How much passive income do you need for the Portugal D7 visa?

As of January 1, 2026, the minimum is €920 per month, which is about €11,040 a year. The figure is tied to the Portuguese minimum wage, so it moves when the wage moves. A spouse adds 50% and each dependent child adds 30%, so a couple needs roughly €1,380 a month. You also need savings of about €11,040 per adult, which is roughly twelve months of that income sitting in the bank.

What counts as passive income for a D7 visa?

Pensions, rental income from real estate, dividends and other financial investments, royalties from intellectual property, and transferable equity all generally qualify. The key word is passive. Income from a job you are actively working is not what this visa is designed around, which is why remote workers usually look at the D8 digital nomad route instead. The income also needs to be documented and reliable, not a good month in a brokerage account.

How much does it cost to live in Da Nang per month?

Roughly $828 a month for a single person on current cost-of-living data, with rent averaging about $417 of that. A comfortable beach lifestyle runs closer to $1,000 to $1,300, and a lean budget can land around $750 to $900. A modern one bedroom in the popular expat areas near My Khe goes for about $350 to $500. Those numbers assume you are living locally rather than importing an American lifestyle.

Is Vietnam or Portugal cheaper for an American?

Vietnam, clearly, on raw monthly cost. Da Nang at about $828 a month is well below what most of Portugal costs. But cost is not the only variable. Portugal offers a documented long-stay residency path that can lead toward permanent status, and it sits inside the EU. Vietnam is cheaper and warmer with a much less settled long-term visa situation for retirees. You are choosing between price and permanence.

How much do I need invested to qualify for the D7?

If you are funding it from a portfolio rather than a pension, the arithmetic is straightforward. At a 4% withdrawal rate, €11,040 a year of income implies roughly €276,000 in invested assets. For a couple at €16,560 a year, it is closer to €414,000. That is the rough floor for the income test alone, and it does not include the savings requirement, moving costs, or the buffer you want for a currency you do not earn in.

What is the biggest hidden cost of moving abroad?

The foreigner price gap is the one that surprises people, and in Da Nang it is well documented. The same furnished one bedroom that lists around $300 to $340 on local platforms can show up near $732 on English-language sites. That is more than double for identical space. Budget from local pricing and assume it will take a few months and some local help before you actually get local prices.

Portugal D7 vs Da Nang: Living Abroad on Less

The Portugal D7 visa needs €920 a month in passive income. Da Nang runs about $828. Here is what each path really costs.

Two very different versions of the same idea are having a moment. One is a European residency visa aimed at people with investment income. The other is a beach city in Vietnam where a comfortable month costs less than a car payment in Los Angeles.

They solve different problems.

Here is what each actually requires, using current numbers rather than the ones that were true three years ago. That distinction matters here more than in most personal finance writing, because the Portuguese figure is indexed to a minimum wage that moves every January and half the guides online are quoting a threshold that expired.

What does living abroad actually cost?

The Portugal D7 visa requires €920 a month in passive income as of January 2026, about €11,040 a year. Da Nang, Vietnam runs about $828 a month all in for a single person, with rent averaging around $417 of that. Portugal is a legal pathway with an income test. Vietnam is a low cost of living with a harder long-term visa story.

The Portugal D7, by the numbers

The D7 is often called the retirement visa or the passive income visa. The income requirement is indexed to the Portuguese minimum wage, which means it rises over time and you should always check the current year rather than an old guide.

For 2026:

Main applicant: €920 per month, roughly €11,040 per year
Spouse: add 50%, bringing a couple to about €1,380 per month
Each dependent child: add 30%
Savings: about €11,040 per adult, roughly twelve months of income

Qualifying income can come from pensions, real estate rentals, dividends and financial investments, intellectual property royalties, or transferable equity. What it is not designed for is active work income, which is why remote employees typically look at the D8 route instead.

What that means for your portfolio

If you are funding the D7 from investments rather than a pension, the math is easy to run.

At a 4% withdrawal rate, €11,040 a year of income implies roughly €276,000 invested. A couple needing €16,560 is looking at about €414,000. Those are floors for the income test, not a full plan, and they do not cover the savings requirement or the buffer you want when your expenses are in a currency you do not earn.

You can pressure test your own number in our FIRE number calculator, and if you are closer to the front end of this, our coast FIRE calculator is the better tool.

Da Nang, by the numbers

Da Nang keeps landing on digital nomad lists for a reason. Beach, fast internet, and a monthly cost that is hard to argue with.

Current figures:

Single person, all in: about $828 per month
Rent, average: about $417 per month
Modern one bedroom near My Khe or the nomad areas: $350 to $500
Lean solo budget: $750 to $900
Comfortable beach lifestyle: $1,000 to $1,300
Upgraded lifestyle: $1,500 to $2,000

The gap between lean and upgraded is only about $1,000 a month, which is the part that gets people. The distance between surviving and living quite well is much narrower than it is in a US city.

The foreigner price gap is real

This is the number we would most want to know before booking a flight, and it rarely makes the glossy guides.

In the beachside expat areas, English-language rental sites quote roughly double the local price for identical space. A 45 square meter one bedroom listing around $300 to $340 on local platforms can appear at about $732 on foreigner-facing sites.

Same apartment. Double the rent.

That is not really a scam, it is a market segment, and every city with a visible expat population has some version of it. But it means the budget you carefully build from English-language listings may be roughly twice what the person downstairs pays, and it means you should plan on several months of paying the visitor rate before you find your way to local pricing.

Which one fits you

The honest split is about what you are optimizing for.

Choose Portugal if you want a documented residency path, EU access, and a legal structure that can lead somewhere permanent. You are paying more per month for a clearer future.

Choose Da Nang if the goal is to stretch a modest portfolio as far as it goes and you can tolerate a less settled visa picture. You are paying less per month and accepting more uncertainty about year five.

We are not going to pretend one is correct. We have not made this move ourselves, and anyone who tells you the answer is obvious is selling a relocation service.

What to check before you commit

Three things matter more than the monthly cost estimate.

Your brokerage account may not survive the move. Several large US brokers restrict accounts when you file a foreign address, and that is worth solving before you go rather than after.

Healthcare is a separate budget line, not a footnote, and it varies more between these destinations than rent does.

And the income requirement is indexed. The €920 figure is a 2026 number tied to the minimum wage. It will not be the 2028 number.

If you are still comparing US options too, our migration data breakdown covers where people are actually going, and the move to city calculator runs the domestic version of this same comparison.