I got the gold card. Super easy. Filled out a form online and uploaded my 2020 usa tax return proving my income. You don't even need a job lined up. 100x easier than moving to the USA.
It took about 4-5 hours of my time and 8 weeks of waiting for the government to approve it.
I got really lucky. I had a friend of a friend who I moved in with. He found his apartment through an agent who speaks English. Send me an email if you end up making the plunge and I'll connect you with our agent.
If you're considering a similar move: just do it. For real. It's not going to get any better any time soon internationally. It's easily the best decision I could have made. If you're worried about money either get a remote dev job or even just teach English here, there's a million schools around. It's incredibly cheap to live here compared to metro USA ($3000 USD/month gets you an upper class life, all in, including dining out, gym, drinks etc. You'll probably spend less than that if you even remotely budget). You can live a great life as a single person on even less than that.
It took about 4-5 hours of my time and 8 weeks of waiting for the government to approve it.
I got really lucky. I had a friend of a friend who I moved in with. He found his apartment through an agent who speaks English. Send me an email if you end up making the plunge and I'll connect you with our agent.
If you're considering a similar move: just do it. For real. It's not going to get any better any time soon internationally. It's easily the best decision I could have made. If you're worried about money either get a remote dev job or even just teach English here, there's a million schools around. It's incredibly cheap to live here compared to metro USA ($3000 USD/month gets you an upper class life, all in, including dining out, gym, drinks etc. You'll probably spend less than that if you even remotely budget). You can live a great life as a single person on even less than that.