What are digital nomads?

Thailand has joined the likes of Spain, Indonesia, Dubai and Portugal by offering visas for travellers to stay and work as "digital nomads".

These visitors "bring extra money into local economies" so a huge number of nations are "trying their damnedest to attract remote workers to live and work on their shores", said Time Out.

What are digital nomads?

A digital nomad visa allows you to legally live and work remotely in another country. Dozens of nations are offering digital nomad visas and each has its own rules and conditions. 

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Typically, there is a visa fee and a maximum time you can stay, although the period covered by a visa varies between countries. Thailand is offering the right to stay for 180 days a year, said Time Out, with an option to extend it for another 180 days. Previously, European tourists could visit the country on a visa exemption for 30 days, with the chance to extend their stay for a further 30 days, but they were not permitted to work during their stay.

Which other countries have visa schemes?

Nearly 60 countries offer variations on the digital nomad scheme. Spain's remote work visa offers non-EU nationals the chance to live and work in the country for up to five years, while in Portugal the visa allows for temporary stays of up to one year but it can be renewed for up to five years.

Dubai's remote working visa scheme is valid for one year and Italy, Malaysia, Costa Rica and Estonia also all offer 12 months. Some countries allow you to renew. Montenegro lets you stay for up to two years.

What do you need to apply?

Countries usually require you to prove your income, and the minimum acceptable income varies by nation. Generally, you will also have to prove you have no criminal record and show that you have health insurance.

Thailand has yet to release full details of how to qualify for its scheme, but it has confirmed that to apply for the visa, you must be at least 20 years old, with at least 500,000 baht (£10,600) in your bank account and proof of employment with a registered company.

Some countries have stricter terms. For instance, Japan's conditions are "steep", said the BBC. Applicants must show they earn a minimum income of ¥10 million (about £54,000).

What are the pros and cons?

Some digital nomads find the experience is stressful, lonely and unstable, said Citizen Remote. It's also "easy to get distracted from your work when you're in a beautiful country for the first time and want to go sightseeing".

But lots of people have enjoyed it. Simone Flynn moved from the UK to Bali, which is seven hours ahead of the UK. "Generally I'll have a slow-ish morning," she told Time Out, involving coffee, a workout, some brunch and exploration. Then she's "back home in time to start work early afternoon".

Pinak Pushkar, who moved to Moraira in southeastern Spain in April last year, told Euronews that the lifestyle is "so much better" than London. "Here we have a villa, with a swimming pool and I can look out at the sea and the food is good," he said.

Prithwiraj Choudhury, who researches the changing geography of work at the Harvard Business School, says the benefits for host nations are also significant.

"First of all, the remote worker is spending consumption dollars in the local economy," he told the BBC. "More than that, they are also making connections with the local entrepreneurs."

The normalisation of the digital nomad is not without its backlash. In some countries, the influx of remote workers, usually from richer countries, has been blamed for "fuelling gentrification and pricing out locals", Jan Bednorz, an economics researcher at the University of Tartu in Estonia, wrote on The Conversation. However, for tourist-dependent economies, digital nomads offer "a steady, year-round stream of relatively long-term, well-off visitors".