297: A Chilean Birth Story – Why We Went South For Baby Number Three

The Expat Money Show - With Mikkel Thorup

Imagine being born and already having a leg up on your expat journey with a second passport. That’s exactly what our latest newborn son got to experience, even if he’s not quite old enough to be aware of it yet, as my wife and I did the birth tourism thing again and travelled to the country of Chile to give birth to our third child. In today’s episode, I will explain our decision to give birth in Chile, the benefits our son will have as a Chilean citizen, the birth experience in Chile itself, and so much more.

TODAY’S EPISODE ON MY CHILEAN BIRTH TOURISM EXPERIENCE

• Listen to the tale of how I hustled to get from our company retreat in Panama to join my wife in Chile, where we awaited the birth of our third child.
• Find out how our new little one decided to come a few days early - and how impressed the hospital staff were at my wife’s delivery performance. She’s a real champion!
• Learn about the incredible medical care we received at the hospital in Chile, both with the birth and with a surprise incident involving my daughter later in our stay (she’s totally fine, by the way).
• Hear my impressions of Santiago, Chile—a city that became my home base for the three weeks or so after the birth of our son.
• Why did we choose Chile as opposed to Brazil again or another country for birth tourism this time? I break down the myriad of factors that contributed to our decision.
• Find out why a Chilean passport is actually the best passport in Latin America - a passport our son gets to start his life with from day one.
• Learn about the shockingly easy process of obtaining our son’s Chilean passport and birth certificate—it is not often that bureaucracy functions this seamlessly.
• Lastly, hear me discuss the tax situation for expats in Chile. While some tax advantages can be utilized early on in residency, this is by no means a low-tax country.

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CONCLUSION

Regarding the birth tourism experience itself, I am absolutely thrilled with our decision to head south to Chile and start our son off with the best passport in Latin America, and easily one of the top 20 passports in the world. While the country has a lot of positives going for it, I would not recommend it as a Plan-B destination simply due to the less-than-ideal tax situation and the painstaking amount of time it takes to gain permanent residency and citizenship. Of course, having become a citizen at birth, my son won’t have to deal with that end of the process and will simply get to enjoy the benefits of a Chilean passport. Not a bad way to start off an expat journey if you ask me! I hope you enjoyed today’s episode, and I’ll see you all next Wednesday.

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