Truth is, it is hard, difficult and unlikely for most Americans:
Generally speaking, most people live abroad because of a job or remote work, school, a path to residency or citizenship through a relative, or personal wealth. Absent those scenarios, an American’s access to a new life in a different country narrows considerably.
Want to Move Abroad? Here Are Five Ways to Do It. – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Once again, if you want to move abroad you most likely will need either:
- a study/education visa for study abroad
- a work visa due to a job, or an internal international company transfer (you may also need to be under age 35 to 55 as some countries restrict immigrants to younger ages)
- Relatives: marry a foreign citizen (not a guarantee of residency but smooths the process)
- Relatives: have right-of-descent ancestry (your parent, or in some countries, grandparent or great-grandparent was a citizen which entitles you to citizenship or residency, possibly with other qualifications), or you have prior dual-citizenship.
- have wealth, make a very large investment, and obtain a residency visa
- If you don’t fit into the above, qualifying for residency will be difficult or impossible (in most countries – but there are exceptions)
If you are not in those categories, with a few exceptions, getting a residency visa, let alone citizenship, is difficult or impossible. Digital nomad visas, now available in some countries to those who are remote workers or self-employed, can open a path to an extended stay – but not permanent residency.
In 2023-2024, I reviewed nearly 250 stories about Americans moving abroad, and the largest single category for visas (about 1/3d) was “marriage” and 90% of those were young American women who married a foreigner. If you don’t fall into the above categories – good luck.
Finally, a hat top to Rhonda Kaysen of the NY Times for writing an accurate article about moving abroad – this being a topic that most of the media does with fluffy content mill quality (see Business Insider for that nonsense!). A good and accurate article!