I spent the initial few months of Covid in Nicaragua when the world was under lockdown apart from Belarus, Sweden, some states in the US and Nicaragua.
I went back there a bit earlier this year and found a real estate market that is still in the doldrums after a 2018 political and economic crisis. Real estate is significantly more affordable than in neighboring Costa Rica and El Salvador, though the infrastructure is actually quite decent.
I see a mismatch between what Western media claims “dictatorial hellhole, extremely poor country, dangerous” and the reality on the ground.
The US recently renewed sanctions on small Nicaragua because it poses an “extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States“
Why is Nicaragua such a “national security threat”?
Mostly because of Chinese infrastructure development and influence.
The Chinese are building:
- New highways
- A new international airport
- Various energy infrastructure to make Nicaragua more independent such as gas storage facilities and solar farms
- Railroads across the country
- New seaports for trade
And there are even plans to build a massive canal between the Pacific and Caribbean coasts.
A similar canal had already been announced a decade ago and nothing came out of it, so I am not holding my breath on this one. It’s a massive undertaking. I won’t be basing my investment decisions on this.
The reality is that the other infrastructure development is more than enough. Nicaragua will end up with much better infrastructure than Costa Rica. And seeing how bombed out the valuations are, I see it as a safe long-term play though I do expect political and economic volatility along the way. Also, liquidity is low, so don’t overexpose yourself.
What about the “Chinese debt trap”?
The reality is that this “Chinese debt trap” is overblown by Western media. I travel almost full time in the developing world and spent most of my twenties in Africa. Most Chinese infrastructure development is a real boon for these countries and has a much more positive impact than money from some organizations that essentially mostly overpay for staff and procurement contracts.
Massive boom in remittances
There are claims that during the Biden years 6.5% of the Nicaraguan population moved to the US thanks to open borders. Counterintuitively this is great news for Nicaragua. It means that underemployed people, and criminals, moved north and shifted from being cost centers to being sources of remittances.
Together with Chinese infrastructure development, these remittances are leading to Central America’s fastest growing economy (more than El Salvador)
And though one could think so many people leaving is negative for Nicaraguan housing, it is actually positive because of money flows.
I am actively buying in Nicaragua
I know the country and the exact areas I am targeting, so I am buying property remotely through my lawyer in Nicaragua. It’s possible to buy in your own name or even to use foreign structures such as Panama corporations and foundations. Nicaragua is quite flexible in this regard.
Life as in expat in Nicaragua is nice
I had a chat with my San Juan del Sur realtor Natalie about the pros and cons of living in Nicaragua.
I wrote a whole analysis on the real estate market in San Juan del Sur, a charming beach town in Nicaragua with great surfing, a fun expat community, fiber optic internet and multiple international schools.
Feel free to get in touch with Natalie my real estate agent in SJDS.
How to move to Nicaragua?
Unfortunately residency in Nicaragua is not a plan B residency as you have to be present every 6 months to renew your ID.
Moving to Nicaragua is relatively easy, there are three main options:
- Retiree option
- Passive income
- Investment
For the investment route it must be an actual investment, not just real estate used as an Airbnb for example. So you either invest in a real business, or make an underwhelming $30,000 investment in Teak for example. Let’s be clear, if you do this, you are effectively buying residency and not making an amazing investment no matter what all these teak and fruit farm salespeople tell you.
Here is more information on how to get residency in Nicaragua
If you want to buy residency in Nicaragua through an underwhelming teak investment these people can help you. It’ll get the job done.
Why move to Nicaragua?
- No taxes on foreign-earned income if structured properly (!!). Valid for non-US people.
- Free healthcare
- Low cost of living
- Very relaxed lifestyle
- Amazing beaches and hiking
- Short and cheap flights to Miami
To a World of Opportunities,
The Wandering Investor.
Other services in Nicaragua:
- My favourite realtor in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua
- Create a company in Nicaragua
- How to obtain Residency in Nicaragua
- My Real Estate Lawyer in Nicaragua
Articles on Nicaragua:
- A Real Estate Investment in Managua or Gran Pacifica, Nicaragua?
- Investing in a Teak Wood Plantation, is it worth it?
- Full analysis of the San Juan del Sur real estate market
- Why buy a house in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua – great value in Central America
- Low EMF housing in Nicaragua
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My favourite brokerage to invest in international stocks is IB. To find out more about this low-fee option with access to plenty of markets, click here.
If you want to discuss your internationalization and diversification plans, book a consulting session or send me an email.
Transcript of “Pros and cons of living in Nicaragua”
LADISLAS MAURICE: Hello, everyone. Ladislas Maurice from thewanderinginvestor.com. Today, I’m in San Juan del Sur, in beautiful Nicaragua, with Natalie. How are you, Natalie?
NATALIE: I’m doing good. How are you doing, Ladislas?
LADISLAS MAURICE: Good, good, good. Natalie is a realtor here in San Juan del Sur. I met her a few years ago during peak COVID, when I actually spent most of my peak COVID here in Nicaragua. And you have been living here for 18 years, correct?
NATALIE: Yeah. First time I came here was 20 years ago.
The pros and cons of living in Nicaragua
LADISLAS MAURICE: Wow. Okay, so almost two decades of living in Nicaragua. We’ll be discussing the pros and cons of living in Nicaragua. Natalie, what are some of the pros?
NATALIE: Some of the pros are the food.
Food in Nicaragua
NATALIE: Everything is vine-ripened here, it’s not picked early and put in a shipping container and ripened on the way, so the fruits and vegetables here just taste so much better than they do in the US, and there’s a lot of organic options also. And the seafood, we live in a fishing village, so the seafood is super fresh and it’s amazing–
LADISLAS MAURICE: And affordable.
NATALIE: And affordable, yeah.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Food is fresh, affordable. Look, the local cuisine, I would say, is not, I mean, that’s not a pro, it’s kind of whatever, but the actual ingredients are really good. If you like to cook at home, you’ll be able to do some really good stuff.
NATALIE: Yeah. If you like to eat a wholefood diet, it’s super easy to eat that here, because everything is just super fresh and nice. And the restaurants we have a lot of restaurants are a fusion, because San Juan del Sur is very much a melting pot from many different countries, and so you’ve got some restaurants with German influence, with Italian influence, with New Zealand, and US, and Canada. So you can get poutine here. [laughs]
LADISLAS MAURICE: Poutine. Okay, so French Canadian fries with–
NATALIE: Gravy.
LADISLAS MAURICE: gravy and cheese curds, okay.
NATALIE: Yeah.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Cool.
Security in Nicaragua
NATALIE: Some of the other pros, it’s very much an international community, and it’s turning into a place for expats to relocate to. People are moving here with their kids because it’s a safe place to raise your kids, where you don’t have to always be watching them. Like, any given evening, you can see families out on the beach, like, the parents are having some cocktails and the kids are just running wild on the beach. And you don’t have to be, like, “Oh, where’s my kid? Where’s my kid? Where’s my kid?” the whole time, because they’re safe here. Crime is very, very low. Violent crime is almost nonexistent. And when it is violent crime, it’s usually two Nicaraguan men fighting over a woman. But petty theft is a problem. It is a poor country, so if you leave your cell phone laying on the table and get up and go to the bathroom, when you come back, it might not be there.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Cool. So it’s not Singapore.
NATALIE: Yeah, yeah. It might be there, but it might not be there also. There’s no guarantee that it’s going to be gone, but there’s a possibility. It depends upon the restaurant you’re in.
International schools in Nicaragua
LADISLAS MAURICE: And about the schools, because, a few years ago, school options were a little limited, but it’s been increasing, correct?
NATALIE: Yeah, yeah. Because back about 15 years ago, they started a new school called San Juan del Sur Day School that started out just for little kids, and now they go through 12th grade, and it’s got an international accreditation. We also have Escuela Adelante, which goes through sixth grade. They’ve got room to expand, but they haven’t done that yet. TreeCasa is starting another school, and also a lot of people here homeschool, which is a very popular option.
LADISLAS MAURICE: It’s allowed in Nicaragua, or is it more of a gray zone whereby the government says you’re not allowed to homeschool, but if you’re a foreigner, it’s like whatever?
NATALIE: Right, yeah, Nicaraguans aren’t allowed to homeschool their kids. They have to attend a school, but foreigners can homeschool.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Cool. So in practice, people are getting away with it?
NATALIE: Yeah, right.
LADISLAS MAURICE: And I think it’s similar in a lot of markets, where you’ll look online countries where it’s allowed to homeschool, and very few countries appear. But in reality, if you relocate there, if you’re a foreigner, for whatever reason, they don’t enforce it with foreigners. Will that always last? I don’t know. But at least here, it doesn’t seem to be an issue at all. People are just a lot of people are homeschooling, and there are little groups as well of parents they get together and do the homeschooling and all that.
NATALIE: Yeah, people tell me all the time that they’ve made better friends in two months here than they made back in their home country in 20 years. Because people tend to be more likeminded when they move here.
Healthcare for foreigners in Nicaragua
LADISLAS MAURICE: And what about healthcare because that’s often a concern for people?
NATALIE: Healthcare is super affordable. You can go to the local hospital here. It’s a small hospital, basic services. They can take out your gallbladder, your appendix, take x-rays, patch you up, whatever, is free. When I fell downstairs and thought I broke my ankle, I went, got a free x-ray. Not a problem.
LADISLAS MAURICE: And free for residents?
NATALIE: Free for residents, free for visitors, free for locals. The local hospital here is a public hospital, so it’s free. Now if you need better care, something better, then you want to go to Managua. And in Managua, we’ve got a couple first class hospitals. I belong to the military hospital, which is a teaching hospital, and it has the diamond accreditation from Canada. Very good hospital. We put the insurance plan from them in my husband’s name. He’s Nicaraguan. It covers him, myself, and his three kids, because we put the policy in his name. If it was in my name, then it wouldn’t cover his kids. We pay $90 a month, and that’s it. And I had my gallbladder out, and I didn’t pay a dime extra for the surgery, the anesthesiologist, they even gave me some pain meds for free, so it’s super affordable.
And then we also have the Vivian Pellas Hospital, which is a step up from that. Nicer, a little pricier. It really caters towards the wealthy Nicaraguans and foreigners, but yeah, first class. And the doctors have time to talk to you, you’re not treated like another insurance number and an insurance claim, they actually talk to you. And I’ve had clients tell me that they’ve been sick for years, and they came here, and the doctors here successfully diagnosed them with what’s actually wrong, because the doctor took the time to talk to them.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Let’s say, your general practitioner says that, “Oh, you have an issue, you need to go see a specialist.” How long does it take you to get an appointment to see the specialist?
NATALIE: A day or two.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Okay, cool. This is something that Canadians, Americans, to a lesser degree, Europeans just cannot comprehend, is that you can move to a developing country, have much better healthcare, and get much better service as well. It’s not like in Canada, if you’re diagnosed with something, they’ll tell you, “Oh, you can see this specialist in five months’ time.” And in the meantime, your condition gets worse, etc. And there’s really no way around it. Here, next day. Same thing in, like, Turkey, other places like that, Panama, whatever, just next day, which is quite amazing.
NATALIE: Yeah. Another good example, I mean, I get an ultrasound every month because I have breast cancer that I’m treating naturally, and it cost me $20 here in town.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Wow.
NATALIE: $20 for an ultrasound. I know, so cheap. It’s very inexpensive to, like, keep track of your health here, which is really important to me, because that’s one of the main reasons I moved here, was to avoid all the chemical exposure in the US and just feeling like you’re a guinea pig in the US. I moved here to get away from all of that.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Fantastic. What about the nature, the things to do? Does it get a little small after a while?
Outdoor activities in Nicaragua
NATALIE: For me, no, because I grew up on a big dairy farm in the middle of nowhere, so this is like living in the big city for me. But yeah, for me, I don’t get bored. But if you’re somebody that needs constant entertainment, you probably will get bored here, yeah. But I’m a big reader. I have a book swap library in my office. There’s hiking trails all over in various places, there’s surfing, there’s colonial towns, you can go tour the volcanos. You can, what are they, they’re called volcano boarding, basically, a sled that you ride down the gravel of volcano. There’s volcanic lakes.
LADISLAS MAURICE: It’s a little stupid but it’s fun. [laughs]
NATALIE: [laughs] Yeah. There’s lakes, crater lakes, in the middle of a volcano you can go to, there’s some historic sites. There’s an active volcano where you can go right up to the rim of the volcano and look over, and it’s an active volcano. There’s just, there’s a lot of different historical places you can tour and visit. Managua is the capital. Back before we had a major earthquake here, back in the 80s, I think it was, it was really for the wealthy. It was like the playground for the rich and famous, and then the earthquake destroyed a lot of it. And it’s really been rebuilding, the lakefront area there now has got huge sports complexes, water slides, rollerblading, roller-skating area, soccer.
LADISLAS MAURICE: There’s a lot to do in Nicaragua. The reality is, it’s a pretty large country, from Pacific Coast to Caribbean Coast. If you want, like, a really pure Caribbean vibe, where people speak English, etc., you can go to the Corn Islands, and it’ll cost you a fraction of being in the actual Caribbean islands. Very different vibe. If you don’t want to learn Spanish, not an issue down there. There’s a lot to do in Nicaragua.
Territorial taxation in Nicaragua
LADISLAS MAURICE: Personally, of all these Central American countries I went to, it is my favorite from a lifestyle point of view, combined with a very good tax system. And I think that’s one of the biggest pros of this jurisdiction, is that Nicaragua has a territorial tax system, which means that if you structure things properly, you do not have to pay taxes on overseas income. For Americans, it can be beneficial to a certain extent, but then again, the IRS follows you everywhere, but you could still make use of it. But for Canadians, if you exit the Canadian tax system, or if you’re European, you exit the European tax system, and you move here, you can potentially live a 0% tax lifestyle.
NATALIE: True.
Cost of living in Nicaragua
LADISLAS MAURICE: You have some beautiful real estate that’s very affordable. Life is very affordable. I couldn’t believe it, I went to the market yesterday to have lunch, the Mercado, same prices as during COVID. I paid 100 córdobas for Nica lunch. So essentially, just rice and chicken and with a little salad, and which is less than $3. Prices haven’t changed in three to four years, which is mindboggling in a world of just inflation everywhere. And same thing, real estate prices haven’t budged in the past few years.
NATALIE: Not really, no.
LADISLAS MAURICE: So it’s been a bad investment for people, if they’re looking purely from a capital gains point of view. But if you’re getting in now in terms of capital preservation, it’s quite interesting, because prices are really low, and you get a massive ROI if you actually move here, and drastically reduce your tax profile. I have a business, I help a lot of people move overseas, especially Canadians, reduce their taxes, etc., and Nicaragua is an interesting destination.
NATALIE: Yeah, you can live like a king here on your income. If you work online and you’re making Canadian or US wages and you’re living here, you can live like a king even on a low income.
Chinese investment in Nicaragua
LADISLAS MAURICE: It’s hard to make money here. I think that could be one of the cons. The country is still poor, though there’s a lot of Chinese investment that’s starting in 2024 because Nicaragua started its relations again with China two years ago, they’ve signed a bunch of contracts. The Chinese are going to be building highways, railroads, new international airports, gas storage facilities. I mean, there’s just going to be a whole bunch of just Chinese infrastructure development that is coming to the country. But if you just come here as a Westerner and you try to do business, the reality is the market is a little small. I mean, you have your own real estate agency, you do well, etc., but it’s not an easy place to move to and get a job or start a business. It’s not easy.
NATALIE: Yeah, it’s best to have an online business set up before you move here.
Banking in Nicaragua
LADISLAS MAURICE: Cool. In terms of disadvantages, can we talk about banking?
NATALIE: Yeah, banking is a little complicated. [laughs]
LADISLAS MAURICE: It’s bad.
NATALIE: Yeah. Like, transferring money in and out can be a little frustrating, because it’s limited in how you’re allowed to transfer money in and out, so banking can be a little complicated. But I’ve never had any issues with the banks, other than just doing transfers can be a bit complicated at times. Remitly seems to work very well to send money from my US account to here.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, that’s very easy. But yeah, if you move here and you have a business, etc., you don’t want to move here and try to operate through a Nicaraguan company for international business, it’ll just be complicated, because banking, because US sanctions, because all of that. So you want to just structure things, we help with that, by the way, structure things properly so that you can live here and operate your business.
More cons of living in Nicaragua
LADISLAS MAURICE: What are some of the other cons?
NATALIE: The bugs. We’re in a tropical environment, so there are bugs. But if you fumigate on a regular basis, you’re fine. And there’s different products that you can buy that keeps spiders away, keep snakes away, stuff like that. but yeah, the bugs are kind of my thing, [laughs] but also I have three cats, and I’ve never been stung by a scorpion in 18 years because I have three cats.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Perfect. Touch wood. Any other cons?
NATALIE: The lack of air conditioning in a lot of restaurants. Most of the restaurants here are open-air, which most of the year is okay. But April is the hottest month of the year here, because it’s the end of the dry season, the winds have died down, and it’s just a hot month, and so you tend to sweat more. But when you sweat, the light bounces off your wrinkles and so you look younger, so it’s got its benefits. [laughs]
LADISLAS MAURICE: Any other cons?
Prices of imported products in Nicaragua
NATALIE: Vehicle prices are high, yeah, because anything that’s imported into Nicaragua has importation taxes on it, which are high. I love blueberries, so I can go to the grocery store and buy a small bag of frozen blueberries for $10, or I can go to the local market and buy fresh fruits and vegetables grown here, a big grocery bagful, for $10. Anything that’s imported, such as cell phones, electronics, vehicles, because none of that stuff is made in Nicaragua, tends to be more expensive. That’s one of the downfalls. And even used vehicles that are 10 years old and have 200,000 miles on them will still sell for $10,000, so the vehicles tend to be a little more expensive here.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Look, at the end of the day, when you have a government that doesn’t tax overseas income, and where generally tax compliance, even within the country, is quite low, the easiest way to raise money is through customs, because that it’s easier to get a grip of. So sure, you’ll pay more money for your car, but then you’ll pay next to nothing for your healthcare, very little for your real estate, you have a lot more freedom–
NATALIE: And for your food.
LADISLAS MAURICE: for your food, as long as it’s local food, and then you’ll just pay a bit more for your car, and that’s it, like, whatever.
NATALIE: A couple other of my favorite things here, other than, like, organic stuff, I’ve gone vegan, so eating vegan is really healthy. We have a farmers market every Saturday where people bring and they sell organic produce. They make meals, so you can go in and just buy a roast beef meal, take it home, put it in your refrigerator, eat it the next day, whatever. There’s just a lot of different things that are available here. Grass-fed beef.
LADISLAS MAURICE: The beef is really good. Great meat.
NATALIE: Yeah. They export a lot of beef. If you like cigars, this is a haven for you, because Nicaragua produces some of the top cigars. So we have a lot of–
NATALIE: And you can get Cuban as well?
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, you can get Cuban, but a lot of our cigars are from a Cuban background, so we have that Cuban influence here.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Nice. And it’s a cool place as well for horses, if you like horses.
NATALIE: Definitely, yeah.
LADISLAS MAURICE: It’s very easy to have a stable, to hire someone to take care of your horse, feed your horse, it won’t cost much. I think I was asking around, it’s if you have a horse, people charge you $100, $150 maximum to just feed it and take care of it and all that. You can just have a horse in your garden. Here, you could just have a horse. I don’t know, with the HOA, if this works in this place.
NATALIE: I don’t think the HOA would allow horses in here, but maybe. [laughs]
LADISLAS MAURICE: Okay, cool. In a freestanding home, whatever, you can just have a horse. You can, what, go to town on your horse?
NATALIE: Yeah, yeah.
LADISLAS MAURICE: There’s a lot of personal freedom in this town.
NATALIE: We followed the milkman on the way here.
LADISLAS MAURICE: That’s true, yeah. There’s a lot of personal freedom in Nicaragua. If you come here, you mind your own business, you do your business online, whatever, you live here, you have a lot of freedom.
San Juan del Sur restaurants
NATALIE: Yeah. Another thing I really like about San Juan is it’s very authentic. We don’t have any chain restaurants or businesses from the US. We had a Subway restaurant that opened up back in, I think, 2018-ish, that lasted for about 10 months, and then it closed down because the foreigners that are here didn’t want it so we didn’t patronize it, and the locals mostly couldn’t afford it. But we do have our own version of fast food here. We call them chicken ladies. On the evenings, they cook out in front of their house on the street. They grill chicken, beef, and pork, and they have Gallo Pinto, which is a combination of rice and beans, which is a staple here for meals for Nicaraguans. They’ll eat Gallo Pinto three times a day. And they have the Maduro and the plantain chips and stuff. And so you just walk up to a chicken lady, and in two minutes, you’ve got your fantastic healthy meal ready to go that’s not McDonald’s, not Burger King, not some chain restaurant from the US, so it’s very authentic here.
Cost of a maid in Nicaragua
LADISLAS MAURICE: And I’ll also add a positive point, is the cost of help. If you want help at home, a cook, a fulltime nanny, a fulltime cook, fulltime cleaning help, or if you bring your elderly parents and you want fulltime medical help at home, all that is very affordable, and the people are very kind as well. So you have a Nicaraguan nanny take care of your kids, they’ll learn Spanish. They’re very kind with the kids. From that point of view, it’s really great, you can just focus on your business. Just living here can just simplify, really, your life. And also the internet now is really good, you have fiber optic in a lot of places, so really you can work remotely.
Liquidity of real estate in Nicaragua
LADISLAS MAURICE: I think one of the negative aspects, which we discussed in another video we did together, is, though, the real estate is beautiful and is affordable compared to other markets around, the liquidity is quite low, right? I mean, you’re a realtor. I had a look at a few of your listings. I mean, the value is incredible. I wouldn’t come here to buy and hope to flip or hope to make a lot of money on rentals. The point here is lifestyle and/or just deep value for real estate, but the liquidity thereof is–
NATALIE: Can be an issue depending upon where you buy the house and how much you paid for it. And sometimes, we get lucky and we can sell a place in a month or two, and then other times it’s a year or two. Just depends.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. It’s not, like, Austin where you’ll have three bids in, like, two days.
NATALIE: Yeah, we don’t have any bidding. Another benefit of being here, the rain. It’s not cold. So we’re getting a little wet right now–
LADISLAS MAURICE: That’s true, it’s raining, yeah. It’s not cold.
NATALIE: but, I mean, if you get caught out in the rain here, no big deal. [laughs]
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, it’s true.
NATALIE: It’s not cold.
LADISLAS MAURICE: [laughs] Cool. All right, fantastic. Natalie, thank you very much.
NATALIE: You’re very welcome.
Realtor in San Juan del Sur
LADISLAS MAURICE: Look, so if you’re interested in real estate here in San Juan del Sur, feel free to get in touch with Natalie. She can help you. There is a link right below to get in touch with her.
NATALIE: Thank you.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Natalie, thank you so much.
NATALIE: Nice meeting you.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Cheers.
NATALIE: Cheers.
