Which country has the best tax regime for people moving in?

There is no single answer. Several European countries offer regimes to people who move in, from a fixed annual tax on foreign income to exemptions on work income, and outside Europe some countries have no income tax at all. For the same family, several can produce a similar result. The conditions, the cost and the time you must spend there differ, and the rules change. The place the family wants to live is usually the better starting point.

Is the Cyprus 60-day rule an easy way to become tax resident?

It can work, but it has conditions. Among them, you must not be tax resident in any other country in the same year, you must keep a home in Cyprus, and you must have a business, a job or a directorship in Cyprus. You must also spend no more than 183 days in any one other country. The country you are leaving decides by its own rules whether you are still resident there.

Do these regimes last?

They are policy and they change. In recent years some countries have raised the price of their regime, others have closed it to newcomers or replaced it with a narrower one. People already in a regime are sometimes protected, sometimes not. A choice based only on the current terms carries that risk.

Can I live in one country and keep my family office or holding company in another?

Often, yes, and within the EU dividends can usually pass between companies in different member states without tax being withheld, provided the holding is large enough and the structure is real. But a company is generally resident where it is really run. If the decisions are taken where the family lives, the company may be treated as resident there.

Can you arrange tax residence outside Cyprus?

Yes. Our own practice is in Cyprus. Where a family chooses another country, we work with advisers there whom we know and trust, and we coordinate the move with the advisers in the country the family is leaving.

Moving for Tax? Decide Where to Live First

When people talk to me about moving to Cyprus, the first questions are about tax. What is the rate, how long does it last, how many days do I need to spend there. They are fair questions, and they are usually why the conversation starts. But they are not the first question. The first question is where the family actually wants to live.

The menu is long

Cyprus is one option among many, and the others come with real numbers. Greece offers people who move there a fixed EUR 100,000 a year on their foreign income, however large, plus EUR 20,000 for each family member who joins, and asks for a Greek investment of EUR 500,000 within three years. Italy offers the same idea at EUR 300,000 a year, plus EUR 50,000 per family member, for people arriving from 2026. Malta's new programme from 2027 taxes foreign income brought into the country at 15%, with a minimum of EUR 35,000 a year and a home bought for at least EUR 700,000 or rented for at least EUR 14,000 a year. Portugal now offers 20% on income from qualifying work for ten years, but nothing to someone who simply moves there to live off their investments. Bulgaria has a flat income tax rate of 10%. Most Gulf states have no personal income tax. Cyprus asks no annual payment: dividends and interest of people who are not domiciled here are free of the defence contribution for up to seventeen years.

Each comes with its own conditions: how long you must have lived elsewhere, what you must invest, what stays taxed, what the family members pay, and how many days you must spend there. Laid side by side, several of them produce a similar tax bill for the same family. But the tax bill is only one of the costs of a move, and often not the largest. Income tax is also not the only tax that moves with you. Some of these countries tax what you leave to your children, and some do not.

There is the cost of being far from parents and old friends. The cost to a spouse who leaves a career behind, or to children who start again in a new school and a new language. The cost of the opportunities you no longer hear about because you are no longer in the room. And against all of that, how much you enjoy the place on an ordinary Tuesday, long after the move has stopped being new.

Few people buy the cheapest clothes or choose a restaurant only on price. They pay for what they value and know why. Where a family lives is a bigger decision than either, and the lowest tax bill is not always the best value.

The rules move

These regimes are policy, and policy changes. In the last few years some countries have raised the annual price of their regime, sometimes more than once. Others have closed their regime to newcomers or replaced it with something narrower. A decision taken only on today's price can look very different five years later, after the family has moved, the children have changed school and the house has been bought. If the regime changes, a family that chose the place for its own sake is still somewhere it wants to be.

The days are part of your life

Some routes ask for very little time in the country. In Cyprus, under the right conditions, sixty days a year can be enough to be tax resident. It sounds easy. It is two months of every year. Over ten years it is six hundred days, close to a year and eight months of your life. Over the seventeen years the non-dom status can last, it is more than two years and nine months.

And sixty days is the short route. Most countries look for more than half the year, or for the place where your home and family are. Over the same seventeen years, that is more than eight years spent in the place you chose.

The minimum-day routes also come with conditions that people miss. You must not be tax resident anywhere else, and the country you are leaving decides that by its own rules, not by your days in Cyprus. A home kept and used there, a family that stays behind, can be enough to keep you resident where you were. So the days spent somewhere you would rather not be may not even settle the question.

The same place, two different lives

For some families Cyprus is a place in the sun, close to everything that matters to them. For others it is an island a long way from their friends, their parents and the city they know. Milan is a great city for some and too big for others. Lisbon is the place to be for one family and too far from home for the next.

The tax law says nothing about any of this, and this is what decides whether the move lasts. When moves go wrong, it is rarely because the tax was miscalculated. It is because someone in the family did not settle.

So we start with the family

So when a family comes to us about moving, the first questions are not about tax.

Do you want a place to live, or a base to travel from? Some families want a home where they spend most of the year. Others want somewhere to come back to between trips, and for them what matters is the airport and the flights more than the town.

Where do you travel to most often? A base two direct flights from your business, your parents and your holidays is a different life from one that needs a connection every time.

Do the children need schools, and in which language? An English, German or French curriculum is easy to find in some places and hard in others, and the answer can decide the city before the country.

Would you like a community to join, people from your own country or other families who have moved, or would you rather settle among locals? In some places you will find people from home and a wider international circle. In others you will mostly be among locals, which some families want and others find lonely.

Only then do we look at the tax.

Where you live and where the family's affairs sit

Living in one country does not mean everything has to sit there. Some families live where they want to live and keep their holding company or family office somewhere else, where it suits the business. Within the EU, dividends can usually pass between companies in different member states without tax being withheld on the way, provided the holding is large enough and the structure is real, so a family holding company in one country can own businesses in others.

It works only if the company is really run where it says it is. A company is generally treated as resident where the decisions that run it are actually taken. If the family head takes those decisions at the kitchen table in their new home, the company may be treated as resident there too, whatever its papers say. The country where you live may also have its own rules for taxing foreign companies its residents control. The structure needs its own people, its own board and its own decisions in the place where it sits. We have written about what decides where a company is resident.

Once the place is clear, the tax work follows. Cyprus is our home and our practice. Where the family chooses somewhere else, we work with advisers in that country whom we know and trust, and we coordinate the advisers on both sides until the move is done. The country they are leaving often has its own say on when they are really gone. Some also tax the gain on your shares as if you had sold them on the day you left, and some keep taxing former residents for years after.

Choose the place first. The tax can usually be made to work around a good choice, and rarely makes up for a bad one.

People ask me about tax rates. I ask them where they want to live.