Background:
I hold a British passport,  my wife holds a Thai passport and we have a 2 year old son who has both a British and Thai passports.
We all live in the Netherlands at the moment. I’ve lived there for about 22 years and my wife for nearly 3 years.
We both have “identiteitsbewijs type I” in our passports which were granted “verification against community law”.
I have a house in the Netherlands and have a one man business doing internet/IT work.

I have been considering leaving the Netherlands for some time as the cost of living here is very high and it seems an uphill struggle making ends meet. Our eventual long term goal is to move to Thailand provided the political and finnancial climate there eventually improves although that could take a number of years.

I have been looking around for an alternative to moving back to the UK as our house sale here in the Netherlands, after repaying mortgages, wouldn’t really yield enough to buy decent property in the UK. Luckily, I have been recently offered the use of a property, free of charge in the hills outside Benidorm for a number of years if I so wish.

So, provided we like both the accommodation and the lifestyle we see this as a serious chance especially as our son is still young. Although we would intend to bank the proceeds from the Dutch house sale and have that as a safety net, I would still be interested to see if it would be possible to setup a similar one man business in Spain.

Request:
I would welcome any comments, advice or tips that might help us epecially in relation to the legal requirements for moving to Spain and running a one man business, although any other general comments etc are welcome.

Thanks in advance
Les, Saow and Alexander

Hi guys,

As far as comments for you guys specifically, it’d be hard to give any advice that hasn’t already been covered in the rest of the site, particularly the forums here. There have been other Brits with Thai wives asking the same questions on here too! Check it out/search for info like “autonomo” and “visa de reagrupacion”, which are the two keys for you guys here, unless you want to get your wife a UK passport.

It sounds like Spain would suit you much better anyway, particularly if you’re looking at Thailand long term. The cost of living here in Spain IS a lot cheaper than Holland and Benidorm is pretty cool as I hear, although a lot of expats head down there so it might not be that authentic Spanish experience that some people are looking for. Nice beaches though!

Good luck with everything and stop back here to post any info you find useful!