several posts, this isnt just about visas / schengen days, but also extends to taxes to be paid depending on durations...

I have a similar conversation with an accountant the other day (not mine sadly, I dont have enough to be able to afford one! ) in that if I spend more than 6 months outside of the UK in 1 sitting, I am not considered resident in the UK. But if that time is spent backpacking / travelling and Im not in any one place (building) for more than a couple of weeks at a time, I wont be considered resident anywhere else. Does this mean I fall through a net and vanish to all intents and purposes? Am I likely to have any border control or residency issues when I return to the UK after said jollies? This is becoming more interesting the more I dig.

In addition, what is the reason for paying VAT on a pleasure vessel say <40ft in every country I visit if I by chance stay for more than 6 months? I guess the purchase / registration etc in the country of sale (UK assumingly) would suffice for this but it appears not?

This prompts another question, is there a country of preference from where I should buy a boat which would yield the least tax implications?
And another question? Which warmer countries would charge the least vat for stays >6months (nothing to do with the purchase) in the above scenarios?

I can see this is turning into a rabbit hole

 

[AngusMcDoon]

In addition, what is the reason for paying VAT on a pleasure vessel say <40ft in every country I visit if I by chance stay for more than 6 months?

It's not every country. It's the EU as they have a customs union which we are no longer part of. Pay once for all EU member states. The reason is the word that cannot be mentioned beginning with B. It's not a fixed 6 months thing, that's just France's rules for anyone using their long stay visas which state that after 6 months you are resident. Other countries might have different rules. What is EU wide though is that you cannot use the TA scheme (which allows non-residents to keep their boat in the EU for 18 months without being liable for VAT) if you are a resident of any EU country.

I guess the purchase / registration etc in the country of sale (UK assumingly) would suffice for this but it appears not?

No. Our VAT status is now separate from EU VAT status. VAT is payable in 2 cases - when a boat is bought new, or imported into a customs area, i.e. importing it into the EU from UK. Registration is separate from VAT status.

This prompts another question, is there a country of preference from where I should buy a boat which would yield the least tax implications?

Anywhere within the EU if you intend keeping your boat there for longer than 18 months or you intend becoming a resident of any EU country.

 

[KompetentKrew]

I have a similar conversation with an accountant the other day (not mine sadly, I dont have enough to be able to afford one! ) in that if I spend more than 6 months outside of the UK in 1 sitting, I am not considered resident in the UK. But if that time is spent backpacking / travelling and Im not in any one place (building) for more than a couple of weeks at a time, I wont be considered resident anywhere else. Does this mean I fall through a net and vanish to all intents and purposes? Am I likely to have any border control or residency issues when I return to the UK after said jollies? This is becoming more interesting the more I dig.

Residency simply means "where you live", but can be assessed differently for different purposes.

For the NHS it's where you're "ordinarily resident", whereas for UK tax purposes it's based on the statutory residence test, which is a series of specific criteria usually represented as a flowchart - use whichever of these flowcharts you find easiest to follow.

Your accountant has perhaps oversimplified, as I think you generally need to spend less than 16 days in the UK to become automatically nonresident for tax purposes (i.e. your first year of tax nonresidency). After 3 years of nonresidency you can spend 45 days a year in the UK without becoming resident again.

If you're a UK citizen then there are no border issues with becoming resident or nonresident - excluding terrorists and other wanted criminals you can come and go as you please. You have a duty to pay taxes if you're resident according to the statutory test, and you are not obliged to pay them (indeed, you probably should not pay them) if you are not.

So, yes, you can enter a taxation "void" if you're a tourist in countries for only a few weeks or months at a time, where you are resident nowhere for tax purposes and owe no taxes on your investment returns (dividends or capital gains). Note that it is extremely unlikely to be legal to work if you're on a tourist visa, even if your employment is remote or "overseas based". Nevertheless this is widely flouted and you're extremely unlikely to be caught so long as you move on regularly.

 

[roblpm]

Sorry for the delay in response, all very busy with life getting in the way of planning an adventure

Thank you all for the responses. Its all very enlightening and makes for interesting reading.
I guess from several posts, this isnt just about visas / schengen days, but also extends to taxes to be paid depending on durations...

I have a similar conversation with an accountant the other day (not mine sadly, I dont have enough to be able to afford one! ) in that if I spend more than 6 months outside of the UK in 1 sitting, I am not considered resident in the UK. But if that time is spent backpacking / travelling and Im not in any one place (building) for more than a couple of weeks at a time, I wont be considered resident anywhere else. Does this mean I fall through a net and vanish to all intents and purposes? Am I likely to have any border control or residency issues when I return to the UK after said jollies? This is becoming more interesting the more I dig.

In addition, what is the reason for paying VAT on a pleasure vessel say <40ft in every country I visit if I by chance stay for more than 6 months? I guess the purchase / registration etc in the country of sale (UK assumingly) would suffice for this but it appears not?

This prompts another question, is there a country of preference from where I should buy a boat which would yield the least tax implications?
And another question? Which warmer countries would charge the least vat for stays >6months (nothing to do with the purchase) in the above scenarios?

I can see this is turning into a rabbit hole

Remember the word "Accountant" doesn't mean anything..... Unlike "Solicitor" Accountants are not a protected profession. Better to look at this.....

RDR3: Statutory Residence Test (SRT) notes