Why You Should Leave Your Country | Andrew Henderson

Welcome to Bankless, where today we're exploring the frontier of second passports and second citizenships. This is Ryan Sean Adams. I'm here with David Hoffman, and we're here to help you become more bankless. There's a rabbit hole we're diving into today. Given the state of the world, the question is, is it a good idea to diversify your citizenship? We're talking about your nation state citizenship, of course. And we've seen some recent crypto hostility in the West. Question is, what if it gets worse? Should you have a backup plan? A place to immigrate? Andrew Henderson on the podcast today. He's an expert in this. A few questions we ask. Number one, why should people think about a second or third citizenship? What are the benefits? Number two, what are the most crypto friendly jurisdictions? What does he recommend? Number three, what's an exit tax? What does that mean? And why did our guest choose to renounce his US citizenship? Number four, how much does all of this cost? And how do you do it? How do you go get a second passport?

It's worth asking the question why are we doing this episode? Uh, my answer for this is uh because the idea of being like sovereign as an individual from your own nation state that you're born in is interesting. And without endorsing it, we want to understand this like activity that one can do. There's a book that we have cited in the past many times, uh, The Sovereign Individual. And there's a lot of content in there that aligns with some of the ideas here. Uh, that you are you are a sovereign individual and you can choose to be like independent from the nation state that you just happened to be born in. Uh, and so this is what we are exploring as an idea here today. It's just worth knowing that the strategies that our guest Andrew illustrates on this episode is a possibility for you, whether you enjoy it or not. So that's kind of the motivation here. We're here to learn.

Yeah, and let me expand on what David said. Just just give you guys a trigger warning and then a disclaimer. So the trigger warning is this this episode might rub some of you the wrong way. You might hear some of the claims Andrew's making and just think, oh my God, this this is peak selfishness. This is unpatriotic. This is just another example of the uh the the rich elites getting on the lifeboats and leaving everyone else behind. So we we talked about some of those critiques toward the end of the episode. And I think, David, you and I will be talking about some of those critiques in the debrief that we're about to have too. So if this is not your thing, of course, feel free to skip the episode. There's lots of episodes on the Bankless Podcast. Uh and then lastly, a disclaimer none of this is an endorsement of Nomad Capital Services. Um, this is the company that Andrew founded. We don't know what they're like. Neither David nor myself have used them. Do your own research, price it out. If this is something you're interested in. They're just the guys.

This episode is really it's just like a case for a second citizenship, not a case for a specific service provider. So, with that said, let's get to the episode with Andrew Henderson. Bakeless Nation, I'm very excited to introduce you to Andrew Henderson. He's an entrepreneur. He is a global citizen at home in nearly a dozen countries around the world. I'm actually not sure where he is today. Maybe we'll ask him that question. He's also the founder of Nomad Capitalist, which is a company, an organization that helps people maximize their freedom by getting multiple citizenships and passports. And that's what we're here to talk about today. Andrew, welcome to Bankless.

It's uh good to be with you and hopefully reduce their taxes too, because they're going crazy in some of these places. But it's

it's good.

They really are. And uh, you know, some there's some crypto hostile jurisdictions out there too that we probably want to uh talk to you about because we've got a crypto audience. But I have to ask the question so what citizenship are you logging in from today here? Uh like what jurisdiction?

Well, I'm sitting in uh in Ireland doing um meetings with some people who work for me. There's actually interesting. I was on the radio in Ireland a couple days ago, and she's like, Well, how do I move somewhere and get a citizenship? I'm not an Irish citizen. So you want to go some places as a tourist? You have a residence permit in some places, maybe some places you go, you are a citizen. You want to mix it up a little bit, and you wanna, as I say,

go where you're treated best. If citizenship is uh

Is is the best in a certain place, that's one you want to hold. If it's better to be a resident,

uh then that's better. You know, better to be a tourist, sometimes that's better. In places like in Europe, it goes a tourist. So

uh I am in Ireland, we've got some great people here.

Does that mean are you a citizen of uh Ireland then, Andrew, as well? No, okay. So th this is a resident tourist, okay.

Do you consider yourself like uh do you identify with any country that you are a citizen in particular, or are you more of just a a global citizen, you're a citizen of the world?

Don't actually have any sort of meaningful alignment with any country?

I mean, I have five citizenships. I um might you know work on on one or two more. Um certainly there's ones that I've spent time in

that I've come to appreciate the people. I also understand.

Um, you know, for me, I think you should judge yourself by your accomplishments and and your identity. And when I look at, you know, we've got a YouTube channel with about 2,700 videos on it.

Um, I've been doing this for a long time. And, you know, one of the biggest retorts we get from people who

uh watch our stuff for the first time is oh, well, if the US is so bad, you know, why are people moving here? Well,

the difference between a multimillionaire leaving and people, you know, coming who are in search of you know, kind of low wage you know service work, I have a lot of respect for people who come and want to work hard, but you know, it's it's not a one to one comparison.

Uh, and so for me, I think if you're at a level where you are an entrepreneur, you are successful, you're firing at all cylinders, it's probably harder to be identified with a lot of places. That's that's how I look at it. I mean, I can go to any country, no matter how much I like it,

and say, yeah, there's still a lot of people that I probably don't really identify with that much. And so

um, for me, uh, you know, being born in kind of the edge of the United States,

um, I I find it hard to understand how, you know, how is it someone born right over there is Canadian and I'm American? I mean, it's just a very weird concept that I think people in the Banklos audience understand.

Probably, yeah.

Yeah, I think they do. I think we have um some nomads in the in the bankless audience. Like both from uh like they travel all over the world. They, you know, don't necessarily um have one residence as their their home, but but certainly we're um financial nomads in that we have like already exited our existing financial system to some extent, kind of the the fiat system, and now we're doing more on crypto. May maybe to just to give you a quick overview of of the audience and who you're kind of addressing today. So um a lot of people listening are they're definitely into crypto, right? And so they probably have assets on the on the on the blockchain so that that that they actually own. That's kind of in the the jurisdiction, the property rights system of of the blockchain. So call them kind of nomad investors. And and they certainly know about concepts like tail risk events. They they they know and acknowledge, we've done so much content on this. Empires, fiat systems, they all have finite lifespans, right? So they don't take it for granted that the system that they were born into is going to be the system that uh is um alive and well in the future. And um, you know, also also, I should say, probably most of them, almost all of them, I would say, uh, don't have a backup to their fiat citizenship yet. Probably most listeners of Banklists, I'm just assuming here, we've not done the surveys, but they they probably only have one citizenship. So, David, I know you have one citizenship, right? You're you're you're American. I have two citizenships, but it's only by virtue of the fact that I was actually born across the border, as you said, on the on the Canadian side, and my mother's American. So I managed to kind of get two uh in the process, but I haven't gone through the you know the process of collecting it. So I think you're probably addressing a lot of people here who are like, what? Uh I mean, I was born a citizen of X country. Why do I need a second citizenship? And there's also, I would say, a group that you're addressing of um, like there's definitely millionaires and billionaires that listen to bankless. Like there just is, um, they've done well in crypto, they've done done well in life. But there's a lot of people who haven't made it financially yet that listen to uh bankless as well. They haven't achieved financial freedom. And so they're probably thinking like, cool, I mean, the rich people get multiple citizenships, but this sounds like some kind of a yacht club that I'm not a part of, I can't join. Anyway, that's some context in in terms of uh who you who you're addressing on the podcast today. Is that helpful?

And I've seen your show for years, and I I think uh, you know, it's it's an important message. I mean, I've worked with a lot of folks over the years at Nomad Calculus who who are in crypto, it's a great audience. I mean, for me, I think why you want to have a second citizenship, and I would even argue now you probably need a third citizenship. For me, uh I kind of want to have plan F, G, maybe even H. Uh, maybe that's a little bit extreme.

But

Uh for the same reasons you want to be in crypto. I mean the government's done a pretty bad job managing the money supply and look at inflation, look at all the things. I mean, look at the countries that we're from

and all the upheaval these days where people can't afford rent.

They can't afford groceries. And that's going to have meaningful consequences on people who are citizens of those countries. Why?

Because if you want to live overseas, if you're an American, you already

Are wed to the U.S. tax system. So you need the second passport to potentially exit the U.S. And if you're in crypto, unfortunately, it's harder to get out of the U.S. tax system while staying a citizen. I guess there's places like Puerto Rico, but you know, it's harder to get out of the U.S. tax system than it would be for an entrepreneur because you're engaged in what they consider, generally speaking, a passive activity. Uh passive income for Americans abroad is not taxed that favorably. So,

you know, having a second citizenship number one allows you to get out of that system. I think Canada or Australia is slowly moving, if maybe not to the front door, through the back door, to a kind of system where, hey, you can't leave.

Um,

you know, Australia was gave some guidance last year, uh basically all shorthanded.

If you don't live overseas the way we want you to, yeah, maybe you'll remain an Australian taxpayer.

Right? And so, wait a second. I was born in Australia. I lived there and paid taxes. I wasn't, but let's just say this is you. You you pay your taxes for as long as you can in Australia. And then you say, you know what, I'm sick of this. I'm going to leave. There is going to be an exit tax to get out, which is actually why, if you're just starting out, if you're pre got club levels,

you're actually in a good position to go and do something before they get you for a big chunk on the way out.

But I mean, for the same reasons the government shouldn't be trusted to do anything else. You want to have second citizenships. And what I've argued, and this is one of the hard things for people who are new to this concept to understand, I'd rather be St. Lucian than American. If I can make money on my own terms, what do I need the United States for?

The US US citizenship is great that I can move to the I can live in the United States, and I can get a job that requires me to be a U.S. citizen, and I can work physically on U.S. soil.

Well, increasingly, I bet any of us could go and work somewhere else in Dubai, we could get a job there or somewhere else. Or we could get a remote job from a U.S. company that doesn't care where we live. I know MedCal just hires people all over the world. We don't have any Americans,

which maybe tells you something about the way the world's going, but we don't have any Americans. But um,

you know, we we we could theoretically hire an American if they didn't live in the US. And if you're in crypto and you make your own money, what do you need? You know, so I'd rather be St. Lucian, because guess what? St. Lucian's not going to impose a bunch of dumb regulations. They're not going to try and tax me if I don't live there. If I'm, you know, St. Lucian, I can also choose to live in St. Kitts and they don't tax me even if I do live there.

Um, you know, so I want more freedom of movement. I want a passport that's agnostic. I mean, look at the Julian Assange news in you know more recent times. Uh, you know what? I'm a former U.S. citizen.

Uh I'm just as proud of uh not having to be associated with that kerfuffle

uh and not having to have that on my hands.

Um

You know, so this is why you want a second passport. You're detaching from the system the same way you did from Gritton. I love how you call it fiat citizenship. I mean, it's

uh

I I just think that economically,

um, and from a freedom perspective, countries like the U.S. are going to be much more aggressive in the years to come at taking your money and taking away your freedoms.

We could go into any of that, but that's that's why you need it. And I I I don't even think two is enough. I listen, I you should get your Canadian passport, but Canada and the U.S. have become more like the same country. I mean, Justin Trudeau, Jagmeet Singh up there, um it's it's not heading in the right direction.

Yeah, they they they certainly feel like a very similar country. But so let's talk a bit more about why people are getting second citizenships and third citizenships. And you listed a whole bunch of reasons. I just want to set the context for this. So some people hearing that might be cheering you on and being like, hell yeah, Andrew, that's right. Like we're nomads. We want to live in different jurisdictions. Others might be listening to that and like might be squirming a little bit because they they might be um thinking about, well, is this just running away? Is this like unpatriotic, that kind of thing? We'll get to those critiques at the end. I don't want to address that yet, but like we'll get to those uh critiques for people who are interested in it. What what you basically said kind of reminds me of a of a book long uh hallowed by you know folks in crypto called The Sovereign Individual. I'm sure you have you read this book.

Yeah.

Okay, so the basic premise is uh, you know, governments may in the future um be provide a deteriorating quality of goods for their citizens and kind of like an economic mix that just like isn't worthwhile. And they'll begin to kind of capture their citizens and entrap them in the systems. Like fiat is maybe one example of that, right? And there's uh the this classic like choice uh type of theory. And like I forget who wrote this in the 1970s, but basically, if if you are responding as an individual to a deteriorating set of goods and services, you have three options, right? You can use your voice, try to change that. And so this would the example of this would be political action, right? Um getting involved in politics, trying to you know move the system in a different direction, uh, or loyalty. So you've got voice, loyalty uh as another example, which is you just are remain loyal to the system that is not providing you you the benefit, you just kind of like take it on the chin and uh you know keep at it, or exit is the third option. So you these are your options voice, loyalty, and exit. And with Nomad Capitalist, what you're doing with the second passport is having the option to exit, which is like a valid choice when there is a deterioration in the goods and services. And then this is very much what we do if, say, a um you know, your ISP is not providing you good service and like the internet sucks, and you switch to an ISP that does provide good service, and you're getting uh you know value for that dollar. So exit is really the choice that that you're emphasizing. Do you have any reflections on just like that uh in in general before we further establish why people want a second citizenship?

Listen, I I I went to a restaurant not that long ago, and it used to be one of my favorite restaurants, and I went and they were always so nice to me. And I don't know what happened to the the the one or two guys who were always so nice, but now they're not so nice and the food's not quite as good. So guess what? I'm probably not gonna go back, at least not as often.

And so I'm exercising my power of choice.

He's fleeing the restaurant. He's running away like a coward from the Indian restaurant. It's a travesty. What no, it just it it sucks.