It is very common to misuse the word visa when it comes to immigration. You can’t live somewhere on a visa. The visa is what allows you to enter. You can enter countries on tourist visas, retirement visas, digital nomad visas, student visas, family re-unification visas, and more. But, that visa expires in 20, 60, 90, or 120 usually. After that visa expires, you will need to have converted your status to residency. I entered Japan on an ancestry visa, but then converted that to a long term residency permit. I entered Portugal on a D7 visa, but then converted that to a two-year temporary residency card. After some period of legal residency there are opportunities to gain citizenship. It is required that you have a least one citizenship, so you can’t renounce your only citizenship until you have gained a new one. 🆘🇺🇸

We need to go over a little moving abroad vocabulary because all of us are guilty of using the wrong words And that muddies the situation of what it really means to move abroad in this video I'm going to define visas residency and citizenship so that you can understand the differences and what exactly they mean Now I will admit I am totally guilty of misusing the word visa I often say I live in Portugal on a D7 visa. That is not accurate A visa is actually the thing that allows you to enter the country When somebody is applying for a visa to go move somewhere and they are getting approved for the Digital nomad visa the passive income visa the retirement visa That is actually something that they put in your passport that allows you to Inter as a future resident not as a tourist now American a lot of times don't think about visas because so many of the places historically at least it's changing rapidly or Places that we get visas on arrival and that just means you show up in a new country and they stamp your passport And that is your entry visa into the country as a tourist and that visa actually comes with a lot of rules involved with it Namely, it does not allow you to work tourist visas do not almost ever allow you to work in that country that you're going into Whereas if you're applying for a digital nomad visa and you're getting that put in your passport and then you're entering the country on that visa Then you're allowed to work because you've already come into an agreement with the government by getting that Entry visa, but visas themselves generally expire in 30 60 90 120 days in some cases and then it converts to residency So those are visas of which you enter the country, but then once you're there You are a resident of the country usually have to go to an office and present yourself and and get some additional paperwork done And then you get some sort of residency Document, so I actually do not live in Portugal on a D7 visa. I am a D7 Residency holder and they're actually different things if you're new here I'm Veronica and five years ago. I left the United States for good now I teach Americans how they can apply for visas around the world and get access to live in countries outside of America So that you can escape that chaos. I've had the privilege of living in Dominican Republic, Japan, and now Portugal I teach you how you can do that kind of thing too. Now once you live in a country and you have residency There's short-term residency and there's long-term residency and there's permanent residency and every country has different rules involving all of these different things in terms of how often you have to reapply But even for permanent residency most places you have to reapply every 10 maybe 20 years You have to still do more paperwork. So the word permanent is a little iffy on what exactly that means It just means much longer than the shorter terms that residency's often are I've lived in places on one year residencies that I've had that were new every single year I'm here in Portugal on a two-year residency It just depends on the circumstances how long they grant that residency But typically those are renewable Now citizenship is the next level citizenship is when you are going to be able to get a passport from that country That's when you're going to be able to vote in that country Residents get certain rights in terms of access to healthcare citizens get voting rights and access to a passport So while it is common for those of us living in other countries to say I live here on a digital nomad visa or a retirement visa We actually mean we live here on that kind of residency. We are on a government program where we have gained residency to live in that country A lot of times there are tax implications that go along with that Especially depending on how long we state in the country But it also gives us certain rights such as being able to work in the country Get access to drivers licenses in the country and access their internal health programs I hope that helps you understand that we're all sort of using the word visa way too much The visa that I moved here on is expired. It was only good for three months I had to enter on the visa within three months because that expired I needed to convert that into residency in order to continue living here The visa is what you enter in on and the residency is what allows you to continue living there