Taxes, visas, and prep for retirement

Hi Tim. I believe there is a recent post on the site about taxes that may help Give it a search. I would do these things before hand. Get two US bank accounts and make sure neither of them is Bank of America and perhaps one is Schwab. Link them together so you can do ACH fund transfers between them. Check your debit and credit card expiration dates carefully. I would strongly advise renewing them early. It can be a hassle to have physical cards shipped here. If you plan on sending money here, there are solutions like MoneyGram, Xoom, Western Union. Many of them work with banks here directly. Does not hurt to sign up for accounts with them and check out the services they offer. I use MoneyGram to transfer funds from my US bank debit card to my ABA US dollar account. It takes about 30 minutes and costs $2.00.

Take a look at your passport and its expiration date and the number of pages left. Get yourself a permanent US address and use that when you sign up for social security benefits. People do it from here but it has been a hassle for some. Get yourself a permanent US phone number. I use google voice. It works fine for making calls to banks and my family in the US. There are apps for it on iOS and android. Make sure your mobile device is sim unlocked so you can get cell services going.

When you get here, since you are over 55 there is not much needing doing. Get an ordinary visa which can be extended to a variety of extensions of stay like the retirement extension which goes for a year. At this point it costs 300 or so for the year and now the extension is a small stamp in the passport. More stamps can fit easily. Before it was a full page visa extension. When you reach Phnom Penh, look up Kim there. I can share her WhatsApp if you send me a DM. She has done my visa extensions for years. In 2022 it took me 3 days with her. She is very efficient and friendly and will help with the few things you need. Like passport, photos and money. I would not advise going to immigration to do the visa extension unless you like to do paperwork and steps.

Other things that occur to me. Get a decent VPN service that includes apps for your laptop and phones and tablet, etc. Get a cambodian bank account after you get the visa extension. I use ABA bank. There are others. The rest of this all is to enjoy your time in Cambodia. I think if things stay the same that you will likely have no work to do to get the visa extension. It's easy to get a rental property. Some people I know rented a guest house here in Siem Reap for two weeks.  They found an apartment in a single day for about 200 a month. The person wanted a year lease but you can find 6 month leases or month to month.

I've lived here for 4 years this time. I've done the visa renewal process that many times. Only difference is my Khmer partner's daughter does the visa extension for me from here.

I hope this helps. Its just what I have done and the solutions I use for a US mail address and using google voice still work well.

Take care.

Thank you so much! Great advise and some things I wouldn’t have thought about. Thanks again