Nomadsurance

Digital nomad visas

Digital nomad visas, country by country

We track 65 nomad and long-stay visa programmes across 64 countries and read the insurance small print on every one. 53 of them will not approve you without proof of health cover. Here is what each actually asks for.

Not sure which one you qualify for? Check your eligibility in about a minute

The basics

What a digital nomad visa actually is

A digital nomad visa is a residence permit for people who earn their money somewhere else. You get the right to live in the country. You do not get the right to work in it. Taking a local job, or billing a local client, is normally the one thing the permit forbids, and that is the line that separates these programmes from an ordinary work visa.

They are also a recent invention, and it shows. Most of these programmes did not exist five years ago, several have been quietly rewritten since launch, and a few were announced with fanfare and never properly opened. So the useful question is rarely whether a country has a nomad visa. It is what the current version of it actually demands of you this year.

The shape is fairly consistent wherever you look. You show a remote income above a monthly threshold, a clean criminal record, an address, and health insurance. In return you get one to two years, renewable, and in a growing number of countries a path to permanent residence if you keep renewing. What varies, and varies a lot, is how much income counts as enough and what counts as adequate insurance.

The insurance condition

Most will not approve you without cover

Insurance is the requirement people underestimate. It gets treated as paperwork and left until last, and it is a routine reason for an otherwise strong application to come back rejected. Of the 65 programmes we track, 53 require proof of health insurance and 12 do not.

The rules underneath that headline are not uniform, which is where applications come unstuck. Only 11 of the programmes that demand insurance name an actual minimum figure, so for the rest you are judged against an unwritten standard of whether the cover looks adequate for the length of the permit. 8 go further and require the policy to cover repatriation of remains specifically, a clause plenty of perfectly good policies leave out. 5 accept only a policy written by an insurer licensed in that country, which quietly disqualifies most international plans no matter how comprehensive they are.

65
programmes tracked
53
require insurance
8
require repatriation cover
5
require a local insurer

How much cover

What the minimum actually needs to be

Where a country publishes a number, the numbers cluster. The European permits in our set mostly land on 30,000 euros of medical cover, and several programmes outside Europe ask for 50,000 US dollars. Those two figures will get you past most application desks, but treat them as the floor for the paperwork rather than a sensible amount of insurance. 30,000 euros does not go far against a serious hospital admission, and it goes nowhere at all against an air ambulance.

The condition that catches people out is duration. A standard travel policy is built for a trip and usually stops at 90 days. A nomad visa runs for a year or more, so a travel policy expires inside the permit period, and an officer who checks the dates will see it. What these applications need is a policy covering the whole term, in the country named on the permit, in your name, stated on a document you can hand over. That is a different product from holiday cover, and it is what our expat health insurance guide covers.

And if a country insists on a locally-licensed insurer, no international policy will satisfy it however good it is. Worth knowing before you buy rather than after.

Rejections

How the insurance condition actually trips people up

Applications rarely fail because someone had no insurance at all. They fail because the policy they had did not match the wording of the rule, and the mismatch is almost always one of five things.

The dates do not cover the permit. This is the big one. A policy bought for a trip runs for months, a permit runs for a year, and the certificate shows both. An officer comparing the two numbers does not need to be looking hard.

The repatriation clause is missing. Where a country names repatriation of remains specifically, a policy that merely offers strong medical cover does not qualify. It is a line item, and either your certificate says it or it does not.

The insurer is not licensed locally. A handful of countries will accept nothing else, and no amount of coverage from an international carrier changes the answer. This is the one worth checking before you pay, because it invalidates the whole purchase rather than requiring a top-up.

The cover is below a stated minimum. Straightforward where a figure is published. Harder where none is, because then you are being judged against somebody’s idea of adequate, and the safe reading is that adequate means enough to cover a serious hospital admission in that country rather than the cheapest plan that technically exists.

The document is wrong even though the policy is right. Cover in your partner’s name, a screenshot of an app, a receipt instead of a certificate, a certificate that does not name the destination country. The insurance is real and the paperwork still fails. Ask your insurer for a certificate of cover that states your full name as it appears on your passport, the exact policy period, the territory covered, and the benefit amounts. That is a normal request and any decent insurer issues it without fuss.

None of this is exotic, which is precisely why it keeps happening. People treat the insurance line as the easy box and discover at the counter that it was the one with conditions attached.

One more thing worth planning for: the requirement does not end at approval. These permits are renewed, and renewal means proving again that you are still insured, on a policy that still runs to the end of the new term. A one-year policy bought to clear the first application expires in the middle of the second one. It is a small piece of admin that becomes a large problem if the renewal window and the policy renewal are not aligned, so it is worth putting both dates in the same calendar the day you are approved.

The exceptions

The 12 programmes with no insurance rule

12 of the programmes we track impose no explicit insurance condition. It is worth being precise about what that means. It means the immigration authority will not ask you for a certificate. It does not mean the country is a safe place to be uninsured, and in a few cases it is close to the opposite: private hospitals that want payment before they treat you, and serious cases flown abroad at your own expense.

We say that on each of those pages rather than quietly leaving the section blank, because the gap between what a government requires and what a sensible person carries is the whole reason to read a page like this one. You can see what treatment costs without cover country by country.

Every programme

Browse the visas

FAQ

Common questions

It is a residence permit that lets you live in a country while working remotely for clients or an employer outside it. It is not a work visa and does not let you take a job in the local labour market. Most run for one or two years, are renewable, and ask you to prove a minimum monthly income and hold health insurance for the length of your stay.

The large majority do. Of the nomad and long-stay programmes we track, most make proof of health insurance a condition of the application, and inadequate cover is a routine reason for an otherwise strong application to be rejected.

It varies, and only some programmes name a figure at all. Among those that do, the European permits in our set cluster around 30,000 euros of medical cover and several outside Europe ask for 50,000 US dollars. Where no minimum is published, the practical test is whether the policy covers the full permit period and the country you are moving to.

Usually not. Short-trip travel policies typically cap out at 90 days, while a nomad visa runs for a year or more, so the policy expires inside the permit period. Some countries go further and accept only a policy from an insurer licensed locally, which rules out most international plans.

A minority of programmes impose no explicit insurance condition. That is not the same as it being wise to travel without cover. In several of those countries private hospitals expect payment up front and serious cases are flown out, so the absence of a rule is not the absence of a risk.

Where to go next

Get cover that satisfies your visa