Wendy murphy

Hi, I need some help please. My husband and are retiring in January and want to buy a B&B in the USA we will be paying for it in cash, but are we allowed to work in it and live over there. I know we can get a Visa for 6 months but then we have to come home for the other 6 months. So I want to know if it is ok for a brit to buy a business and work there and make it our home, and all it entails.

Thank you

christmasoompa

Hi, welcome to BE.

You can't work in the US without a visa allowing you to do so (which a tourist visa wouldn't). Have a read of this to see if you'd qualify for any visa - Pulaski's Ways: How to Live and Work in the USA : British Expat Wiki

Good luck.

HTH.

Rete

In addition to the above comment, there is no guarantee that even though retired you would be granted a B visa for remain in the US for six months at a time or that the officer at the POE will allow you in for that length of time.

Bob

Issues with the plan, you'd not be allowed to work on the B visa. E visa, for an investment is a possibility, but you'd have to have an investment to employ people and with you living in it, would limit your capital investment within the business.

Medical insurance, would be another concern.

There have been a few threads on B&B's in the past. I don't think to many of them have been terribly favourable for anyone that wasn't just interested in something for a couple of years.

Wendy murphy

Thank you for that, the other thing we were thinking is to live in the USA for 6 months and then come home, we wouldn't be any cost to them and we would keep a home here, so do you know if they allow that, and if we get a visa to do that do we have to replace it every year. It seems easy to buy a house there, but is seems very hard to live in it, cheers Wendy

Twinkle0927

The B-2 visa, if successful, allows you to stay up to 6 months at a time. But it depends on how long the officer at the airport allows you in for. Even with a B-2 he or she may think 2 weeks is ample and only permit a stay of 2 weeks.

Have you any idea what the cost of medical insurance is for 2 retirees for 6 months in the USA? It might make your eyes water.

What do you mean by "we wouldn't be any cost to them"?

Pulaski

Bear in mind that the optimum recommendation for a couple in the US who are eligible for the subsidized Medicare health insurance for retired people, is that they go into retirement with a fund of $250,000 set aside for health insurance, deductibles (excesses), prescription costs, and non-covered expenses. That basically works out at $6,000/person/yr for 20 years. Obviously it would be a lot more if you aren't eligible for Medicare - I would budget for about three times as much.

Generally people in the US who retire think of leaving the US because of the cost of health care, either back from whence they came, such as to the UK, or if they are native US citizens, to places such as Panama, Ecuador, or the Philippines.

Bob

Another issue with the 6 month plan, would be spending enough time here that the IRS get interested, then wanting their share of worldwide income/assets. Certainly make filing your tax return a chore.

Buying a house is easy. Insuring it from abroad might not be, either.

Why the US? Not Florida?

scrubbedexpat099

Ended up with my Mum paying the same for Travel Insurance for 3 weeks as her flight.

Wendy murphy

Hi, I meant we wouldn't cost the country anything, we would only be spending there.

Wendy murphy

Hi, I would get holiday insurance which is about £600 for the six months because If I was really ill I would come back to the UK, because I would want to be near my family. We go over to the states a couple of times a year, I'm trying to do all 50 states, and I really like it there, but I don't really want to spend a lot of money on a house if they wont let me stay for 6 months because I wont be renting out when I am not there, so tax shouldn't come into it.

Wendy murphy

Hi, why would they give you a Visa for the 6 month stay, for 10 years if they don't let you come back into the country, I could understand if we were a cost to the country but we would only be putting money into it, buy buying a house and paying all the costs for living there.

Jerseygirl

Are you sure you can get holiday insurance to cover 6 months in the US? You don’t state your ages...but insurance get increasing more expensive and difficult to obtain once you hit 65...or have an illness.

You need to read the following to avoid filing and paying US taxes.

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/inte...-presence-test

christmasoompa

Bear in mind that (a) if you're really ill you're unlikely to be able to travel and (b) even if you can, if you're no longer classed as UK resident you're not eligible for the NHS any longer anyway. Obviously if you're only visiting the US then that won't be the case, but thought it worth flagging just in case. £600 also sounds ludicrously low for 6 months, for decent medical coverage for an older person?

It's always up to the immi officer as to whether or not you are allowed in, and for how long - a visa only allows you to 'knock on the door' and request entry, but gives you no right whatsoever to entry for any length of time. It would usually be shorter (or entry refused) for a specific reason i.e. if the immi officer thought you were trying to live in the US without the correct visa.

Don't forget you'd still be potentially be using all the things that would normally be funded by taxes (i.e. emergency services, roads, or even the National Parks that you may be visiting), so you would still be a cost to the country.

But as above, you can't run a B&B on a tourist visa, so it all seems a bit of a moot point tbh, unless you're prepared to just hire somebody to manage it all for you?

Twinkle0927

If you're "really ill" you might not have a choice but to stay. If you're too ill to be moved back to the U.K. (I'm thinking along the lines of needing a transplant or something). I have been admitted to the ICU here and it was $12,000 a night. The regular ward, when I improved and could be moved, was $4,000 a night. Ambulance was $1,200. I highly doubt a 6-month policy for the USA costs £600. If it does, please share the name of it so that I can pass it to my mother who is coming to visit in the spring.