The digital nomad cross-border payments opportunity
Digital nomads have been on the rise since the pandemic, with growing numbers of visas available worldwide for this worker type. But what opportunities has this created for cross-border payments, and how has the industry responded?
The pandemic had a broad range of impacts on the world of work, not least in terms of the rise of remote working. While for many this meant simply embracing the home office, for some it unlocked the possibility of working in a different location entirely – or even working while travelling across a region, continent or the wider world.
Enter digital nomads: a growing group of people who typically maintain professional jobs either through direct employment or contract while living in different locations around the world. Digital nomads will frequently stay in one place for several months, perhaps a year or more, and are often relatively young, technologically savvy and highly online. While estimates vary, it is generally thought that there are around 40 million digital nomads active worldwide, slightly under half of which originate from the US.
Drawn to locations that satisfy wanderlust while providing suitable working environments and high-speed internet connections, digital nomads have become increasingly popular for countries to target as a means of diversifying tourism-related income. This has given rise to a proliferation of digital nomad-specific visas, but it has also created growing opportunities for the cross-border payments industry to cater to this group.
In this report we explore the current state of digital nomad visas and what it says about the customer profiles of digital nomads, as well as looking at how banks and fintechs have developed products to cater to the space.
Topics covered:
- The proliferation of digital nomad visas
- Who are digital nomad visas targeted at?
- Consumer banking solutions and multicurrency account support
- Global payroll: Well placed to support digital nomads?
- Evolving opportunities for cross-border payments
The proliferation of digital nomad visas
While the term digital nomads pre-dates Covid-19, the concept really took off during and in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, as people who had previously worked from an office every day of their working life discovered they could do their job just as easily at home, or in another location entirely.
However, while many companies have begun to push for a return to offices in recent years, interest in becoming a digital nomad has only continued to rise. Google Trends data shows that searches for the term ‘digital nomad visa’ were higher in Q4 2024 than they have been at any other time in the last five years, with a steady upward trend in queries since 2021.
This has been aided by growth in the number of digital nomad-specific visas over the last few years, with 44 countries or territories currently offering visas specifically targeting this group, according to our analysis.
Such visas typically require the holder to be in full-time employment with a company outside of the country in question, and typically forbid the holder from earning money from an employer within the country. The majority also have yearly or monthly income requirements, and often require the holder to obtain health insurance or meet other conditions to ensure they cannot become a financial burden on the state in question.
This approach ensures that holders will spend money in the country without drawing money out of it, providing an economic boost similar to tourism. Some of these visas were explicitly launched in response to the pandemic, but new launches have continued over the following years.
While just under half of the currently available digital nomad visas were launched in 2020 or 2021, 14% were launched in 2024 and a further 13% were launched in 2023.
The countries that offer digital nomad visas vary widely, although there are some trends. A significant number of small Caribbean countries and territories have launched schemes, for example, often targeting wealthy US workers who wish to maintain a timezone close to American employers. Latin American countries are also well represented in this group for similar reasons, but there are also visa hotspots across Europe, East Asia and Southeast Asia.
Who are digital nomad visas targeted at?
The precise nature of digital nomad visas varies by country, but there are some trends. While almost all explicitly state minimum salary requirements, the amounts required vary significantly. A small number have very low minimums, with two requiring salaries lower than $20,000 a year, while a further three require salaries in the $20,000s.
Slightly under half of the group have salary requirements below $40,000 and for the most part this segment also has relatively low cost barriers to apply, with many charging less than $200 for the application process.
Among countries that require minimum salaries above $40,000, there is significant variation in the exact amounts required, although none of those who have specified a salary require a yearly income above $90,000. Unsurprisingly, higher income requirements typically correlate with countries where there is a higher cost of living.
A salary of between $30,000 and $40,000 is the most common level of income required by digital nomad visas, enabling those who are relatively early in their careers to engage in the practice. However, many nations require salaries that are typical of skilled employment by a company based in a country with a relatively high cost of living, which correlates with portrayals of digital nomads as largely Western workers in skilled, often technology-focused positions.
While many digital nomad periods enable at least one renewal, the vast majority are initially issued for a year. This may enable workers to settle in a specific place for a relatively long period of time, or alternatively move around a country and stay in different locations over the visa period.
Consumer banking solutions and multicurrency account support
While not all solutions explicitly use the term ‘digital nomad’ in their marketing materials, there are a variety of neobanks, banks and fintechs that provide financial services that are popular with or commonly recommended to the digital nomad community.
These are typically split between those that provide multicurrency account services, where a customer can hold balances in multiple currencies simultaneously, and those that have a single currency but enable customers to make payments in other currencies without additional transaction fees.
The former includes Wise, Revolut, Bunq and Monese, while the latter includes UK neobank Monzo as well as US banks CapitalOne and Charles Schwab. While a disproportionate number are neobanks and fintechs, there are some more conventional banks that also offer services to this group. This includes HSBC, through the Global Money add-on to its Expat account, although this has a high minimum salary that is not common among many other providers, making it more narrowly targeted at higher-earning individuals.
In addition to ways to spend, many also include international money transfers capabilities, as well as the ability to receive payments in different currencies. Several also include value-added services focused around travel, including perks such as lounge access, with some, including Bunq, Revolut and Monzo, having premium features that are accessed via a monthly fee.
The technologically savvy nature of digital nomads means there is greater interest in stablecoins and cryptocurrencies among the cohort than in the general population, with reports of some requesting the ability to receive salary payments in stablecoins. While not many of the more popular brands cater to this, Revolut does include a range of cryptocurrency services within its offering.
Crypto support also appears more common among newer digital nomad-targeted financial brands, with two players who announced raises in December, Kast and Brighty, both focusing on this area.
While mentions of digital nomads in payments-related press releases is not common, we have seen a notable upswing in the last few months, with more companies specifically discussing the group as a potential customer base in the last year than has previously been observed. Some players have also extended their solutions to better cater to this audience, including Astropay, which announced the rollout of a multicurrency account solution in limited markets in December.
Multicurrency account crossover with digital nomad visa countries
Among multicurrency account players who have publicly stated the currencies that customers can hold balances in, there are few that offer a very large number. HSBC’s standalone brand Zing, which supported 22 currencies, closed in January, while HSBC Expat serves 19. Bunq also offers 22, although does not appear to state which currencies these are to non-customers, while the precise number offered by AstroPay is not yet clear. In this area, meanwhile, Wise and Revolut are the clear leaders, at 45+ and 35+ respectively.
Wise and Revolut are often considered the leaders in accounts for digital nomads, due to their strong breadth of multicurrency balance options, receive currencies and money transfers coverage.
While Revolut has been catering to customers looking to spend money abroad since it launched in 2015, initially enabling customers to spend money abroad in around 90 countries at the interbank exchange rate, Wise began life as a money transfers player and only launched its accounts solution in 2017.
While both have reached significant scale, this difference in beginnings is reflected in their differences in capabilities. The strength of Wise’s network enables it to offer a broader range of hold currencies and send currencies than Revolut, although the latter’s payment-first experience may explain why it supports payments in a slightly larger number of countries.
However, there is a notable crossover with countries where digital nomad visas are issued. For the entire 44 countries and territories, Wise and Revolut both cover around 60% of the currencies, while HSBC covers 45%. Despite only supporting three currencies at present, Monese already covers a quarter of countries, as a result of the number of eurozone countries offering such visas.
When this is refined to countries or territories with a population of over a million, however, this share is higher, with Wise supporting all but four of the countries and Revolut supporting all but eight.
Given that these higher-population countries are likely to take a greater share of digital nomads, they are therefore the most valuable to cater to for companies looking to focus on this cohort.
Global payroll: Well placed to support digital nomads?
While the nature of such accounts often enables workers to receive their pay in their employer’s currency of choice, the rise of remote work has also prompted a broader rise in international hiring and, with it, the rise of the global payroll industry. Multiple companies launched since the pandemic have grown to become major players in this space, enabling direct payroll, employer of record services and contractor payments in more than 100 countries worldwide.
This inevitably enables them to support both digital nomads and other workers located in the countries in question, with the range of services on offer becoming increasingly sophisticated. Many providers now include solutions such as global healthcare benefits, visa application support and global HR platforms, including country-specific knowledge bases to help companies comply with local employment laws.
Among three of the leaders in this space – Deel, Papaya Global and Remote – coverage of the countries offering digital nomad visas is high. While in some form 89% of the full 44 are covered by Deel and Remote, and 77% covered by Papaya, all of the countries with a population greater than a million are covered by all three players.
Evolving opportunities for cross-border payments
Digital nomads appear to be on the rise as a group, with visas continuing to be launched to attract them and growing numbers of digital nomad-focused products and services being developed internationally. However, while the payments industry has responded to this space effectively, there are likely to be continuing opportunities in the future.
As countries that offer such visas broaden, companies will need to be on the lookout for shifts in flows and new areas of demand. Perhaps more crucially, there is also potential in emerging markets, as those from non-Western countries also look to live and work abroad in greater numbers. Home-grown brands such as Brazil’s Nomad, which enables customers to hold funds in USD, are increasingly emerging, and as emerging market countries see continued growth, the opportunities among such groups is also set to increase.
While there may be a move to shift workers back to the office among many companies, there is also a clear and continued growth in those interested in becoming digital nomads – and the potential for the cross-border payments industry is only set to increase.
