Puerto Rico is a common tax Haven for US citizens who move down there for the beautiful beaches the amazing weather and of course the very large tax breaks let me put on my Puerto Rico golf hat here I'm going to explain to you exactly what it was like to live in Puerto Rico why I ultimately decided to leave and this is coming from someone who lived there for over three years so I can give you a lot of good insight into the pros and the cons of going to Puerto Rico as a tax Haven yo look at this now Puerto Rico has a couple different tax programs act 20 and act 22 are the most popular these are now rolled up into what's called act 60 common misconception you can still separate these out I was taken advantage of act 20 that was the program I was enrolled into and approved by the Puerto Rican government which allows my business to get a 4% corporate tax rate that's right paying 4% in total no matter how much money we make on all the net profits of the business now the other option which a lot of people take is what's called 22 this is where you get 0% capital gains you'll see your stock Traders and crypto guys talking about this program right that's where you don't pay anything now there's different restrictions with both of these like the one I was in I couldn't have us office space or any us employees so those are restrictions that you have to modify around in act 22 you have to buy a home within two years so there's some different things like this but those are the two big programs that you can opt to join now one thing I've always heard is people saying oh I'm going to move to Puerto Rico and suddenly sell all my crypto or sell my business that I've been building for 7 years it wasn't built there the gains weren't acquired there you can't do that you got to play by the rules now before I go into what it was like to live there why I left I want to First explain what it's like to get set up down there the cost the things that go into it everything about it make sure to drop a like on this video And subscribe so I hope you got your pens ready because you're going to be doing a lot of paperwork moving down to Puerto Rico you're going to want a company to help you with this process I used P relocate and had a great experience to my knowledge they're the most popular largest one that helps people relocate right P relocate down to PR Puerto Rico and they really helped with the process they can recommend different vendors real estate agents CPAs and whatnot once you're down there but they help do all the paperwork now you're going to have to sign a lot of forms a lot of these are going to have to be notorized I was using online notaries for most of this stuff you also have to like go request criminal background checks from the state you're coming from and a lot of random things like that that's a bit bureaucratic and is definitely annoying to get but you only have to do it one time now as you submit the paperwork and get the process going Puerto Rico has to actually accept you Andor your business into the island this is called your decrees like your act 20 decree your act 22 decree has to get accepted and this can very commonly Take 6 12 even 18 months I've seen for some of my friends to get accepted now you can move down before that you can start taking tax Exempted earnings you can start clocking your time down there before so obviously talk to whoever's helping you get set up but you can clock time before I would highly recommend during this process to actually go spend some time on the island just like you would never want to move any anywhere without spending time there well making a big decision to move somewhere so far away that's probably so different you're going to want to check it out I went down for 10 days I stayed right in San Juan in Condado which is where I ended up living for the first year while I was there and at least gave me a feel of what the city was like and what I could expect the total cost for me to get set up down in Puerto Rico was about $5,500 maybe $6,000 I think that's a pretty average number that most people pay could be a little more a little less and it took about 4 months from start to finish going down to to see the island doing the paperwork getting everything filed getting everything they need signing the documents actually finding an apartment down there signing the lease and then traveling down so you can definitely do it a lot quicker people do but uh I took my time with it couple months which really isn't that bad and now comes the fun part what is it actually like to live in Puerto Rico okay first and foremost you have to spend at least 183 days a year on the island this is called the physical presence test I highly recommend you read the tax code if you're considering going down there it'll give you a lot of clarity there is a way to spend 5 months a year in Puerto Rico instead of six and that is if you are spending a significant amount of time traveling outside of the country you can exempt up to 30 days a year which will be credited towards time in Puerto Rico if you are traveling outside the country the basic premise here is you don't want to spend more time in any one place than you do Puerto Rico especially in the States you don't qualify for the tax benefits there just because you spend time you have to also pass what's called a closer connection test so there's things you can do down there like register to vote you could get a local phone number again not necessary but doing all these things helps you could join a local soccer club if you play soccer or whatever like whatever you do you got to kind of build a life there and be able to show it if you ever had to so having closer connections like if you have a wife and child back in New York and you travel back and forth frequently and yeah you spend 183 days there but your closer connections test probably won't pass if you have a big ass house back in the States and a bunch of cars and a tiny one-bedroom condo in Puerto Rico again again it's not looking like a primary residence I always tried to get my time done by like September so that I'd have a buffer so I could spend more time there if I wanted to or I could go travel I just didn't want to be in a situation where something popped up and for whatever reason I couldn't get my time done on the island and eventually you'll see the theme here that started to feel a little bit restrictive is like having to be somewhere another thing to note is with your home in Puerto Rico you have to actually keep it year round you can't Airbnb for the 6 months you're there you can't rent out your home whether you own it or rent it you can't just rent it out SU it for the other time you're not there depending on where you choose to live the prices can vary but a decent apartment that comes furnished is usually going to start around 3500 no matter where you are my first apartment was in Condado in one of the nicest newest buildings right in the city center close to everything I could walk I hadn't bought a car yet um and that was $11,500 a month it was a really big place beautiful ocean views like 3,000 square ft but it was definitely expensive and when I moved out they raised the rent to $155,000 a month so again it's pretty comparable to like a a premium place now if you're going to move down to the island and you are a fan of playing golf you're in luck it's some of the best golf I've ever played in my life I'd frequently play on the Trent Jones course over in the St reges Resort that's in Rio Grand Bia Beach gorgeous gorgeous course and it's always empty so you can fly through 18 holes real quick awesome awesome experience I think there's about 16 golf courses throughout the island I played quite a few not all of them uh flamboy and down in Palma Delmar is great over in Dorado there's some Great Courses there but definitely something you should check out if you play golf or want to now if you've done research on Puerto Rico the tax prog and listen to anybody else talk about it you've probably heard of Dorado Beach it's nice and it's nice to do it in Dorado AKA heaven on Earth this is where pretty much all the wealthy people live obviously there's other people spread out there's different communities but this is the big one the Ritz Carlton Resort in Dado um and Dorado is actually quite big so there's Dorado and then there's Dorado Beach behind the Gates there's different pockets of it now living in Dorado is really where all the higher-end people are there's where there's a lot of money back there homes go up to4 $45 million it's quite expensive it's a beautiful place I have a lot of friends who live there I considered it honestly if I was going to keep living in Puerto Rico that's probably where I would live but here's some information on that just to get into the resort as an Initiation fee it's 150,000 now they raised it you also pay $11,000 every month for the rest of your life if you want to be a member they get you access to everything the clubhouses their pools the fitness centers pickleball courts they got helip pads over there so some people will fly their helicopter to their private jet to leave like a lot of stuff like that it's it's a pretty cool setup you get cheap access to the golf courses and stuff but a cheap apartment over there and I say cheap is going to start at about 12,000 a month you could probably get away with that over in Plantation maybe in the fairways um but prices have come down a lot they were minimum 20,000 uh during 2020 so they've come down a little bit a lot of people do opt to live right outside the gates they live in posos Villa De Gulf they live vegalta you know anywhere sabanera just right outside uh where they pay a lot less but then you have to drive in so just keep that in mind you can't get around in the golf cart which is quite a cool community if you're looking for Community which is really important when you move somewhere Dorado is a great spot to network so I do see why a lot of people go there now just like any place that has been beat up that's in debt that's not super developed the government does not function super well there's a lot of things that are frustrating honestly the best experience I had was getting my driver's license that was quite easy there's a lot of third- party places you can go to do that I went to the one right in kado above the supermax I don't even remember what it's called but it very easy very you know diplomatic process I liked it everything else terrible phone service is definitely something I will mention for some reason never works as good on Sundays and it's just really spotty throughout the island no matter what carrier you have this just gets a little bit annoying now I will talk about safety real quick because it's a point to consider you can get a license to carry concealed carry only in Puerto Rico I would recommend it especially if you are not living behind the Gates it's something to do you might as well do it right when you get there um I've seen a couple of bad things happen I have seen and heard multiple gun fires I've woken up to gunfire while living in the city um I haven't personally had any like close calls but I've seen multiple bodies with you know police had just arrived I saw a motorcyclist get hit and then run over by a couple of different cars and for multiple minutes hundreds of cars on the highway going from the airport East lity in to centur say everybody's just like swerving around this body nobody stops it's just weird like nobody seems to care I had another friend just behind Gallery Plaza he lived right there uh he got held up at gunpoint with his friend at night so there I am standing in my nice little neighborhood with a friend of mine he has a shotgun pointed to his chest I have a machine gun pressed on my neck and 60 seconds later after they escaped those people those two robbers shot multiple times two other people you can find the police report on that it was a big deal because the people they shot were FBI and DEA agents down there on vacation the same gun that was on my neck 60 seconds earlier shot this woman five times the there's stuff like this that happens for sure I had a friend who was doing salsa dancing lessons in santour okay maybe he wasn't in the best area you know there's some sketchy Parts there but automatic gunfire opens up and it's hidden the cement all around them there's like a little half barrier wall they all lay down the teacher everybody like get down so they lay on the floor for 10 minutes while this gunfire is happening and then as soon as it's done everybody stands up and turns on the music and starts dancing like nothing happened like my friend who just moved there is shaking with his girlfriend there understandably so it's like it's just like death and gunfire and gang activity is like very normalized there and like that's a little bit weird to me but you will not have that problem if you live behind the Gates in one of the large communities now when you're picking a place to live keep in mind you're going to want a backup generator or live in an apartment building that has one because the power does go out the power G this is crazy is controlled by a privately owned company Luma nobody likes Luma on the island there's a lot of corruption happening now on the contrary there are some amazing beaches you've probably seen it you've heard about it you should definitely explore the island I was able to get out quite a bit I did the bioluminescent Bay in Fardo kayaking around at midnight that was really cool I've got to see a lot of beautiful beaches now depending on where you go please be careful I say this because it's my honest opinion on more than one occasion I watched in Condado and in the Back Bay somehow a diver Squad pull out a body bag with someone in it who had drowned like it is very choppy very aggressive if you don't know how to not just swim but read the oceans there's some crazy stuff that happens I watched two tourists from Atlanta that I had a brief conversation with as I was warning them I'm in the water in kado right in front of laconcha just right there and I tell them don't don't swim out past where you can touch and like oh no we swim all the time we're fine I'm like okay they go out they get ripped out they get ripped down the current and slammed into all these rocks and had to get rescued I told you so you know it's like be really careful where you are the ocean is really really strong some spots are peaceful and super calm like adbo is my favorite favorite beaches over there amazing and the last thing I want to mention before I tell you why I left the island is healthc care this is obviously a really important aspect of daily life right if you're bringing a family down there married kids all this is super important to consider there are a few very nice private facilities there's one over in Dorado outside of the gates that anybody can access really good healthare there but a big thing to consider with Puerto Rico is the negative migration meaning more people leave the island every year then come there a lot of people leave but who is leaving it's not the average person it's the skilled doctor the person who went through school the dentist the Health Care Professionals the lawyers the business owners the people with means who are going to greener pastures for a reason so because of that you are left with and not to sound aggressive just less amounts of talented people and in my opinion the healthc care industry has suffered a lot because of this I'll tell you a quick story I this was my second year living there I had an issue late at night it's 11:00 p.m. my ribs I I I dislocated like three ribs and the muscle had actually separated off of them this is by far one of the most painful things I've ever been through in my life and I've had a lot of injuries I could not breathe past like 20% lung capacity because it was stretching me too much I couldn't get up get down Flex move I I could not do anything I'm by myself in my apartment it's 11: at night and I called the ER and they hung up on me twice because I didn't speak Spanish okay like that's not okay I was calling the big ER right in the city and they didn't even try to get anybody who speaks English it was a big problem so I waited I laid I could not move I waited for like 2 days until I could finally get up move I booked a flight on my phone and I mustered my way over to the airport and I went to Miami for treatment right so it's like maybe I could have tried calling every single hospital but like this is just the the service you're going to get there now for General healthc care I will recommend proven it's a private Health Clinic it's basically conci a service uh based out of santour I believe but they will have people come to your house so you can get your blood drawn at your house they'll set up dentist appointments for you and just organize your Healthcare so I would recommend that I think it's $1,000 a year just one thing I want to mention because Healthcare is really important and I had some really negative experiences there now to the juicy stuff please leave a like down below and subscribe here you guys I want to explain why I left this is a really important video for me to make in fact I wanted to make it right as I left Puerto Rico instead I waited six months I told myself I would give myself six months to kind of cool off to some degree and just like let it sit for a bit okay otherwise the video would have been a lot more aggressive all right I've got a list here that I really want to make sure I hit through so I was traveling back and forth for all sorts of stuff Puerto Rico is not just south of Florida it's far it's very far and the question is far from what right I do go back to the US a lot I go to Asia and Europe a lot so pretty much anywhere I went it was two flights which was really inconvenient it was a full day of travel just to get back to anywhere I would really go to in the US it's the full day lost uh in I think it was 2022 I took 115 is flights that was about 70 trips cuz a lot of those were double flights to get somewhere really frustrating really expensive tax on your body it just like my business didn't progress as much because of that so there was a lot of stuff to consider there I also own a lot of real estate in the US and I qualified as a real estate professional which means I can take the depreciation for my properties and offset that against any income I have which means while the tax benefits in Puerto Rico were helping me greatly for sure um I can at least take a piece and save some of that in taxes because of my real estate so I do at least have that going for me uh now that I'm back in the US and beforehand so I was able to offset a little bit so it it wasn't like I was maxing out every benefit I possibly could because I'm in real estate so cars cars are a huge part of my life I mean it's it's something like right now I got four or five cars got a GT3 RS and ra8 much like I love cars and it's something where number one I didn't feel safe having those in Puerto Rico I have friends in Dorado only one who actually has like a cool car and like you can drive it in some spots the roads are really really bad but safety to me was like a big element of that like leaving it out somewhere is someone gonna mess with it steal it break into it key it I don't know where do you get it fixed out there so it's just something to consider for sure if you like cars so lifestyle for me started becoming an issue day-to-day life was boring like there's nothing better for me than working for four or five hours and then going to the gym but I get to have an experience going to the gym because I'm enjoying my car on the way there like I'm a true car Enthusiast so it just felt a little bit stale in my life uh it was something there you know so I bought a Ford explore out there wasn't as exciting uh increased cost of living this another thing well obviously it's offset by taxes I mean I was saving a lot of money on taxes I'm still a Frugal guy but I was in Puerto Rico for about half of my three years there I was maintaining a second home at some points I had cars other points I didn't um so it's just added expenses Puerto Rico is not particularly cheap also the increased travel cost hotels airbnbs a lot of flights you know food in the airports water B like it all adds up so definitely spending more there of course still way offset by taxes but uh you know something to consider and now one of the biggest things there's a lot of other little stuff I'm not going to harp on every little thing in this video because people think I'm being petty but one of the big things for me is the environment no long longer pushed me and what I realized was like when I was living in California I always excited and being able to travel and then in Arizona it's like I'm around people I'm seeing stuff I'm just in an environment that pushes me whereas laidback Island life where it's kind of slow everybody's chilling maybe you're making money and what not but it's like it's very relaxed and I I realized after like the first year I was I was just kind of chilling I didn't like that I didn't like that I'm a hard charging like I I have to be having progress I'm a very logical individual who just goes Puerto Rico is a laidback party scene loud everything's like that like I don't drink I don't go out I don't want to go out I don't like being in a loud place like I just that's not me that's not the people I hang around so it just again like kind of a lifestyle wasn't a good fit there and it eventually started just wearing down on my business and everything that I was like thinking and progressing and learning it just it affects everything your environment is so so crucial and I will add one piece to this it did start to bother me that I couldn't just get in my car and change my environment right like if I'm living in California or Arizona I can drive into the mountains and yes there's some mountains in Puerto Rico but it's it's different I can drive to the desert I can go to the snow I can go to the beach like you have diversification there um and in Puerto Rico you don't it's just an island and I understood that going in but it did start to like just bother me and all this is not to say Puerto Rico is bad I had a great time living there a couple more things to mention 50-50 shot of your Amazon package showing up sju the big airport there San Juan is awesome okay really well-run airport I have to give them props on it they also added clear at the end of 2022 makes it very easy to travel both domestically and internationally they have direct flights to Madrid you can jump over to Europe in about eight hours very easy to navigate I will give them a big thumbs up on the airport another thing I'll mention is the racism and uh discrimination that I faced there which I know might sound weird saying um but anytime I posted anything online about Puerto Rico about living in especially about the tax benefits um I mean I'd get serious death threats not oh like screw you like like people like dming me weekly like hey I'm I'm finding you I'm going look for you on the island I'm going shoot you if I see you like crazy stuff I also just saw some stuff I didn't really resonate with with daily life out there not once not twice but at least minimum a 100 times I watched people throw huge amounts of trash out the window of a moving vehicle a guy at a red light throws his big slushy cup I mean it's like one of those half gallon he's a big fat guy just drops it like throws it out the window and one time I did this I picked it up and I threw it back at him I me it sprayed all over the inside of his car and I just kept walking and he's yelling some in Spanish I don't know what he said but like you see stuff like that it's just not cool I do not want to be in a place where people are doing that constantly it's okay it's common practice a lot of it's dirty I know a lot of Puerto Ricans that are amazing I have a ton of friends down there doing awesome stuff that are from there live there I also know a lot of people from there who left so it just kind of depends on your lifestyle just like a lot of people leave their Hometown I left my hometown it wasn't for me uh there's nothing good or bad about it but I will say this I definitely don't regret moving to Puerto Rico but I also don't regret leaving it was an incredible experience I wouldn't trade it for anything I really enjoyed my time there my health really went up to another level kind of being in isolation there and focusing on my health uh was big I learned a lot of stuff got super healthy and I'm very grateful for that so just remember where you live matters okay and if you are a US citizen Puerto Rico is is not the only option if you're looking to lower your taxes you can think more globally there's different Global structures you can set up but also understand that where you live Matters from a personal perspective too your motivation level your happiness your health all of that is a factor maybe not the only one but it definitely is a factor what I realized is I just didn't feel as good when I was in Puerto Rico as elsewhere so that is ultimately why I decided to leave look I really hope you guys enjoyed this video make sure to drop a like And subscribe follow me over on Instagram I don't post too much here on YouTube uh I'm going to be starting to do some more videos but follow me on in Instagram I post a ton of stuff there every single day you can shoot me a message whatever I hope this video provided some insight um I really enjoyed my time there in Puerto Rico and this was an honest review on everything to do with it and why I left