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Is it possible to get residency and cashout crypto in malaysia or other big cheap asian countries?

Hi,
I would like to move to malaysia or other asian country with a low tax scheme to cashout crypto and get residency is it possible? I have 100k+ in crypto

thanks!
Yes. In Asia, everything is possible. Especially southeast Asia.
The issue is where you are resident right now. Even worse if you are citizen at the same time in the land of where the eye of Sauron sits. ;)
 
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well, your best bet is Dubai and then move on from there. Its well documented here.
why start with dubai? you don't think it's possible to start somewhere else?
I kinda feel the music will stop now that they slowly can catch the pockets of everyone that came there because it's the best.. but that's speculation.. although it looks like the eye of sauron in europe will try to catch its citizens identified there in maybe 5 years.. on this open question, do you think other middle east places offer similar advantages/openness like saudi barhain or else?
 
Some options in Asia:

Laos: 2% capital gains tax, but on the sale price, not the gain. In other words, if you sell 200K of crypto, you'd pay 2% of $200,000 => $4,000. Easy to get a business visa and stay indefinitely, cheap and corrupt, but very safe. Also, non-CRS country.

Thailand: No foreign capital gains tax, except the portion remitted into Thailand the year it is earned. So you could potentially sell all of it completely tax-free if you don't remit it to Thailand until the following year. This, of course, means that you'd have to sell the crypto outside of Thailand, probably in Belgium or a third country. I would recommend a third country.

Singapore: No capital gains tax. Safe, transparent, it's a first-world country. But it's more expensive and boring.

Malaysia: No capitals gains tax either. Pretty developed. A bit harder and more expensive to get a visa than Thailand or Laos, but still relatively easy to achieve.

Cambodia: No one knows how taxation works in this country and pretty much no one pays tax. Non-CRS country, easy to get a visa. You could potentially sell all of your crypto in a third country and they would never know or even care.

My recommendation would be Thailand, followed by Laos.
 
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Some options in Asia:

Laos: 2% capital gains tax, but on the sale price, not the gain. In other words, if you sell 200K of crypto, you'd pay 2% of $200,000 => $4,000. Easy to get a business visa and stay indefinitely, cheap and corrupt, but very safe. Also, non-CRS country.

Thailand: No foreign capital gains tax, except the portion remitted into Thailand the year it is earned. So you could potentially sell all of it completely tax-free if you don't remit it to Thailand until the following year. This, of course, means that you'd have to sell the crypto outside of Thailand, probably in Belgium or a third country. I would recommend a third country.

Singapore: No capital gains tax. Safe, transparent, it's a first-world country. But it's more expensive and boring.

Malaysia: No capitals gains tax either. Pretty developed. A bit harder and more expensive to get a visa than Thailand or Laos, but still relatively easy to achieve.

Cambodia: No one knows how taxation works in this country and pretty much no one pays tax. Non-CRS country, easy to get a visa. You could potentially sell all of your crypto in a third country and they would never know or even care.

My recommendation would be Thailand, followed by Laos.
Thanks! where do you think I should look at for Laos?
and what do you mean by more expensive to get a visa in malaysia, do you know what it represent?
 
Thanks! where do you think I should look at for Laos?
and what do you mean by more expensive to get a visa in malaysia, do you know what it represent?
I meant that in Thailand or Laos you can get a visa quickly and cheaply if you want to stay long term, but in Malaysia the options are usually limited, more expensive and require more paperwork.

If you do have the patience and money to spare though, and really want to stay in Malaysia, you can take a look at their MM2H program: Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H).

For Laos, you should go there first, it's not really developed. Just go to Vientiane and look around for agents that will provide a variety of long-term visa options.

Why not Thailand though? For your situation it's a much better option, visas are hassle-free and as a country it's light years ahead of Laos.
 
Malaysia is hard to open a bank account, you could open a company in Labuan and use it to get a visa, but it's costs some money to do (and you have to employ people, etc.). If you want to go MM2H way, choose Sarawak's program, as it's easier and cheaper, and you can live anywhere in Malaysia with it too.

The simple solutions:

Binance has call centers in Laos, so maybe you could do it through them or P2P. But I'd suggest to rather use Cambodia or Georgia for that.

For Cambodia you can see many sellers doing P2P on Binance, cashing out though ABA Bank (officially, they don't allow crypto business according to their paper notice at their bank counter in Phnom Penh), but all sellers use this bank with no problems, or Wing money (cash out at small shops), and the rate is very good (less than 1% difference, for USDT).

If you just want to cash out into fiat paper bills (no bank), you don't even need to go so far into SEA. There are so many options closer to Europe, 3 exchange places in Tbilisi, Georgia offer cashing out USDT to USD with 0.0-0.3% margin. There are places in Turkey giving you the same margins with no probs, and lots of places in Montenegro, Kosovo, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Bosnia.

If you want to cash out and move it out of the country via SWIFT later on, it would be recommended to make it 'official', for example you could buy local real estate with it and sell it again (you could even register a company and sell it from you to "the company") - even Interactive Brokers accepts it as source of funds when you do a swift transfer from Cambodia to them (own experience).

It you want to use it locally only, nobody will ask where the money is coming from if you deposit it in cash in Cambodia or Laos. Lao business visa is about 300-500$ for one year, Cambodia about $320. If you are over 50, I'd recommend Thailand for the retirement visa. If under, you could get an 1 year education visa studying Thai (2000 thb for the visa + 3 x 1900 thb every month for extensions, about 27.000 thb for the cheapest Thai language course for 1 year), or Muay Thai, scuba diving, self defense, Thai cooking, etc. Or get the Elite visa (but it costs some more). Life quality and standard is much higher in Thailand, and the living costs are lower than in Laos or Cambodia.

I made a mistake, the 3 x 1900 thb are every THREE MONTHS for extensions, not monthly.
Basically 2000 THB for the first 3 months, then 1900 for 3 months more, then 1900 for three months more, then 1900 for three more months, all together for a total of 12 months.
You need paperwork from the school, and you need to apply for the visa at a Thai embassy outside of Thailand.
 
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Thailand: No foreign capital gains tax, except the portion remitted into Thailand the year it is earned. So you could potentially sell all of it completely tax-free if you don't remit it to Thailand until the following year. This, of course, means that you'd have to sell the crypto outside of Thailand, probably in Belgium or a third country. I would recommend a third country.
Couple of points not addressed here.

1) 200,000 Euro/$ is not a lot of money.. in Europe, or even Thailand.
2) Even redeeming into fiat 'tax free' or 'reduced tax' will cause a bit of a issue when you return home, as capital gains are usually chargeable up-to 5 yrs on returning home for the prior 5 yrs.
3) Thailand is right, except in Thailand you can do in stable coins USDT,XSGD, etc or similar and then its USDT to THB and the USD value is less than inter-market rate (outside of Crypto) so it's actually a capital loss as stablecoins are considered $ equivalent or Singapore equivalent just on a different payment rail [ergo like Paypal] etc
- in addition Thailand is encouraging the use of Stablecoins/Crypto from Russian's staying or visiting thailand to circumnavigate sanctions, alongside Mir and AliPay etc.
- That is getting crypto to fiat, once it's in the system, you will have issues, spending it, for example in Thailand they like to see where the funds came from (via a bank transfer) if you purchase a property (capital in), likewise trying to move the funds out of the country you will have a similar issue... mind its only about 6m THB... again 6mTHB is not a lot of money, 10 yrs+ ago that would be around 9-13m THB... and would have gone a lot further, today that's barely a decent sized condo in a nice island or skirting the city, or a rabbit hutch in 25-30sqm for 1-4m THB

You may find it better to just re-invest and / or liquidate and pay your taxes in Belgium.

Another point of note, low end condos 1-4m THB in say Phuket, Pattaya, etc will struggle to appreciate in value (and usually loose value, and become dilapidated due to no one paying their annual fees) - so even capital loss on investing with these sums will be large, and expenditure in Thailand has sky-rocketed over the past decade, which again points to better paying taxes in Belgium and withdrawing there.

If you just want to cash out into fiat paper bills (no bank), you don't even need to go so far into SEA. There are so many options closer to Europe, 3 exchange places in Tbilisi, Georgia offer cashing out USDT to USD with 0.0-0.3% margin. There are places in Turkey giving you the same margins with no probs, and lots of places in Montenegro, Kosovo, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Bosnia.
EU process of anything over 1,000 Euro in cash... needs to be considered.

Aside from that, it's really not worth taking a bullet for 200k.
 
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Couple of points not addressed here.

1) 200,000 Euro/$ is not a lot of money.. in Europe, or even Thailand.
2) Even redeeming into fiat 'tax free' or 'reduced tax' will cause a bit of a issue when you return home, as capital gains are usually chargeable up-to 5 yrs on returning home for the prior 5 yrs.
3) Thailand is right, except in Thailand you can do in stable coins USDT,XSGD, etc or similar and then its USDT to THB and the USD value is less than inter-market rate (outside of Crypto) so it's actually a capital loss as stablecoins are considered $ equivalent or Singapore equivalent just on a different payment rail [ergo like Paypal] etc
- in addition Thailand is encouraging the use of Stablecoins/Crypto from Russian's staying or visiting thailand to circumnavigate sanctions, alongside Mir and AliPay etc.
- That is getting crypto to fiat, once it's in the system, you will have issues, spending it, for example in Thailand they like to see where the funds came from (via a bank transfer) if you purchase a property (capital in), likewise trying to move the funds out of the country you will have a similar issue... mind its only about 6m THB... again 6mTHB is not a lot of money, 10 yrs+ ago that would be around 9-13m THB... and would have gone a lot further, today that's barely a decent sized condo in a nice island or skirting the city, or a rabbit hutch in 25-30sqm for 1-4m THB

You may find it better to just re-invest and / or liquidate and pay your taxes in Belgium.

Another point of note, low end condos 1-4m THB in say Phuket, Pattaya, etc will struggle to appreciate in value (and usually loose value, and become dilapidated due to no one paying their annual fees) - so even capital loss on investing with these sums will be large, and expenditure in Thailand has sky-rocketed over the past decade, which again points to better paying taxes in Belgium and withdrawing there.


EU process of anything over 1,000 Euro in cash... needs to be considered.

Aside from that, it's really not worth taking a bullet for 200k.

There is no need for OP to involve Thailand in his crypto transactions or spend any significant money there, he could simply use Thailand's territorial tax system and no taxation of foreign capital gains to sell his crypto outside of Thai borders while he lives there for a few years.
 
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Thailand is right, except in Thailand you can do in stable coins USDT,XSGD, etc or similar and then its USDT to THB and the USD value is less than inter-market rate (outside of Crypto) so it's actually a capital loss as stablecoins are considered $ equivalent or Singapore equivalent just on a different payment rail [ergo like Paypal] etc
Interesting. Could you provide any local sources that corroborate your statement (cashing out stablecoins in Thailand is not a capital gain therefore tax-free)?

There is no need for OP to involve Thailand in his crypto transactions or spend any significant money there, he could simply use Thailand's territorial tax system and no taxation of foreign capital gains to sell his crypto outside of Thai borders while he lives there for a few years.
Tax-wise you're right. Banking-wise as a Thai resident, how are you able to open and maintain a reliable foreign bank account accepting 6+ figures USD transfers from crypto cash-outs? Can you recommend any solution?
 
Tax-wise you're right. Banking-wise as a Thai resident, how are you able to open and maintain a reliable foreign bank account accepting 6+ figures USD transfers from crypto cash-outs? Can you recommend any solution?

That's a good question, but OP already has bank accounts, and the ability to create them in Belgium or any other EU country.

Say, for example, that OP opens an account in a crypto-friendly bank in Switzerland with his Belgium residency. Then moves to Thailand and operates his crypto sales from there over a few years. Would there be any issues? Switzerland would report to Belgium but he wouldn't be liable for tax in Belgium anyways.

In the meantime he could also try to have his bank change his residency to Thailand.

The other solution is to get an alternative residency, such as UAE, but in that case @wellington would be right and paying the Belgian taxes would make more sense, unless OP has other long-term plans besides cashing out the crypto.
 
I meant that in Thailand or Laos you can get a visa quickly and cheaply if you want to stay long term, but in Malaysia the options are usually limited, more expensive and require more paperwork.

If you do have the patience and money to spare though, and really want to stay in Malaysia, you can take a look at their MM2H program: Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H).

For Laos, you should go there first, it's not really developed. Just go to Vientiane and look around for agents that will provide a variety of long-term visa options.

Why not Thailand though? For your situation it's a much better option, visas are hassle-free and as a country it's light years ahead of Laos.
because prices in thailand got up a lot from what I know, do you know what agents provide as solutions in these countries tho as I don't have much cash but mostly crypto? thanks bro!
 
because prices in thailand got up a lot from what I know, do you know what agents provide as solutions in these countries tho as I don't have much cash but mostly crypto? thanks bro!
Costs in Thailand have increased a bit, but in Laos or Cambodia even more. They are higher (inflation in Laos is still running at 41.3% as of 2023) than in Thailand now (comparing Vientiane and cities outside of BKK), and the standard of living (apartment, entertainment, food quality, medical quality) is subpar. You can get an apartment with pool and gym for $200 in Chiang Mai or Pattaya, or a simple apartment without kitchen with wooden chairs and sofa made of wood in Vientiane for $450.


In Laos, you can ask some of the visa agents around the immigration office for advice, there are also FB groups. It will cost you around 380$ per year for a business visa in Vientiane, up to $500-600 if you do it outside of Vientiane, for example in Pakse.

For Cambodia, you can get an ordinary visa on arrival for $30 or $35. It's valid for one month, and can be extended ONCE for 'business or job searching purposes' without any documentation for 3 months (about $80-110 at various agencies). If you want to extend it to 6 months ($170) or one year ($280), you need to have documents about employment or business, and you need to get a work permit as well ($$). If you are old enough, you can get a retirement visa, but you need docs about being retired. It's much harder than before, you can't extend the ordinary visa for more than 3 months without docs anymore, and without the mentioned docs you can get only ONE 3 months extension, after that you have to leave the country. So, 1+3 = 4 months without docs, then moving on. BTW: If you are from few European countries, you could get a currently FREE 7 days visa stay in Vietnam, so you could use this to do a visa run and get back to Cambodia with a 30 days tourist visa for $25 or $30. I don't know how long you could do this for, but apart from the hassle, I think it should work with no problems.

For crypto, Cambodia offers the least documentation for cashing out. You can just do P2P with an ordinary Binance account, or go straight to Ly Heng office and arrange something OTC. Or just use Mt. Pelerin and SWIFT it to your account (this you could do anywhere in the world, no matter if TH, KH or LAO).

If you want cheap and easy visa solutions, you could go to the Philippines and extend your visa every 3 months forever. But opening a bank account is not easy anymore. And it's bad value, the food is s**t, too.
You could try Indonesia instead of Malaysia, it's cheaper, about $500 per year for a visa solution, and if you stay away from Bali it's cheap. Crypto cashing out should be possible somehow, but I haven't tried it there. Of course, you could do Mt. Pelerin to Revolut card, or just get a Binance Visa card.

P.S. I am sitting in the same boat, passing the time until the new high in June 2025 before turning the crypto into real estate.
 
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