They want you to move so bad they'll give you cash, a house or a special visa

In the past, governments seeking jobs for residents and outside money to stimulate the local economy lured businesses with financial incentives. Now, they're doing the same to lure people.

Economically speaking, a digital nomad is a cash pipeline. They earn money from one place and spend it in another. 

Take me, for example. I'm currently living temporarily in Oaxaca, Mexico. American companies give me American dollars for the work I do, and I spend nearly all of it here in Mexico. My money comes from advertising spends and subscription fees in the United States and ends up in the hands of Mexican farmers, Oaxaca restaurant owners and their employees, the person who owns the house I rent and his employees, local Mezcal makers, bakeries and their employees, local taxi drivers, people who work at the local markets and grocery stores and so on. 

For the Mexican and Oaxacan governments seeking services and income for their constituents, I am a gold mine. I spend money on locals just like the locals do — but I don't take a job from a local.

With the pandemic and its impact on tourist businesses globally, plus the rise of remote work, governments of all sizes have caught on, creatively offering incentives to lure nomads and expats. These range from special entry requirements to cheap homes to cold hard cash. 

These offers have become competitive. Here's what governments are doing to reel you in. 

The state of the state incentives

Some American states are intelligently trying to woo internal digital nomads and entrepreneurs. There are currently 11 states that will pay you to move there in amounts ranging from $1,600 to $16,000. The website MakeMyMove.com keeps track of all the offers and lets you browse them systematically. 

The "digital nomad visas" 

A new kind of so-called "visa" is emerging, as smart countries realize the gigantic economic benefit of visitors who work remotely. (It's actually most often a special residency category, rather than a visa.)

Estonia recently became the latest nation to choose the addition of rules expressly for people coming to the country temporarily as they work for a foreign company -- freelancers, for example. Under the Estonian Digital Nomad Visa, digital nomads will be allowed to stay up to one year, which is nine months longer than the current 3-month maximum. (You'll have to demonstrate reasonable income that comes from a non-Estonian company. Applications open August 1.)

Croatia recently launched a “Digital Nomad Visa,” explicitly to attract nomads to live and work in the country for at least a year at a time. 

The Island nation of Barbados began last August a new entry rule called the "12-month Barbados Welcome Stamp," which doubles the amount of time Americans are allowed to stay in the country (Americans don't need visas to visit Barbados, and this isn't a visa). Barbados is also revising the country's tax code to make sure that anyone visiting under the new "Welcome Stamp" won't have to pay local taxes. And you won't have to demonstrate income or foreign employment. 

Czech Republic offers something they call their "zivno visa," which is a long-term visa for freelancers and entrepreneurs. 

Germany offers a "freiberufler visa" for freelancers coming from Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, the United States and South Korea. 

Spain has something called a "non-lucrative visa," for long-stay visitors who have outside income and their own health insurance. 

Portugal offers both a "self-employment visa" and an "entrepreneur visa." 

You can also apply for a Netherlands Independent Entrepreneur Visa, which enables you to stay in The Netherlands long term if you can demonstrate that your business benefits the country and its citizens. 

These European visas are a great way to get around the brutal Shengen requirements. 

Costa Rica's Rentista lets you stay in the country for two years, as long as your professional services benefit Costa Ricans and you have steady income. 

Mexico's temporary resident visa lets you (with renewals) stay up to four years, with the main requirement being that you have to keep a minimum of roughly $30,000 in the bank. 

They'll even give you a free house! (Or, at least a cheap one.)

Small towns face the same problem all over the world. Young people move away to find jobs. The more people move, the more economically depressed a town becomes. Eventually, towns end up with large numbers of homes that are vacant for decades or more. If the trend isn't arrested, the town is abandoned and becomes a ghost town. 

So mayors in European towns are offering abandoned homes to foreigners with foreign incomes, often for the token amount of a Euro or two, with the stipulation that the house must be refurbished.

More than 20 towns in Italy are offering such deals, which are catalogued on the website One Euro Houses. 

Each of the deals offered is a little different from the others. Sometimes that Euro is just the opening bid, and each house goes to the highest bidder (which sometimes bids only a thousand or two Euros — sometimes 20 thousand or more Euros). On top of the actual price, the restoration costs can range from a few thousand dollars to dozens of thousands. But in almost every case, the new owners end up with a home that costs a fraction of what they would pay back home. 

The promotion generally works. I've noticed that in Italy in particular, Italians don't seem to like old, drafty, leaky centuries-old houses and prefer modern ones. But foreigners go weak at the knees for old houses they often lovingly restore into a dream house. 

New residents bring new life into these small villages. First, they hire construction and restoration crews, plumbers, engineers and others. They help beautify the town, encouraging tourism. And by living there they spend their foreign-earned money buying food, furniture and other items. What sounds like a gimmick could actually save these towns. 

The Italian town of Molise even offered to pay $800 per month for 3 years if foreigners moved there and started a business. And the Italian village of Santo Stefano di Sessanio, just two hours drive from Rome, is offering people up to $52,500 in grants to move there, as long as they start a business or work locally. The catch is that you need to be no older than 40.

The new technology that will make moving amazing

The pandemic taught everyone that it's OK — preferable to most — to work from home. And if you can work from home, you can work from anywhere.

The incentives for cash, cheap homes and special residency rules come almost exclusively from places that don't have modern infrastructure. For example, picturesque cottages in Barbados and medieval hill-top villages in Italy are lovely. But the internet sucks.

Right on time, here comes Starlink, and other satellite internet services. SpaceX's Starlink is driving forward with fiber-like speeds for internet connectivity from just about anywhere in the world at low prices. This service is the final puzzle for taking advantage of the incentives offered by governments around the world for you to move there. (Expect Starlink to be fully up and running wherever you choose to live within a year or two.)

So if you're able to work remotely and are thinking about living elsewhere permanently or temporarily, you now have many incentives options to chose from. Your very existence is monetarily valuable to the locations you move to. So you might as well get paid to move there.