Suggest Tax residency move out strategy for Indian Citizen

[eestikumar]

Looking for alternative to Dubai / UAE for tax residence reasons as an Indian citizen.

So far I'm using a Merchant of Record (MoR) to sell digital goods and services to Non-Indian customers, mostly to Europeans. Now I want to grow my business and later hire others too. So need to setup a company and I don't feel like to live in India anymore (coz reasons) and don't want to deal with Indian bureaucracy. I'm thinking to setup Estonian company using e-residency card, as most customers are in Europe and I'm hoping to move to Europe long term. But but India have Overseas Direct Investment (ODI), Permanent establishment (PE) / Place of Effective Management (PoEM) rules and regulations, so I'm skeptical about this idea. Better to change my tax resident outside India then setup Estonian company?

My options are:

1) Pitch my business to Estonian Startup Committee for Startup Visa as a founder. Over promise them even tho my business is not that impressive, nor I want to raise fund. If I get their approval, getting Estonian D-visa to setup company would be easy. This is the ideal scenario.

If this fail then:

2) Apply for resident permit for business which need €65,000 investment in Estonian company. I don't have that much right now. So in the meanwhile change my tax resident to third country, then setup Estonian company and grow revenue till I can cross that limit, then apply that resident permit. For tax residency, Dubai / UAE is good option for Indian citizens as every other Indian is going there. but I don't find living in Dubai that appealing, so any other country which is easy to get tax residency. I don't mind paying some tax. ;-;

if that's not feasible then:

3) Just setup Estonian Company. Move/travel to other countries on tourist visa, never stay in India for more than 60 days. Keep paying personal tax tho. Stay under the radar till I get enough fund to apply for Estonian resident permit.

Am I overthinking or do you have better plan for me?

 

[Martin Everson]

Your thinking is logical.

With your passport the choice of countries for residency is not easy. I would stick with MoR until you have more revenue if the MoR is not connected to India.

You may want to look into exploring some of the nomad residency visas in below list and assess requirements and budget that suits you.

https://nomadgirl.co/countries-with-digital-nomad-visas/

Also if you want to switch from your existing MoR you could look at Xolo Go or other similar services.

P.S What is wrong with Dubai for you...costs?

 

[eestikumar]

MoR is working well so far. But there's a limit how much I can deduct business expenses from my income. Those expenses and revenue are increasing, so does my tax liability. and I want to deal with other companies and it won't look professional if I won't have my own company.

I have checked some digital nomad visas, but quirk is many expect applicant to be employee or owner of some company or have work contract (to check income stability?). Many are targeted on Tier 1 passport holders. like Georgia’s digital nomad visa only applies to countries with visa free access to Georgia, which India doesn't. My goal is to get tax residency certificate which I may or may not possible with some digital nomad visas.

There's nothing wrong with Dubai. I have preference for Greenery, walkable city, I'm an atheist and pro-democracy, so I'll only pick Dubai if I won't have any other option.

PS. Is process for Abu Dhabi remote work visa same as Dubai's? There's not much information about that visa.