More and more Americans are living abroad – but that trend may soon change

Following years of open arms, countries across the globe are beginning to close their doors to digital nomads and eliminate special perks for foreigners. Think: Semisonic’s “Closing Time” just came on at the bar – you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

Maybe the most impacted by this nascent trend are young American nomads, who over the past few years have been increasingly channeling Emily in Paris and moving abroad:

• The number of Americans living in Spain grew by 13% from 2019 to 2021, and home sales to US citizens jumped 88% from the first half of 2019 to the first half of 2022.
• ~10,000 Americans were living in Portugal last year, a 239% increase when compared to 2017.
• In France and Italy, demand from Americans looking to move in July 2022 was the highest it had been in at least three years, Bloomberg reports.

🤔 Behind the data: Research from Tufts University indicates that while there are many potential reasons for US citizens wanting to move out of the country – cost of living, political reasons, etc. – the main driving factor is to explore or have an adventure.

Combine that impulse with opportunity – more than 60% of the 50 existing digital nomad visa programs or special permits were created after the Covid pandemic’s onset in 2020 – and voila! A perfect nomadic storm.

• The number of Americans identifying as digital nomads, aka they combine remote work with travel, more than doubled from seven million in 2019 to 15 million in 2021.

❌ Looking ahead… While the introduction of visas attracting remote American workers boomed during the pandemic, countries are increasingly eliminating these programs due to rising home prices… which are being blamed on the influx of foreign workers. And even though, according to data reported by Bloomberg, associating out-of-country nomads with rising home prices may be an unfair conflation, the digital nomadic party appears to be past its peak.