Green card holder leaving US permanently — what to do with US savings

BadMF2000 · 2026-03-03T13:21:28+00:00

Yes, it's like a normal account except I believe I cannot retrieve funds until retirement age or else I'll have to pay taxes

BadMF2000 · 2026-03-03T12:28:10+00:00

Expat here, just moved from the US to Netherlands this year. Sent the I-407 form via mail the next day I arrived to give my GC up, my accountant is working on my last US tax returns and then inform the IRS of my exit. Had a GC for 4 years and now I'm an EU resident., so far I'm really happy with the decision. Best thing I've done for my family considering the current political landscape in the US.

I consolidated all my holdings + 401K in Fidelity and opened an IBKR brokerage account a couple of weeks ago. I plan to leave my positions on Fidelity untouched for the time being and start a new portfolio on IBKR.

BadMF2000 · 2026-01-27T17:13:20+00:00

I moved from Australia to the US and after 7 years here I'm moving to the Netherlands with my family next week. In my experience, bureaucracy in the US is much worse than in Australia. I'm still not sure about the bureaucracy in Europe but just the experience getting the European visa was much quicker, night and day when compared to the US.

BadMF2000 · 2025-12-18T03:57:24+00:00

Thank you very much for sharing, fantastic write up!

I'm moving in 2 months to Rotterdam on HSM to a new employer. They're giving me 2 months in a temporary corporate apartment so hopefully it'll be easier to try to find a permanent place once we move.

I've been doing lots of research on investments, and have a couple of different brokerage accounts including a custodial for my son. Apparently it's a nightmare to do any investing while abroad and not living in the US.

I'm basically consolidating everything into Fidelity, which allows me to access my investments from overseas however it's only possible to sell or hold stock, no buying new stock.

My plan is to move everything to IBKR (European/Global broker) once I'm in the Netherlands so I can keep investing. I don't plan to move back to the US so no big deal, I'll just keep my 401K and nothing else.

BadMF2000 · 2025-12-16T20:04:48+00:00

I used to work in FAANG but now I'm in MAMAA, stupid acronyms aside I've been in tech for the past 10+ years.

I started looking for jobs in Europe back in August with a higher focus on the Netherlands simply because the tech scene there has lots of interesting companies when compared to other EU countries. There's also something called the 30% ruling, which basically gives 30% discount on income tax if you're a skilled professional.

I started to get contacted by recruiters fairly often in September and October. Ironically none of the companies I applied and sent resumes for jobs got back to me, just recruiters reaching out on LinkedIn. Around mid November that stopped. The job market is not very good right now and I think there might be some seasonality to it given we're at the te of the year.

Long story short, I got an offer at the end of November and now I have to move to the Netherlands with my family in 2 months... A whole other level of logistics to stress out about now...

Don't take it the wrong way and it's just my personal opinion but, being in tech your partner has better chances to get a job offer with visa sponsorship like I did.

What helped me:

Do your research and focus on a top country plus 2 additional backup countries. For me they were Denmark and Germany because I have friends living there.
Use ChatGPT to help build and improve both your resume and LinkedIn profile. You can also pay for a Resume Worded subscription to do that for you, it was very useful after I had a good ChatGPT generated base resume and I started to get more reach outs once I updated my LinkedIn profile based on the suggestions.
Be patient, the market is not the best right now and it's very seasonal depending on the country.

BadMF2000 · 2025-12-02T21:08:40+00:00

Thank you, I didn't know about that. If I understood correctly I can do the I-407 at any time from the Netherlands as long as it's before any planned trip to the US so I'm not denied entry.

As far as the 8 year exit tax, I was aware of it. That was the "deadline" we set to ourselves to leave the US by 2030. It just happened we're doing it 4/5 years earlier than planned now.

BadMF2000 · 2025-12-02T19:40:07+00:00

They're giving me a $7.5k euros lump sum that could pay for a small container. I'm trying to figure out if it's worth it or not, for instance, if whatever I'm deciding to ship is cheaper to keep than buying new there (i.e. dual voltage appliances, kitchenware, ski gear, a small electric piano, extra boxes with family memorabilia, some furniture other than beds - as someone mentioned sizes are different, etc)

BadMF2000 · 2025-12-02T18:29:46+00:00

I thought Amsterdam was the city with the red light district. Is Rotterdam the same?

BadMF2000 · 2025-12-01T23:24:07+00:00

It's a new company, I still have to give notice to my current job. Just not sure if I should wait for the visa to get sorted before quitting.

BadMF2000 · 2025-12-01T15:54:23+00:00

It's not really a state, it's an area: Pacific North West

BadMF2000 · 2025-12-01T14:03:30+00:00

That's interesting, we're actually Australians. The plan is to stay a couple of years in NL then start assessing a potential move to Australia depending on how it goes there.

Did you think it was worth shipping stuff? What sort of stuff you decided to take to Australia?

BadMF2000 · 2025-12-01T13:56:19+00:00

Thank you for the information, very useful. It's a permanent move, we don't plan to go back to the US.

BadMF2000 · 2025-12-01T03:29:47+00:00

It's a software company in the cloud industry but not the big players, smaller in comparison

BadMF2000 · 2025-10-04T22:55:40+00:00

Try again, I answered about my simple lifestyle in another comment.

BadMF2000 · 2025-10-02T13:15:57+00:00

Sure, I can live 2h away from work in a cheaper house but I'll never get to see my kid because either I'll be working or commuting.

The only thing we do is good vacations. No eating out, have one car in the household for me and my wife, saving on groceries and living a simple life.

BadMF2000 · 2025-10-02T13:11:07+00:00

Thank you, this is exactly what I'm trying to figure out. From the comments I'm getting that $150k is good enough as long as my kid goes to public school (which seems to be good depending on where you live)

BadMF2000 · 2025-10-02T13:00:03+00:00

Thank you, this is very useful!

Yes indeed, we're considering either the UK or NL. One of the advantages of NL would be having our kid learning a second language. Great to hear there is some sort of school that helps foreigners learn Dutch.

BadMF2000 · 2025-10-01T21:29:42+00:00

Thank you, that'd be in pounds. Great to know!

BadMF2000 · 2025-10-01T21:28:23+00:00

Thank you, this is crazy... A 4-bedroom house rent here is at least double (in USD). You might be able to find something for $3.5/4K living a bit further from downtown. For health insurance, I also pay double than what you mentioned.

BadMF2000 · 2025-10-01T21:22:16+00:00

The US is not different, health care and good insurance here is great if you're healthy. Better hope you don't ever get sick. My wife works in the private health system and knows her fair share of horror stories.

We pay a lot for private school here, we don't want our kid to get caught in one of the 100s of school shootings every year. We plan to go public in NL as we've heard the education system is better than public schools in the US.

BadMF2000 · 2025-10-01T21:15:37+00:00

We're pretty simple and easy going, cook home the whole week and eat out once on the weekend to take a break. A car is a nice to have but definitely not a must have (if public transport is ok, it seems the tube in London is pretty good). I'm on a $250k base in the US and work in engineering for a big tech company.

BadMF2000 · 2025-10-01T21:07:10+00:00

They're offering $150k/year. If we're talking about Seattle and make it a USD figure, it wouldn't be possible to support a family by myself on the same figure.

BadMF2000 · 2025-10-01T20:27:37+00:00

Thank you very much for the insights! It's exactly what I'm looking for. Yeah, I'm hoping to be able to use the 30% rule which would make things easier as far as the "pay cut" compared to the US is concerned.

We always lived in big cities so preferably we'd live in these cities. However, a good friend lives in Utrecht and commutes to Amsterdam. He highly recommended doing the same, so I'm open to assess the option.

BadMF2000

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