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Living Abroad: Expat vs. Immigrant ~ What's the difference?

 If I live abroad, am I an immigrant or an expat?


A subscriber recently wrote to ask, “You always refer to yourselves as expats. Since you came from the U.S. to Ecuador, doesn’t that make you immigrants?”

Great question.

The short answer is, yes, technically we are immigrants. Upon arrival here we had to immediately begin a legal process to become permanent residents.

Immigration policy has been a much discussed and debated topic internationally in recent years. 

Some nations provide open borders; others are seeking to be more restrictive.

Ecuador generally falls more in the first camp. We have always felt welcomed here, and although not citizens we can vote and participate in the national health care system.

But the country’s kindness and generosity have been strained by the influx of so many refugees exiting Venezuela. 

To the point that before borders were shut down completely because of coronavirus, Venezuelans were no longer allowed to enter the country without proper documentation that was almost impossible to obtain.

The question of immigrant vs. expat created some interesting discussion in Casa Staton. What’s the difference between us and those Venezuelan refugees? Why do we call ourselves expats?

We decided to explore the subject, and the result is a new, in-depth Special Report called, "What Is an Expat?"

Beyond formal definitions, we discover that in the eyes of some the term “expat” carries the highly-charged notion of “privilege.”

We examine these aspects of expats:

  • History
  • Types
  • Myths
  • Tax considerations
  • Lifestyle

And in the end, we arrive at our own simple (and hopefully noncontroversial) definitions of “expat” and “immigrant.”

Click here to read the full Report.

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