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Money required for Canadians to get a digital nomad visa in five countries

ByStan S.

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More countries now have digital nomad visa programs; however, to qualify, you must meet the salary or savings requirement.

If you’ve always dreamed of working from a beach or a cafe in Rome, digital nomad visas are a great opportunity for remote workers to get work done while living abroad. But before you book that plane ticket and pack your bags, it’s important to note that each country has its own list of specific requirements.

These visas allow you to stay and work in the country for several months or up to a year. For example, Japan only issues digital nomad visas for up to a year, and they can’t be renewed. To be eligible, you must meet each country’s salary requirements or proof of assets for visitors, which are often significantly higher than the average local income.

In addition to proof of income, other requirements can include a clean background check, proof of accommodation, health insurance coverage, and a significant amount in savings.

Given that the average hourly wage in Canada in 2024 was $35.24, how realistic are these requirements for the average Canadian? Here are five countries that issue digital nomad visas and their requirements for income or proof of assets.

Thailand

thailand digital nomad visa

Day2505/Shutterstock

Proof of financial assets: At least 500,000 Thai Baht (C$20,943.20)

From its intricate temples to sandy white beaches, there are plenty of reasons why Thailand is such a popular tourist destination.

Last year, the Thai government announced the Destination Thailand Visa (DTV), informally known as the “digital nomad visa.” The visa is valid for five years and allows for multiple entries, with a maximum stay of 180 days per entry. You’ll also have the option to include family members in your application.

Italy

italy

Kaspars Grinvalds/Shutterstock

Salary requirement: 24,789 Euros per year (C$38,672)

Log in at work during the day, then wrap up your work day by strolling along the cobblestone streets in popular Italian cities like Rome or Florence. Not only is the country ideally located to allow you to explore surrounding European countries, but there’s plenty to do should you decide to spend your entire stay in Italy.

According to the Consolato General d’Italia in New York, as of 2024, to qualify for the digital nomad/remote worker visa, you must earn 24,789 Euros per year or C$38,672. The visa allows you to sponsor a spouse or a child under 18.

United Arab Emirates

uae

frantic00/Shutterstock

Salary requirement: Minimum of US$4,891 (C$3,500) per month

The United Arab Emirates may be known for opulence and Dubai’s unique architecture, but it also offers rich cultural experiences through its souqs and local cuisine.

If you’re a remote worker who’s always been curious about life in the UAE, you can apply for the virtual work visa. According to the government of Dubai, you can get a visa that allows you to sponsor your family and remain in the country for 60 days.

Japan

japan

gingerm/Shutterstock

Salary requirement: 10 million Japanese Yen per year (C$95,851)

From Mount Fuji to the futuristic Tokyo skyline, there’s just way too much to see in Japan. If you can’t imagine condensing all of it into a standard two-week trip, then a six-month digital nomad visa might be the perfect choice.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as a main applicant, you’ll be issued a six-month digital nomad visa (with no extensions), and you can bring a spouse or child.

Iceland

iceland

Mallmo/Shutterstock

Salary requirement: 1,000,000 Icelandic Króna (C$10,685) per month or 1,300,000 Icelandic Króna (C$13,891) per month if you’re also applying for a spouse or partner

If you love Iceland’s dramatic and rugged landscapes, it’s certainly a great place to consider life as a digital nomad. In addition to its rich Viking history, you might even be lucky enough to spot the Northern Lights.

According to Iceland’s Directorate of Immigration website, the long-term visa for remote work allows you and a partner to stay in Iceland for 90 to 180 days.

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    Vancouver aiming to grow urban forest canopy but don’t expect the promised 100,000 new trees soon

    ByStan S.

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    Spring slowdown for Metro Vancouver home sales drags on despite ‘abundant’ listings

    ByStan S.

    Despite an ample amount of listings, the spring slowdown of Metro Vancouver home sales continued in April. According to the latest data from the Monthly Listing Sales (MLS) report from Greater Vancouver Realtors (GVR) and the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, April home sales across the region remain slow. The GVR report highlighted that in April 2025, the residential sales in the region totalled 2,163, a 23.6 per cent decrease from the 2,831 sales recorded in April 2024. This was 28.2 per cent below the 10-year seasonal average of 3,014. “From a historical perspective, the slower sales we’re now seeing stand out as unusual, particularly against a backdrop of significantly improved borrowing conditions, which typically helps to boost sales,” stated Andrew Lis, GVR director of economics and data analytics, in the report. Roman Makedonsky/Shutterstock “What’s also unusual is starting the year with Canada’s largest trading partner threatening to tilt our economy into recession via trade policy, while at the same time having Canadians head to the polls to elect a new federal government. These issues have been hard to ignore, and the April home sales figures suggest some buyers have continued to patiently wait out the storm,” he added. There were 6,850 detached, attached and apartment properties newly listed for sale in April 2025, representing a 3.4 per cent decrease compared to the 7,092 properties listed in April 2024, and a 19.5 per cent increase in the 10-year seasonal average. A total of 16,207 homes are currently listed for sale on the MLS in Metro Vancouver, an uptick from the 14,546 homes listed in March 2025. It is also a 29.7 per cent increase compared to April 2024 (12,491) and 47.6 per cent above the 10-year seasonal average of 10,979. The MLS Home Price Index composite benchmark price for all residential properties in Metro Vancouver currently sits at $1,184,500, a slight decrease of 1.8 per cent from the year before and a 0.5 per cent decrease compared to March 2025. Detached home sales were recorded at 578, a 29 per cent decrease from the 814 detached sales recorded in the same month in 2024. The current benchmark price for a detached home is $2,021,800, which decreased by 0.7 per cent from April 2024 and a 0.6 per cent decrease compared to March 2025. Sales of apartment homes were 1,130 last month, down 20.2 per cent compared to April 2024. The benchmark apartment price is $762,800 — a 2 per cent dip from the same month last year. Attached home sales in April (442) were also slightly slower than what they were in April 2024 (580). The current benchmark price for a townhome is $2,021,800 — a 0.7 per cent decrease year-over-year. GVR The sales-to-active listings ratio for April 2025 for detached, attached and apartment property types was 13.8 per cent. Lis noted that while the market remains tough, there are some positives worth highlighting. “Inventory levels have just crested 16,000 for the first time since 2019, prices have stayed fairly stable for the past few months, and borrowing costs are the lowest they’ve been in years,” he stated. “These factors benefit buyers, and with balanced conditions across the market overall, there’s plenty of opportunity for anyone looking to make a purchase.” The jurisdiction of GVR, previously known as the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV), includes not only Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, New Westminster, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Richmond, South Delta, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, and Bowen Island, but also the Sunshine Coast, Squamish, and Whistler. Other areas of Metro Vancouver are under the jurisdiction of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board (FVREB), including Surrey, Langley, White Rock, and North Delta, as well as the Fraser Valley cities of Abbotsford and Mission. According to the FVREB, the number of home sales in its jurisdiction in April 2025 saw a “growing inventory” of over 10,000 active listings, but sales remained sluggish. The FVREB recorded 1,043 units sold of all types in April, up one per cent from March, but a 29 per cent year-over-year decrease. Baldev Gill, FVREB CEO, noted that U.S. tariffs and economic uncertainty continue to impact buyers. “However, with the federal election now behind us and a new administration in place, there’s cautious optimism that a fresh approach to strengthening the economy could be on the way, which is welcome news for the real estate sector,” he said. In April 2025, the benchmark prices in the FVREB reached $1,506,600 for single-family detached houses (up 0.1 per cent from March 2025), $833,100 for townhouses (down 0.1 per cent), and $537,800 for condos (down 0.6 per cent). Single-family detached homes remained on the market for an average of 32 days in April, and just over 29 for the other townhouses and condos. With files from Kenneth Chan 

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    Dont Skip This Moving Day Step. What to Clean Before Handing Over the Keys

    ByStan S.

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    14-Storey Condo Building Pitched for Oak & King Edward

    ByStan S.

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    5 Summer Habits That Might Be Spiking Your Utility Bills (and What to Do Instead)

    ByStan S.

    Credit: Getty Images / StockSeller_ukr Summer weather is ideal for enjoying the pool, the yard, and the sun, but after being outside for a few hours, it can also be a great relief to step into an air-conditioned home. These hot temperatures often cause many homeowners to adopt certain habits that are more wasteful than helpful. In an attempt to escape the heat, keep the house cool, and maintain the lushness of the yard, it can be all too tempting to try things that actually increase utility bills, costing you more in the long run for minimal relief. Use this guide to discover what summer habits secretly spike utility bills and what to do instead. Scott Levene is the vice president of Levco, a fuel and HVAC solutions company. He is also a licensed HVAC professional with nearly 20 years of experience. Read on to discover the ways you might be increasing your monthly bills without even realizing. 1. Cooling Unused Areas of the House Air conditioners help to cool down the home, but when you aren’t actively using specific rooms, there is no need to keep the doors open to these areas of the home. Central air conditioning systems might still provide some cooling to these areas through the ductwork, but ultimately, the cooling capabilities will be more focused in the central areas of the home where the thermostat is typically located. Closing certain doors allows the temperature to drop more effectively in the areas you are actually using, while saving energy. This particular trick works incredibly well for window and standing air conditioners, since their output is already focused in a single area of the home. 2. Running Fans 24/7 Fans can help move cool air throughout the home and provide direct relief to individuals who are near the fan. 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However, this same knowledge might not be as obvious to other people living in the home, like children or teenagers. Additionally, some adults might open the windows on cooler evenings to bring in fresh air, but then forget to turn the AC off, which increases energy waste and leads to higher energy bills. 5. Setting the Thermostat Temperature Too Low Unfortunately, just because you turn the thermostat temperature as low as possible, this does not increase the speed at which the home will be cooled, though this doesn’t stop many homeowners from trying year after year. “The most common habit we see is turning the thermostat down too low, thinking it will cool the house faster. Setting the thermostat to 65°F instead of 75°F doesn’t make it work any faster; it just makes the system run longer and work harder, which drives up utility bills,” explains Levene. How Do These Habits Burn Your Budget? 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Use a Programmable Thermostat When you have a regular thermostat, it’s your responsibility to change the temperature throughout the day and when you leave the home. “Set your thermostat to a reasonable temperature. We recommend 76°F to 78°F when you’re home and 78°F to 80°F when you’re away,” Levene says. With a programmable thermostat, you can simply set a specific schedule based on when you leave for work, when you typically go to sleep, and when you wake, so you can reduce energy waste without even thinking about it. 2. Set Up a Rain Barrel Constantly watering the lawn is a huge waste of water, and it can quickly add up on your water bill. Instead, use one or more rain barrels in the yard to catch and collect rain. The collected water

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    Vancouver swamped by unsold condos as supply outpaces demand

    Bymichael

    Open this photo in gallery: A condo tower under construction in downtown Vancouver, on Feb. 9, 2020. DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press In Metro Vancouver, supply has most definitely outpaced demand. The number of newly built, unsold condo units in the Vancouver region is expected to increase by 60 per cent by year’s end. That will bring the total of new units sitting empty to 3,493 – a 60 per cent increase from the 2,179 homes that sat empty and unsold by the end of 2024. These are multifamily units that have an occupancy permit and are move-in ready. Ryan Berlin, head economist and vice-president of Rennie Intelligence, part of Rennie Marketing, a Vancouver-based real estate marketing firm that represents some of the country’s largest developers, said 2025 will close with the “highest level of unsold condo inventory” that the region has seen in many years. It’s a bleak situation for developers, hampered by trade wars, an uncertain interest rate, rising costs and regulations designed to thwart a previous market that was driven by speculation and investment. Those days are over. “Right now, the market is out of gas. Nothing is working for developers. It’s not really working for buyers. So, we’re just kind of stagnating right now,” said Mr. Berlin. The story is all about the missing investor – a key player in the housing market. And they’ve run for the exits. Mr. Berlin has long kept statistics on investors, and from 2020 to 2023 they represented half of Rennie Marketing’s buyers. By 2024, they made up one-quarter of buyers. This year, only seven per cent of buyers are investors, he said. The investor buyer has kept the condo market going for decades. Willing to put up the deposit far in advance of the completed building, the investor enables the developer to obtain financing to construct. Once completed, the investor finds tenants for the unit, and investor landlords became a significant source of housing in the rental market. When lucrative rents were achievable, and borrowing money was cheap, the investor could easily cover costs, known as positive cash flow. But the conditions flipped, and with dropping rents and rising interest rates, many of them entered significant negative cash flow, said Berlin. “It’s not very palatable,” he said. There are other factors. Mr. Berlin said that the capital gains inclusion rate may no longer be on the table, but it created enough fear that people sold off properties. The federal anti-flipping tax, which treats gains on the sale of a house within one year as business income, has also curtailed investor buying. The federal temporary foreign buyer ban has reduced foreign money investment. Short-term rental restrictions have also put a dint in the investor market, particularly in tourist-driven markets like Kelowna. Developers were already dealing with high construction costs and soaring municipal fees. And policies that made sense in a hot market rife with speculation – which defined 2015 and 2016 – are restricting the market even more. “If somebody has money to invest in something and they look at this market, they’ll go, ‘Wow, I’m really being squeezed. Maybe I’ll just put it into a GIC.’ “It’s not to judge any of these policies as being good or bad overall for society, like a sort of net utility,” said Mr. Berlin. “But certainly, for investors … this real imbalance got created between risk and reward. The opportunity for reward diminished and the risks increased.” The dire situation has some developers asking for relief, such as easing up on the requirement that they provide social housing within a rental or strata tower, such as around transit-oriented areas and within some parts of the massive Broadway Plan area of Vancouver. Developer Tony Hepworth, president of Pennyfarthing Development, said six-storey wood-frame buildings are far more realistic than concrete towers. And the requirement to provide 20 per cent social housing in residential towers isn’t viable for most developers in this market. “We haven’t seen it yet, and not in Vancouver, but other municipalities have started dropping their requirement for affordable housing, from 20 to 10 per cent. I think they are going to have to drop it,” he said of Vancouver. “Talking to my colleagues, and some of them are bigger developers than we are, and we are saying that we can’t see how these big towers can go ahead, whether condo or rental at the moment.” Commercial broker Ian Brackett, from Goodman Commercial, said the cost to build a below-market rental unit is about double the actual value of the unit once completed. It means the market rate units elsewhere in the building must be significantly higher, and renters can only pay so much. “It has become very obvious that insisting on 20 per cent below market has become too much of a burden and is rendering many projects unfeasible,” said Mr. Brackett. “The question becomes, would renters and the city as a whole be better off having more housing built even if it is all at market rates, if the alternative is to have nothing built? Twenty per cent of nothing is zero.” The city said in an e-mail response that it is open to making policy changes to address the increasingly challenging market. “City staff certainly appreciate that market conditions are difficult for development at this time,” said Matt Shillito, director of special projects. “The market is dynamic with many different

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