No. of Recommendations: 8
Nice board!
Around 15 years ago, I did a sabbatical in Portugal (Lisbon) for the year. I am a USA citizen (and only hold a US passport). Things probably have changed in the intervening years, but there were a few things that were a bit of a challenge at the time, and things I wish someone else had pointed me to.
(1) Obviously, tax issues with being on a US passport come up. One of the things that helped was that I was *NOT* working when in Portugal, but rather drawing my sabbatical pay in the US. I was, however, able to deduct all of my living expenses while there (which spanned over the two tax years) thus reducing my tax burden rather substantially (to the point where though I was a 2/3 pay due to sabbatical, I made up the difference by renting out my house and lower taxes).
(2) Communications: this has probably become much less of an issue, but getting local phone numbers and still having access to calls back to the US were quite tricky at the time. I relied on Skype for international calls, and bought local cell phones. These days, you can just get a sim card and switch out your smartphone to a local number and still have texts and the like come through (or you can have two phones, or you can just pay for the international roaming on your phone and keep your US number).
(3) Bank accounts: this turned out to be the biggest hassle. As Manlobbi pointed out, US FATCA laws make it very difficult and unpleasant to open a bank account in another country. This makes paying for rent and things like this also challanging. At the time, everything in PT was done via wire transfer, which required a local (or at least European) bank account. For the first several months I was just pulling money out of the local ATMs and paying exorbitant currency exchange fees, until I was finally able to open a bank account. It looks lots of paperwork and was very frustrating.
(4) Renting cars: this was actually quite easy. Everytime we wanted to take a trip into the countryside, I would just rent a car from the local shop. I found that making the reservation through the internet got me much better rates and I was always able to get a car available. The difference between walking in and asking for a car to making the reservation the night before "from the US website" was about 3X.
It was a fun year, and Portugal was a pretty great place. Food was excellent, prices quite reasonable, and many many interesting things to see and do. Getting used to the later schedule (people don't go out until 10PM) and making local friends was more challenging, but that is part of the fun of living overseas. It probably helped that I could already speak portuguese (Brazilian version), but people were very friendly and welcoming.
--G
