Retirement Visa Vs. Tourist Visa Comparison

[OnMyWay]

I think I read most of the visa threads, but I don't recall seeing something that I was thinking about doing.

Has anyone made or seen a side by side comparison of the pros and cons of the two options, tourist vs. retirement visa. Marriage will probably have to wait a while a while so I will probably need to choose one of those soon. My girlfriend and I are both Virgos so we like to see things laid out logically! :)

Some of the line items I was thinking of comparing:

Costs (including amortizing initial fees over a few years, etc.)

Frequency of renewal (trips to renew, etc.)

Cost to have someone do the renewal for you?

Need to leave country every so often

Duty exemption on goods

Other pros and cons

If somebody has started this, I could use it and / or enhance it. If not, I can build it and post it for everyone to sanity check.

Thanks!

Don

[Dave Hounddriver]

My situation is, better to pay every second month a moderate amount than to put a lot of money up front. It is why I have not seriously considered, or even compared, a retirement visa. It is an interesting topic and I hope you get a lot of responses.

[Curley]

I am faced with making a similar decision and have yet to make any serious investigation. The lump sum deposit is no problem if I get a decent return and it's safe.

[Genius]

I remember reading somewhere the return on the lump sum, was pretty negligible, because you have to deposit in certain authorised banks and the deposit generates a kick back to the Phils Gov, taken from the putative interest earnt.

Assuming, the actual deposit amount was safe, which I ve no opnion on, I was further put off by the bureacracy involved in getting a release of the funds if you decided to cancel. I wonder, anyone gone through getting the deposit back later ?

[OnMyWay]

I am faced with making a similar decision and have yet to make any serious investigation. The lump sum deposit is no problem if I get a decent return and it's safe.

Yes, and the other carrot for me is that you can bring in $7000 in goods duty free. If I decide to only ship BB boxes, that will probably not be a concern.

[Curley]

I am faced with making a similar decision and have yet to make any serious investigation. The lump sum deposit is no problem if I get a decent return and it's safe.

Yes, and the other carrot for me is that you can bring in $7000 in goods duty free. If I decide to only ship BB boxes, that will probably not be a concern.

I'm not certain that the duty free goods is worth that much, I have some very nice furniture that i would quite like to keep but the cost of shipping it seems to make it a lot of hassle and $7.000 is not much unless of course you can get away with devaluing it as second hand goods. I also have no idea where I'll eventually end up living and shipping furniture and stuff around the Phils could be a nightmare I imagine.

Retiring, moving countries and starting a whole new lifestyle...... I may as well dump virtually everything and start again once I'm sure where (and with whom) I will settle.

which route to take for visas I will decide one day maybe if I have time in my retirement.

[OnMyWay]

I remember reading somewhere the return on the lump sum, was pretty negligible, because you have to deposit in certain authorised banks and the deposit generates a kick back to the Phils Gov, taken from the putative interest earnt.

Assuming, the actual deposit amount was safe, which I ve no opnion on, I was further put off by the bureacracy involved in getting a release of the funds if you decided to cancel. I wonder, anyone gone through getting the deposit back later ?

I think most of the major PI banks can be used. I am under the impression it is a normal bank account of your choice, but tied to the PRA. It is possible to get at least 2.5% interest on a BPI account, and that is 2 points better than I can get in the US on a savings account.

Yes, good question. I hope someone has some experience getting the deposit back and will post it. I will eventually convert to a 13a, so I am not too concerned about the speed of getting it back.

[OnMyWay]

I am faced with making a similar decision and have yet to make any serious investigation. The lump sum deposit is no problem if I get a decent return and it's safe.

Yes, and the other carrot for me is that you can bring in $7000 in goods duty free. If I decide to only ship BB boxes, that will probably not be a concern.

I'm not certain that the duty free goods is worth that much, I have some very nice furniture that i would quite like to keep but the cost of shipping it seems to make it a lot of hassle and $7.000 is not much unless of course you can get away with devaluing it as second hand goods. I also have no idea where I'll eventually end up living and shipping furniture and stuff around the Phils could be a nightmare I imagine.

Retiring, moving countries and starting a whole new lifestyle...... I may as well dump virtually everything and start again once I'm sure where (and with whom) I will settle.

which route to take for visas I will decide one day maybe if I have time in my retirement.

Yes, we are on the same page and in the same situation. $7000 is not a lot. I was surprised when I saw this low amount.

Decisions, decisions!

[Dave Hounddriver]

I remember reading somewhere the return on the lump sum, was pretty negligible,

My bank in Cebu tried to sell me on the idea and only offered .05% per annum on the money which they said I could not touch as long as I was living here on a retirement visa. Again, no research, only what the bank told me and it did not sound good.

[OnMyWay]

only offered .05% per annum on the money

Yeah, that would probably be a deal breaker for me. Somebody is pocketing the full interest.