How to read this
Nobody in this report made a mistake. Every one of them was right on the day they posted. Then the law moved underneath them, which is the whole point.
We counted something as a change only when a government document says so and carries a date. Where something was already wrong on the day it was written, we say that instead of pretending it went stale later.
The five plans are blends. Each one combines two or more real public posts and puts them in our own words, because a quote you can paste into a search box leads straight back to a real person. No names, no usernames, no links to the original posts.
Read the tally as well as the rows. The mix of verdicts a plan ends up with is the finding, and it is rarely the mix the loudest coverage would have predicted.
- Broke
- this part of the plan no longer works
- Moved
- it still works, but it costs more or takes longer
- Held
- nothing changed
- Already gone
- this was wrong before they even wrote it
- Never came
- people expected it, and it never became law
- Open
- we could not find the official document, so we make no claim
Portugal
Based on posts from February 2025
A family of three, moving on the D7, expecting passports in five years
Two parents and a young child, moving on the D7 visa for people living on income they already have. The plan was for all three to apply for Portuguese citizenship after five years. This was the most common Portugal plan being written that winter, and the one with the most riding on a single number.
What they were actually worried about
The question they actually asked was whether their child would qualify at the same time as the parents. Someone replied asking who knows whether the rules will even be the same in five years. That reply got its answer in fifteen months.
Citizenship after five years of living there legally
the number the whole plan was built on
BrokeIt is ten years now, not five. Portugal kept a shorter wait of seven years for EU citizens and for people from Portuguese-speaking countries such as Brazil. Everybody else waits ten, and that includes Canadians and Britons.
sete anos, no caso de nacionais de países de língua oficial portuguesa e de cidadãos de Estados-Membros da União Europeia, ou 10 anos, no caso de nacionais de outros países
- Lei Organica 1/2026, de 18 de maioDiario da Republica 1.a serie n.o 95in force 2026-05-19
We moved before the change, so the old five-year rule is ours
the next thing almost everyone assumes
BrokeMoving early does not protect you. The only people who keep the five-year rule are those who had already handed in a citizenship application before the law changed. If you were living in Portugal and had not applied yet, you are on ten years, no matter how many years you have already been there.
Years I spent away still count toward the total
BrokeOnly if they fall close enough together. Your years now have to sit inside one window, and how wide it is depends on your passport. Twelve years if you hold one from outside the EU and outside the Portuguese-speaking countries. Nine years if you are inside either. Move away for a long stretch and your earliest years drop off the back of it.
An expired residence card is fine while you wait for an appointment
the standard advice in every Portugal thread that winter
BrokeThat stopped on 15 October 2025. Until then an expired card still counted while you waited. Now it does not, unless you have already started your renewal. People had been relying on the old arrangement since 2020.
Após o dia 15 de outubro de 2025, as Autorizações de Residência cuja validade se encontra expirada deixam de estar válidas caso o titular ainda não tenha iniciado o processo de renovação.
- AIMA notice, 15 October 2025in force 2025-10-15
You need EUR 870 a month to qualify for the D7
MovedIt is EUR 920 a month now. The figure tracks the Portuguese minimum wage, and that wage went up on 1 January 2026. One adult applying alone now needs to show EUR 11,040 a year instead of EUR 10,440. Portugal's own visa page was still showing the old number when we checked.
Family can follow us over later without much trouble
BrokeIt takes longer for a husband or wife. You have to hold a valid residence permit for two years first, or fifteen months if they already lived with you for eighteen months. Children you support are the exception and can come straight away. Portugal also made the checks on your housing and income stricter at the same time.
- Lei 61/2025, de 22 de outubroDiario da Republica 1.a serie n.o 204in force 2025-10-23
Permanent residence after five years
HeldThis did not change. Permanent residence still opens at five years. Citizenship is the part that moved.
The NHR scheme taxes you at a flat 20%
still being repeated constantly in early 2025
Already goneThis was already wrong when they wrote it. NHR shut its doors to newcomers on 1 January 2024, thirteen months earlier. The scheme that replaced it only counts income paid to you by a Portuguese company, so it does nothing for someone working remotely for a foreign employer or freelancing for clients abroad.
That was one plan of five
That plan fell apart. The other four are the interesting part.
Portugal is the one that broke, and it broke on the citizenship rules rather than on tax, which is where everybody looks. What happened to the other four was not what anybody expected. One came through completely untouched. Several of the changes people were most afraid of never became law at all.
The whole report is free. Nothing to pay, now or later. It just needs an email address.
- 4 more plans, worked through the same way: Spain, Greece, Thailand, Malaysia
- Which of them came through untouched, and why Greece was the one that did
- 4 changes people were afraid of that never became law, with the official records we searched to be sure
- 4 government websites still publishing figures their own law has overtaken
- 8 questions we could not answer, and what it would take to answer them
- The short version, and the scoreboard for all five plans on one screen
The address goes on the rule-change alert: one email when a rule moves in a country we cover, never a drip campaign, and one click unsubscribes. We do not share addresses. You will get a confirmation link to finish signing up, and the report opens straight away without waiting for it.
The short version
Checked 2026-08-11
- 01One of the five plans no longer works. The other four still do, and three of them now cost more than they did.
- 02What broke the failed plan was not tax. Portugal doubled the wait for citizenship from five years to ten, and moving there early buys you nothing: only people who had already filed keep the old rule.
- 03Four of the changes people were most afraid of never became law at all. Thailand did not tax worldwide income. Spain did not bring in a 100% tax on foreign buyers.
- 04One plan came through completely untouched. Every number in the Greek plan reads the same today as it did in February 2025.
- 05The cost moves even when the rules do not. A foreigner buying a home in Malaysia now pays 8% stamp duty instead of 4%, and 6% on private healthcare that a Malaysian does not pay.
- 06Four of the five governments have figures on their own websites that their own law has already overtaken. Spain's own consulate still publishes last year's income floor for its remote-work visa.
Scoreboard
Eighteen months of rule changes, measured against what each plan was counting on.
Portugal
The whole point of the plan is gone. Five years to a passport became ten, with nothing set aside for people already living there.
5Broke1Moved1Held1Already goneSpain
One real break, hidden in the renewal rules. The tax rise everyone was quoting still is not law.
2Broke1Moved3Held1Never cameGreece
Came through untouched. Every number this plan rests on reads the same today as it did in February 2025.
7Held1Already goneThailand
Visa unchanged. Getting in got harder. Both things this crowd worried about never happened.
4Moved1Held2Never came1OpenMalaysia
Same visa, bigger bill. Three new charges land on foreigners in particular, and none of them are on the visa.
3Moved5Held1Already gone1Open
Spain
Based on posts from February to April 2025
An early retiree on the non-lucrative visa, splitting the year in two
Someone who retired early and lives on a pension, retirement account withdrawals and rent, with their savings and property staying at home. The route in was Spain's non-lucrative visa, and the plan was to spend part of the year in Spain and part elsewhere, so as not to become a Spanish taxpayer. Blended from two posts six weeks apart.
What they were actually worried about
The worry they stated was paying a lot more tax as a Spanish resident than at home. The plan they described was roughly half the year in Spain and half somewhere else, to stay under the line.
Keep the visa, keep the days down, stay out of the Spanish tax net
what half the Spain threads were describing that winter
BrokeSpain now checks that you really live there. To renew this visa you have to have spent more than 183 days in Spain during the calendar year. The old rules asked for nothing of the kind. That is the same number of days that makes you a Spanish taxpayer, so the two rules now pull in opposite directions and you cannot satisfy both.
haber residido de forma real y efectiva en España durante más de ciento ochenta y tres días durante el año natural
- Real Decreto 1155/2024, Article 64.2 f)BOE-A-2024-24099in force 2025-05-20
The golden visa is there as a fallback
BrokeSpain closed it on 3 April 2025. Two details most coverage got wrong. Applications sent in before that date are still decided under the old rules. And people who already hold one can keep renewing it, with no end date written in.
- Ley 14/2013, article 63, left without content by Ley Organica 1/2025in force 2025-04-03
- Ley 14/2013, disposicion transitoria primera, applications already filedin force 2025-04-03
- Ley 14/2013, disposicion transitoria segunda, renewalsin force 2025-04-03
The Beckham tax scheme is the backup if the numbers get ugly
MovedIt costs more at the top end. From 1 January 2025, six weeks before this was written, investment income above EUR 300,000 is taxed at 30% under the scheme. Worth knowing separately, and true since 2023: the scheme is for employees, company directors, approved founders and some specialists working for young companies. A freelancer with foreign clients can get Spain's remote-work visa and still not qualify for the tax scheme.
Spain's wealth tax starts above EUR 700,000
HeldUnchanged since 2011, but the number is not the whole rule. The state exempts the first EUR 700,000, and each region may set its own figure instead. Your main home is exempt up to EUR 300,000. You file once your assets pass EUR 2,000,000, even in a region where you owe nothing.
The extra tax on large fortunes is temporary and will lapse
HeldIt is still here, and it no longer has an end date. Spain extended it in December 2023 until it reviews wealth taxes, and that review has not happened. It reaches wealth above EUR 3,000,000, at 1.7% to 3.5%, on top of the tax above.
Spain is about to tax non-EU buyers 100% of the price of a home
treated as all but certain across the forums in January 2025
Never cameIt never happened. The prime minister announced it in a speech on 13 January 2025, and within days the forums were discussing it as settled. Eighteen months later there is no law. No rate, nothing to pay it on, not even a name for it. The forums also dropped a detail that changes who it would touch: what he described applied to buyers who would not be living in Spain.
- Announcement at the housing forum, 13 January 2025background, not the law itself
Nothing can prove a law does not exist, so here is where we looked on 2026-08-11
- Spain's official gazette, searched for any tax on a non-resident buying a home
The non-lucrative visa renews every two years
HeldStill two years. What changed is everyone else. Work permits and family permits now renew for four years at a time. So this visa, which does not let you work, now means twice the paperwork of one that does.
Greece
Based on posts from February 2025
A remote worker applying for the digital nomad visa, through an agent
A straightforward remote-work application, blended from two posts that winter. What they were worried about was paperwork rather than law: whether a booking would be accepted as proof of somewhere to live. It was, and they came back to the thread to say so.
What they were actually worried about
Whether a short-term booking would do instead of a rental contract, which is hard to sign from another country. The consulate accepted it once they explained.
You need EUR 3,500 a month, plus 20% for a spouse and 15% per child
HeldUnchanged, extras included. We found nothing amending it in eighteen months. One loose end on our side: our Greece page credits a 2024 decision for this figure and this report credits the 2021 law, and we need to work out which one governs which visa.
- Article 11, Law 4825/2021Gazette A 157/4.9.2021
A twelve-month visa first, then a two-year residence permit
HeldUnchanged. Same law, same lengths, and you can keep renewing every two years for as long as you still qualify.
You cannot take local work on this visa
HeldStill true. The visa lets you bring foreign income into Greece. It does not let you work for Greek employers or Greek clients. That is a real limit, but it has not moved, and it is the reason Greece's new income tax rates from November 2025 do not touch this plan at all.
183 days makes you a Greek taxpayer, with an exception for visitors
HeldUnchanged. You become a Greek taxpayer at 183 days. People in Greece purely as tourists or for medical care are still exempt for up to 365 days. Greece added no new rules for deciding between two countries.
The half-price tax deal for new arrivals is still open
HeldStill open, still seven years. You still need to have been outside the Greek tax system for five of the last six years, and to say you intend to stay at least two. The only thing that changed is that you now apply through the tax office website instead of on paper.
Seven years of legal residence to get a passport, plus a language exam
HeldUnchanged. Seven years, a Greek language exam at B1 level and a test on Greek civics, 70% to pass each, exams twice a year, EUR 550 to apply. Greece amended this in 2025 only to make the exam easier to sit for older and disabled applicants.
Proof of where you will live is flexible
the question they actually came to ask
HeldNothing about the paperwork for this visa changed. Worth saying plainly, though: nothing in writing says a booking is acceptable. A consular officer decided it was. That was a judgement call in 2025 and it is still a judgement call now, so do not plan around it.
Nothing can prove a law does not exist, so here is where we looked on 2026-08-11
- Ministry of Migration notices about digital nomad paperwork, September 2021 to August 2026
A second Greece plan from the same winter: buy on the golden visa at EUR 250,000 and let the place out short-term
posted February 2025
Already goneThe price had already moved five months before this was written. Article 64 of Law 5100/2024 re-tiered the golden visa from 1 September 2024. It is now EUR 800,000 across Attica, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini and every island over 3,100 people, and EUR 400,000 everywhere else. EUR 250,000 survives only for a change of use to residential, or a listed building bought to restore, one property each. On the letting half of the plan we make no claim. A short-term rental ban on golden visa property is reported everywhere, and it is on no Greek government page we could open.
- Article 64, Law 5100/2024, minimum property investment for a golden visain force 2024-09-01
Nothing can prove a law does not exist, so here is where we looked on 2026-08-11
- The housing portal's golden visa page, which sets out Article 64 and says nothing about letting
- The migration ministry's golden visa page in English and in Greek, both of which still describe the 2014 law
Thailand
Based on posts from February to April 2025
A consultant on the DTV, 180 days at a time, keeping the money offshore
A self-employed consultant planning long stays on Thailand's Destination Thailand Visa, who knew this would make them a Thai taxpayer and was betting that Thailand would keep taxing only money brought into the country. Income stays offshore, spending goes on a foreign card, no Thai bank account. Blended from two posts, and a clear statement of what the whole DTV crowd was doing.
What they were actually worried about
Whether a Thai taxpayer with no Thai income, who brings no money in, has to file anything at all. They said the information online was vague and contradictory. It still is, and that question is listed as unanswered further down.
Thailand will soften the tax on money you bring into the country
the single most repeated expectation of 2025
Never cameIt never happened. There is no new decree and no new regulation. The 2023 rules still stand, word for word. We went through the Thai tax office's own lists of published laws to be sure. A draft that never reaches the official gazette changes nothing.
Nothing can prove a law does not exist, so here is where we looked on 2026-08-11
- Thailand's published decrees, numbers 780 to 805
- Ministerial regulations up to number 401
- The tax office's own list of new rules, November 2025 to August 2026
Thailand is about to tax your worldwide income, which rules it out
a British earner discounted Thailand in April 2025 over exactly this
Never cameIt never happened. The relevant section of the tax code has not been touched, so Thailand still taxes foreign income only when you bring it in. There is nothing on the tax office's public consultation list either, which is where a draft law would have to appear before it went anywhere.
Nothing can prove a law does not exist, so here is where we looked on 2026-08-11
- The tax office's public consultation list, January 2025 to August 2026
The DTV runs five years, 180 days a visit, one extension, THB 500,000 saved
HeldEvery part of that is still true. Thailand's embassy in Washington last updated its page in March 2026 and still shows THB 500,000 and the same fee. The London page still says you can extend once, by up to another 180 days.
Pop over the border, come back in, carry on
MovedThere is a form every time now, and it is due before you fly. Since 1 May 2025 everyone who is not Thai has to file a digital arrival card, and immigration asks for it three days ahead of the arrival date rather than after landing. It is free, and any website charging for it is not the Thai government. If your plan is to leave and come back every 180 days, that is one more step on every trip, and one you cannot do at the airport.
- Thailand Digital Arrival Cardin force 2025-05-01
- Arrival card portal
You can apply for the visa from wherever you happen to be
Thailand put the whole visa system online on 1 January 2025
MovedYou can apply online from anywhere. You cannot apply from anywhere you happen to be standing. Embassies now ask for proof that you live in the country you are applying from. One applicant lost their fee finding this out, when an embassy replied that it only takes applications from people who live in its own area.
- Thai e-Visa global launchin force 2025-01-01
- Current DTV document list
Visa-free entry is there as a safety net
the forums panicked about this in March 2025
MovedThe panic was fourteen months early. Visa-free entry for 60 days lasted all of 2025. Thailand's cabinet cancelled it for all 93 countries on 19 May 2026, and the decision sets 30 days for 54 countries and territories and 15 days for three more. A reconfirmation in July was reported with different numbers, and we could not open that page to check, so treat the count as unsettled and the cancellation as the solid part. It starts fifteen days after the announcements reach the official gazette, and we could not confirm that has happened. Thailand's own consular website was still showing the old 93-country list when we checked.
The ten-year visa needs a big income and money invested in Thailand
a poster ruled it out on exactly this in February 2025
MovedIt got easier three weeks before that post. Thailand dropped the work experience requirement for two categories. It cut the size a foreign employer has to be, from USD 150m in revenue down to USD 50m. It let applicants bring their parents with no cap on numbers. One change reads as easing and is not: the wealthy category lost its USD 80,000 income test and gained a USD 500,000 investment one, which helps somebody with capital and hurts somebody with a salary. It is still the one plan in this report that got easier, and nobody in the sample spotted it.
A Thai taxpayer with no Thai income, who brings no money in, still has to file something
OpenWe still cannot answer this. Eighteen months on, no Thai tax office document says whether that person has to file anything or not. It was asked in February 2025 and it is still open, so we are not going to guess at it here.
Malaysia
Based on posts from March to April 2025
Someone who left the UK, filed the paperwork, and applied for MM2H
Someone who has left the UK, told the tax office, is already in Malaysia and has an MM2H application going, counting on Malaysia charging nothing on investment gains. Blended from a tax thread and a cost-of-living post that was shared widely. The thread got the UK side right and nobody looked at the Malaysian side at all.
What they were actually worried about
Whether selling something through a UK bank account would drag the gain back into UK tax. It would not, and the thread said so correctly. The question nobody asked was whether Malaysia would tax it.
Malaysia charges nothing on investment gains
HeldCorrect, for people. Malaysia's taxes on investment gains apply to companies, partnerships, trusts and cooperatives, not to individuals. Malaysia reissued the guidance on 21 July 2025 and did not change who has to pay.
Money earned abroad comes into Malaysia tax free
stated flat out, with no conditions, all over the forums
Already goneThat was never the whole rule. The money only comes in tax free if it was already taxed where it came from. There is a second way through if it went untaxed only because of an allowance or an incentive in that country. Either way you have to keep the tax paperwork and declare where the money came from and what you paid on it. This has been the rule since June 2024, before any of these posts. It bites hardest on exactly this person: someone who left the UK cleanly, whose income is now taxed nowhere at all.
- Guideline LHDN.AG.600-1/7/3, 20 June 2024, paragraphs 5.2.2.1 to 5.2.4.3in force 2024-06-20
The tax break on foreign money might run out in 2026
HeldFor individuals it runs to the end of 2036. Companies only get to 2030, so holding money in your own name is much better protected than holding it through a Malaysian company. Malaysia settled this in December 2024.
Budget for the MM2H property purchase at the published minimum
MovedBuying costs a lot more. The stamp duty a non-citizen pays on a home went from 4% to 8% on 1 January 2026. On the cheapest tier's RM 600,000 minimum that is another RM 24,000. On the tier above it, RM 40,000. What decides which rate you pay is the day you sign the sale agreement, not the day the transfer is stamped, so a deal signed in December 2025 still pays the old rate. It is the single biggest price change in this report, and no plan written in early 2025 saw it coming.
- Budget 2026 tax measures, Appendix 14in force 2026-01-01
- Item 32(ab), First Schedule, Stamp Act 1949, tax office responsein force 2026-01-01
Buy the property whenever it suits you
MovedThere is a deadline now. Since 28 May 2025 you have to finish the purchase within a year of your pass being endorsed, and on the special economic zone route you have to own the home before that endorsement. Ringgit is encouraged for the deposit rather than required. Taking half of it back out to buy a home only works if you bought recently. The zone route covers one development in Johor, bought from the developer. Applicants can now also be picked at random for a police interview.
- One Stop Centre MM2H announcement, 28 May 2025in force 2025-05-28
Cheap private healthcare is part of the deal
a line in nearly every Malaysia budget people posted
MovedPrivate healthcare costs you 6% more than it costs a Malaysian. From 1 July 2025 Malaysia charges service tax on private healthcare for people who are not citizens. Citizens do not pay it and no visa holder is excused. The same 6% applies to traditional medicine and to services like physiotherapy. Schools too: fees above RM 60,000 a year per child, and higher education for students who are not Malaysian.
- Service tax scope expansion, announced 9 June 2025in force 2025-07-01
- Scope detail
MM2H was overhauled in 2025 and the numbers keep moving
HeldThe money did not move. Every tier, deposit, property minimum, the 90-day stay rule and the special zone route were already in place, dated on Malaysia's own documents to June and July 2024. The story about a 2025 overhaul is wrong about the prices. What changed in 2025 was the process, not the cost.
The national MM2H programme is the only realistic route
OpenThe state of Sarawak runs its own version. A Sarawak government agency describes it as rebuilt from 1 January 2025. It lists a lower minimum age, a bigger deposit, a monthly income test, only 30 days a year in the state, and no property purchase at all. If those terms are right, it is much cheaper for anyone who does not want to buy a home, and it opened the same month these plans were written. We could not find those terms published by the programme itself, so we are not quoting any of its numbers here.
- S-MM2H requirements, described by Invest Sarawakbackground, not the law itself
Nothing can prove a law does not exist, so here is where we looked on 2026-08-11
- Invest Sarawak and the national MM2H site, looking for the state programme's own published terms
Stop being a UK resident, then wait it out
HeldThe thread got this right and it is still right. If you become a UK tax resident again within five full tax years, the UK can tax gains you made while you were away. What decides it is where you live, not which bank the money moved through.
182 days makes you a Malaysian taxpayer, so time your arrival
HeldAll four tests are unchanged. The one nobody mentions is how Malaysia joins two stays together. A stay of under 182 days can still make you a taxpayer if it connects to a run of more than 182 days in a row in the year beside it. Trips home count as part of that run so long as they add up to no more than 14 days, so a fortnight is safe and a day more is not. Break the run in your first year and you are taxed as a non-resident, at a flat 30%, with none of the allowances.
The changes everyone expected that never happened
Half the worry in these plans went on changes that, eighteen months later, still are not law. Nothing can prove a law does not exist, so for each one we list the official records we searched and the day we searched them.
Thailand: a tax on your worldwide income
Never cameThe tax code has not been touched, and there is nothing on the tax office's public consultation list, which is where a draft law would have to appear first. A British earner shortlisting countries in April 2025 ruled Thailand out over this.
Nothing can prove a law does not exist, so here is where we looked on 2026-08-11
- The tax office's public consultation list, January 2025 to August 2026
Thailand: relief on money you bring into the country
Never cameThe other side of the same coin. The relief everyone expected, for money brought in during the year you earned it, was drafted and never published. Anyone who moved money assuming it had already passed is exposed for 2025 and 2026.
Nothing can prove a law does not exist, so here is where we looked on 2026-08-11
- Thailand's published decrees, numbers 780 to 805
- Ministerial regulations up to number 401
- The tax office's own list of new rules, November 2025 to August 2026
Spain: a 100% tax on non-EU buyers
Never cameOne line in a speech on 13 January 2025, which the forums were treating as settled policy within days. There is no law. No rate, nothing to pay it on, not even a name.
- Announcement at the housing forum, 13 January 2025background, not the law itself
Nothing can prove a law does not exist, so here is where we looked on 2026-08-11
- Spain's official gazette, searched for any tax on a non-resident buying a home
Thailand: letting foreigners own 75% of a building, and 99-year leases
Never cameA government press statement from June 2024. The 49% limit on foreign ownership has not changed and was last amended in 2008. Two years on, it is still a press conference.
Nothing can prove a law does not exist, so here is where we looked on 2026-08-11
- Thailand's official gazette, for changes to the condominium law, June 2024 to August 2026
Even the government websites are out of date
This is the uncomfortable part. Four of these five governments have information on their own websites that their own law has already overtaken. So “just check the official site” is not enough. What you want is the law itself, with its number and its date, not whichever government page comes up first.
Greece
Greece's migration ministry still describes its golden visa as starting at EUR 250,000, under the 2014 law, on both its English and its Greek page.
The real figures have been EUR 800,000 and EUR 400,000 since 1 September 2024, set by Article 64 of Law 5100/2024. Greece's own housing portal has them right. The migration ministry's pages are two years behind it.
Portugal
Portugal's visa page was still showing a minimum wage of EUR 870, quoting a 2024 decree.
The 2026 figure of EUR 920 had been law for more than seven months. Every income requirement tied to that number is understated on the page.
Spain
Spain's own consulate page for the remote-work visa still shows an income floor of EUR 2,368 a month, on a minimum wage of EUR 1,184.
Those are the 2025 numbers. The page states correctly that the figure follows the minimum wage each year, and the wage rose for 2026, which puts the floor at EUR 2,442. The page had not caught up when we checked.
Malaysia
Malaysia's tax office guidance still says the break on foreign money ends on 31 December 2026.
The law extended it to 2036, and the finance ministry's own budget document says 2036. The guidance and the law disagree with each other.
None of this is a scandal. Pages get updated late everywhere. It does put an end to the idea that out-of-date information only lives on forums.
What we could not confirm
Everything above comes with a government document behind it, or it is not on this page. Here is what did not clear that bar. If your own plan depends on any of these, they are the ones worth chasing down.
Portugal
What income the D8 visa actually asks for
Everyone says it is four times the minimum wage. We could not find that multiple written down anywhere on a Portuguese government site. The minimum wage itself is solid, the multiple is not, so we publish no euro figure for the D8.
Thailand
How long Canadians and Britons can now stay without a visa
Both were on the old 93-country, 60-day list, which is gone. Neither is named in any government document we could open that sets out the replacement, and Thailand publishes its country lists as pictures rather than text.
Thailand
Whether you file a tax return with no Thai income and no money brought in
Asked in February 2025 by one of the people in this report. Still not answered by any Thai tax office document.
Greece
A new migration law from February 2026
A new law took effect on 5 February 2026 and changes the immigration rules. We could not establish from an official text what it does to the digital nomad visa. It is the one live risk to the plan that otherwise came through untouched.
Greece
The deadline for the half-price tax deal
Greece's tax office said 31 March in its November 2025 guidance. A decision from July 2026 reportedly moves it to 30 September. We could not get hold of that decision. Six months is a wide gap when you are planning around a deadline.
Greece
Whether you can let out a golden visa home short-term
Reported everywhere as banned. We now have the law that re-tiered the golden visa money, Article 64 of Law 5100/2024. It is the letting rule that is missing. It appears on neither the housing portal's page about that article nor either language version of the ministry's golden visa page. Two of our own social drafts name a different law again, 5275/2026, which we could not open either. Anyone buying to let needs this settled before they sign.
Malaysia
Sarawak's own MM2H terms
A Sarawak government agency sets out an age limit, a deposit, an income test and a 30-day stay rule for the state programme from January 2025. None of it appears in anything published by the programme itself, so we quote no figures. This is the one route in the sample that could be cheaper than everyone assumed.
Malaysia
When service tax starts applying to rent
The threshold looks as though it was raised after the July 2025 changes, but the policy documents would not load. Renting a home is exempt either way, which is the part that matters if you are moving.
What we learned
- Rules do not rot on a schedule
- Four of these five plans still work. What killed the fifth was not tax policy, which is where everybody looks. It was the citizenship rules, which almost nobody watches.
- Things can be out of date before you read them
- Two of the beliefs in this report were already wrong on the day they were written down. Checking what has changed since you made your plan is only half the job.
- Predictions go stale faster than rules do
- Every change in the never-happened list was discussed more confidently than the changes that actually passed. A speech is not a law, and a draft is not a law either.
- The cost moves even when the rules do not
- Nothing about Malaysia's visa changed. Somebody buying at the cheapest tier now pays RM 24,000 more in stamp duty than they would have in April 2025, plus 6% on private healthcare that a Malaysian does not pay. Requirements tied to a minimum wage or an official index creep up every January without any new law at all.
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The Record lists every change we make to our own figures, with the date we made it.
Method
The plans come from public posts written between January and April 2025. Each one in this report blends two or more posts and puts them in our own words, with names, usernames, links and identifying details removed. Nothing is quoted directly.
Every legal statement is sourced to a government gazette, tax office, immigration authority or ministry. Where a government page describes a law rather than being the law, we mark it as background and no finding rests on it. Anything we could not tie to a government document was cut and listed as unanswered rather than softened into a maybe.
For things that did not happen, we list the official records we searched and the date we searched them. No document can prove that a law does not exist.
Quotes from the original laws are held back until each one has been checked against the document itself, twice. The findings and the sources do not wait for that.
Checked on 11 August 2026. Rules move. Nothing here is accurate later than that date, and none of it is legal or tax advice.