Moving crypto to a low-tax country — do I need an adviser, or can I do it alone?
Some of it, yes — and we will say so on the call if that is the honest answer. The parts that are worth paying for are the ones where a missed election, a missed deadline or an unverified threshold costs more than the fee: the former country generally taxes the accrued gain on departure or retains a claim, and residency has to genuinely end for the new country's rules to apply.
What if I have already filed and got it wrong?
That is a common starting point. We re-derive the position, identify whether an amendment or a disclosure route is the right vehicle, and tell you which one preserves the relief that is still available. The order matters more than the speed.
How long will it take?
It depends on the documents rather than on us. Once the pack is complete most filings turn around inside a fortnight; anything that needs a certificate from a tax authority runs on that authority's timetable, which we tell you at the start rather than at the end.
Do I pay tax on my crypto when I leave the country?
Usually there is something to deal with in the departure year. The common pattern is an exit charge on the gain accrued up to the date residency ends, so the former country takes the increase in value that arose while you lived there and the new country takes what happens afterwards. Relocating to change the tax on a portfolio only works if the departure is real and the departure-year tax is paid. Planning is mostly a matter of knowing what the accrued gain is before you move, rather than discovering it afterwards from an exchange export.
Can I move abroad first and sell my crypto tax-free later?
Only to the extent the growth genuinely happens after you have left. Where an exit charge applies, the gain accrued to the departure date is already caught whatever you do next; selling later in a low-tax country changes the treatment of the later growth, not the earlier. And the former country generally retains a claim where residency never truly ended. The honest version of the plan is therefore: establish the departure properly, pay what the departure year produces, and let the new country's rules apply to what comes after that date.
How do I prove I actually stopped being a resident?
With the ordinary evidence of a life moved, rather than a declaration. Residency is decided on ties: where your home is, where your family lives, where your economic and social life sits, and how long you spend where. Crypto makes this more pointed than usual, because the sums involved invite scrutiny of a departure that looks timed. Documentation of ties, timing and valuation is the substance of the plan. Gather the evidence as you go — tenancies ended, addresses changed, memberships closed, travel records kept — because it is far harder to assemble years later when someone asks.
What value do I use for my coins on the day I leave?
You need a defensible value at the date residency ends, for each holding, from a source you can produce later. That is straightforward for liquid assets with a visible market and harder for tokens that trade thinly, sit in a locked position, or exist only inside a protocol. The method matters as much as the number: choose a source, apply it consistently across the whole portfolio, and record what you did at the time. A valuation carried out contemporaneously is evidence; the same exercise reconstructed under enquiry is only an argument.
Does keeping a house back home stop my departure counting?
It is among the strongest ties there is, and it frequently decides the question. A home kept available to you suggests you have not really left; a home let on ordinary commercial terms to an unconnected tenant suggests something different. The same logic runs through the rest of the list — a family who stays behind, a vehicle, memberships, arrangements only a resident would hold. None is fatal alone, but together they decide whether residency genuinely ended. If you intend to keep the property, treat that as a fact to plan around rather than one to leave unexamined.
Do I still have to file in my old country after moving?
Almost always for the departure year itself, and often afterwards. The departure-year return is where the exit charge and the split of the year are reported, so it is the document that establishes when you left and on what basis. After that, the former country may still tax particular sources connected with it, and may ask questions about the departure long after the event. Treat the departure-year filing as the foundation of the whole position rather than a formality, because it is the filing everything else will be tested against.
How does a remittance actually work, and is it taxed?
A remittance is a transfer of money, not a category of income, and moving your own funds between your own accounts is not what creates tax. What can create tax is the income behind the money and the rules of the country it leaves. India, for instance, collects tax at source when a resident individual remits abroad under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, and requires certification before certain payments leave. The transfer is the trigger for paperwork rather than for tax. See the LRS and tax collected at source.
How much foreign income is tax-free in Canada?
None of it is tax-free for being foreign. A Canadian resident is taxed on worldwide income, so foreign salary, interest, dividends, rent and gains all go on the return, converted to Canadian dollars. What genuinely reduces the bill is the basic personal amount, the credit for foreign tax already paid, and any treaty article that exempts a specific type of income. The reporting thresholds people have in mind — the foreign property statement, for one — govern reporting, not exemption. See the foreign tax credit.
