Ironically enough, Vilnius is now a very beautiful, safe and high quality of life city that is a better place to live than, probably, quite a lot of American cities..

How times have changed..

I know a guy that worked for good UK salary (fintech) that moved to Portugal(Lisbon) almost a decade ago. It seems to be a lovely place, he also happily tell me how much he manage to save and how early he will be able to retire. He got many friends there too, but mostly expats.

If I'm to believe my Portuguese friends however, the extreme influx of digital nomad types have really changed Lisbon. There's almost no authentic Portuguese thing there anymore, just thing LARPING as it. The rent is too high for any local young Portuguese to pay for, while the landlords are super happy for these influx of wealthy expats, so the young either move out of the city or move all together.

In a very utopia like set up, there's something depressing about that reality.

When I asked about to my expat friend living there, he acknowledged it, shrugged, and said "don't hate the playa, hate the game".

Anyway, enjoy the game!

Couldn't agree more. If you have any pointers (to web sites) that were helpful to you as you were making your decision or preparations, please do post them.

Also, did you consider any other countries that you later struck from your list?

Are you going to have a Portuguese salary or an American one?

Many of us hate you behind the facade though because you are driving up costs so wildly

My uncle moved from Germany to Portugal for the same reason. He loves it and the main pain point is healthcare - low-cost, but in his 70s he travels back to Germany for health issues due to quality. It's unpopular opinion in Portugal and everyone will tell you how nice the hospitals are, zero wait times and no hidden expenses. May be my uncle was unlucky, but minor heart issue wasn't properly diagnosed for about a year there, and required a single visit in Germany to get it under control.

What aspects and experiences do you miss? Which country did you move to? I know I romanticize moving to Europe so would love to hear some balance.

Yeah, given that it's much easier to get a visa to work in the EU (albeit still not easy) than in the US, the default position ceteris paribus would be that more people would move from the US to Europe than vice versa.

The fact that wasn't the case before just goes to show how big an impact the economic disparity has.

I am jealous of the lifestyle of most of Europe, but not the rigid labour markets and lower salaries. I wish we had more people-oriented cities in North America, though. I don't want to be anti-automobile, but the hostility to the "15 minute city" idea was quite depressing to me.

My good friends moved to Germany before they had their kid. They are extremely happy with their decision.

Everyone I'm aware of who moved because of Trump/Republicans are happy with their choice.

[dead]

"A good economy" means different things to different people.

Expensive houses and low wages, vs appreciating assets and low labour costs.

>the vote on limiting Switzerland's population to 10 million

google searches 10 minutes after it passes: what is EU ‎guillotine clause

how would that even work? mandatory contraception or something?

While each EU country has its own immigration rules, there is an EU-level route for the highly skilled workers, called the EU Blue Card:

* https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/migration-and-asy... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Card_(European_Union)

Each EU country has its own rules about immigration.

A green card is probably equivalent to a permanent residence permit, those vary quite a bit between countries, and skills. Some countries might give a permanent residence in as few as 3 years, I believe quite a few have the 4 years threshold. Depending on what skills you have or how much you invest in the country you are moving to this timeline also shortens.

It's not that hard to get a temporary residence permit somewhere in the EU if you're well-employed. Every country has its own rules and some are more lax than others, but there are plenty of e.g. "tech worker" visas you can get. You often don't need a job to officially sponsor you.

Just depends where and where you're from. Even though it's the EU each country has its own rules.

Yeah my friends just moved back to Belgium after ten years here

Yes and no. American salaries are great but our cost of living is insane. The amount of time wasted in the US doing basic stuff also can't be discounted. Our cost of healthcare adds up, as does the cost of everything here.

I think this data shows that a lot of Americans are waking up to our brand of "freedom" being bullshit. The American dream is a bit of a myth nowadays.

Americans lie to ourselves. If one isn't wealthy in the US, think top 15%, you're better off living outside the US. But Americans are "not yet billionaires" so most of us don't realize this. Our media pumps our hubris and egos using "freedom" and nationalism. Most Americans never travel outside of the US and believe our lives here are infinitely better than anything else in the world. It's something I see constantly when I talk international stuff with rural Americans(and the suburban cosplayer), an absolute fantasy version of the world.

As an engineer that moved to Europe - everyone benefits from the social welfare system.

I benefit by not having to worry about the homeless druggie assaulting me and on a more values-based level, by not feeling like shit for living like a king while the druggie has to be homeless.

The taxes are a membership fee for living in a society that isn't permeated with cruelty and violence.

Plus, they pay for stuff like working public transport etc as well.

> The chart compares permanent green cards issued to Europeans moving to the US with first-time residence permits (often temporary, for work/study) issued to Americans moving to the EU, which are not equivalent metrics.

For those that don't have Twitter.

Agreed. The US, as a result of basically a conservative tantrum for 60 years, has undone most of the progress after the WWs.

In my niece's (relatively rural) US high school class several students decided to attend university in Europe with no family ties to the countries in question. It was pretty common in my generation to see, as you note, kids moving to Berlin etc after their studies, but this strikes me as relatively new. Anecdata that seems supported in some of the public numbers [0].

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2025/07/21/reco...

It's an infinitely higher quality of life if you're not in the 90th income percentile in the US already. You'll never make that much, but you'll never have half the worries we do here for lower income people.

> it saves me 2k a month in taxes. There are also workarounds in avoiding paying the higher EU taxes.

Interesting how in a different comment you say

> I want the same for all Spaniards and will gladly pay high taxes if my family, friends, and my neighbors can also have that same opportunity.

I hadn’t realised that’s a thing (although I probably shouldn’t be surprised) -- I thought all these dual-citizenship tax agreements worked such that you aren’t double-taxed, but the total amount paid needs to meet the minimum for each country.

For example, I thought if you’re resident in the US you might pay your main taxes there, but you’d need to “top up” in the EU.

What’s your specific workaround?

If you're living and working in California or New York, as I suspect a large number of hacker news readers are, EU taxes on income are generally not prohibitively more expensive, especially relative to increase in quality of life. 'Native' salaries are considerably lower, however, and tax treatment of equity-based compensation is very much not in favor of employees...

So you want to take advantage of European quality of life, social nets and infrastructure, but you don't want to help pay for it? How very American.

How much do you pay for health insurance in the US?

Do you spend more than 6mos in the EU?

They are nice people fleeing an oppressive regime. We must work hard to integrate them into our societies, despite the large cultural differences.

What makes you believe you'll be able to do so?

Most European countries have surprisingly strict visa requirements - and those apply to Americans as well. Unlike a short holiday trip, you can't just move because you feel like it!

The most likely path for the HN public is probably a "highly-skilled worker" visa, but that requires you to have a sponsoring employer in Europe - which means you won't be getting that fancy American salary. And you'll also have to pay local taxes...

In practice almost no companies let you do this.

If you know of one that does and is hiring, please share...

QoL is more important than hustle culture to most people

Yeah, pretty much. You can make enough money in 10-15 years in tech in America to last a lifetime in Europe, even without the remote job.

With 6-9h timezone difference? Even if a company will allow this (and few will), it's very hard to pull off, and your social/family life will suffer big time.

I know people who manage to do this, but it's difficult, and not really worth it unless you have a seriously amazing job.

Maybe during Covid. Now many companies are making employees RTO

Where is the Frisco, TX of Europe?

I'd even go as far as saying the authoritarianism has a causal relation with the impending recession, the acceleration of the de-dollarization of foreign commerce, and the unavoidable collapse of the "Pax Americana" that came after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Moving to Europe is a smart move, but, having complete freedom, I'd think about someplace in the southern hemisphere. I believe Chile and Brazil will be stable for the next 20 years or so and have good overlap with US timezones. And both are quite far from most of the impending clusterfuck happening in Eastern Europe.

What? The gap between US and Europe is increasing at a faster rate. If anything, economically Europe looks bleak compared to not just the US but growing countries in Asia.

Even by PPP, US looks better.

https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-the-economic-...

Isolation breeds difference, but not diversity.

That’s quite a takeaway from an interaction with only 2 different people.

so all Europeans suck, eh?

You'd be surprised. I personally know plenty of American LGBT+ people who are at least considering moving to the EU, simply because recent political developments has made the US an increasingly-unsafe country for them to live in.

Wouldn't this (unsubstantiated claim, but let's play along) be more troubling though?

It would be one thing if people who are "unaffiliated USA citizens[0]" moved to an imaginary place where the grass is greener. You could argue they don't know about all the problems of that place.

It's maybe more concerning if the people who flew Place A, because of all the problems of Place A, looking for greener grass in Country B, are looking around and going "hey you know what? Place A wasn't so bad after all. The grass only looked greener because it's plastic!" and then go back.

[0]: let's acknowledge we're just talking shades of the same color, when referring to a country that's 250 years old. Nobody's "from there" really

My family has been in America for... I dunno, 8 generations? A long time. I'm moving.

I don't have any connection to Europe. I just don't want to live under America's increasing fascism and would rather contribute to a just society.