Where Should a Digital Nomad Actually Live in Asia? Korea vs Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam

There is no single best country for a digital nomad in Asia, because the six realistic options fail and succeed on completely different axes. Korea gives you the longest stay — up to three years on the F-1-D — but tests income at roughly ₩105 million a year. Thailand asks only that you hold about USD 14,000 in savings, but sends you out every 180 days. Japan grants six months and will not extend it. Taiwan's Gold Card is the strongest package if your CV fits one of its twelve fields. Singapore and Vietnam have no nomad visa at all. What follows is what each one actually requires, and the tax rule that catches people out.

Where we're coming from: SharedHomies runs share houses in Seoul. We make money when people choose Korea. So every number below is cited to a primary source with the date we pulled it, and we have printed the places Korea loses — including the ones that cost us business.

Which countries actually have a digital nomad visa?

Four of the six. And the two that do not are instructive, because in both cases it is a policy choice rather than an omission.

Korea's F-1-D left its pilot phase and became a permanent visa category on 30 June 2026, with the maximum stay raised from two years to three. It is strictly for remote work with a foreign employer — you cannot take work from a Korean company on it — and spouses and dependent children may come with you.

Japan's is the outlier among the four that exist. Six months, non-extendable, and you must leave when it expires. It also requires private health insurance covering death, injury and illness for the entire stay. For an income bar of ¥10 million, that is a lot of qualification for half a year.

Taiwan's Gold Card is not marketed as a nomad visa but functions as the best one on this list for people who qualify. It is a four-in-one card — resident visa, work permit, ARC and re-entry permit — issued across twelve professional fields, and you apply under exactly one. The salary route wants an average NT$160,000 a month before tax, calculated by the Workforce Development Agency from your annual tax form divided by twelve, and the income may be earned anywhere in the world. Bank balances, crypto, stocks and property income do not count — it must be salary. Card validity runs in multi-year terms; confirm the exact option with the Gold Card office, as we could not source it definitively.

Thailand's DTV is the most accessible by a distance, because it tests assets rather than earnings: THB 500,000 held as a consistent balance for three months. Since 31 August 2026 it also asks for proof of permanent residence and a home-country criminal record certificate.

Singapore's absence is deliberate. The Employment Pass requires a Singapore-based employer and cannot be used by someone employed overseas, which leaves remote workers on tourist status or EntrePass if they are starting a company. Vietnam has no dedicated route either, though it grants 90-day multiple-entry e-visas to all nationalities and has introduced a five-year talent visa that may suit some remote workers.

What does Korea's income requirement actually mean?

This is where English-language coverage — including, until recently, our own — has been slightly wrong, so it is worth being precise.

The standard threshold is twice Korea's prior-year GNI per capita. On the 2025 figure of ₩52.41 million, that is about ₩104.8 million a year.

The Ministry of Justice's own announcement then describes a relaxed requirement applied "within a range of one to two times GNI per capita" for applicants who are aged 18–34 or living in a non-capital region or a designated population-declining area. The worked example the MOJ gives — someone who is both 18–34 and outside the capital region — lands at a full 1× GNI, roughly ₩52.4 million.

Most English write-ups compress that into "you get 1× if you are young and live outside Seoul." That overstates it. It is a sliding band, and the two conditions are joined by "or," so a 28-year-old in Seoul may still see a reduced threshold — just not the full discount. Since the capital region is where we operate, this correction costs us rather than helps us, but it is what the source says.

One practical note: the won figure re-pegs annually to the Bank of Korea's GNI number. Confirm the current threshold at HiKorea rather than trusting any article, including this one.

What does each place cost to live in?

The visa gets you in. The cost of living decides whether you stay.

Ho Chi Minh City is less than a third the cost of Singapore, and Bangkok around half of Seoul. If your only constraint is burn rate, the answer is not Korea and this table says so plainly.

The more interesting row is Seoul's, because it splits. Seoul is the most expensive of the three northern cities overall, and the most expensive of all six on groceries — a genuinely unpopular fact locally, and one that surprises people who arrive expecting Korea to undercut Japan. But Seoul's rent index of 22.5 is lower than Tokyo's 26.1. So the honest summary is that Seoul costs more to shop in and less to live in than Tokyo, and anyone flattening that into "Seoul is cheaper than Tokyo" is telling you half of it.

When does each country start taxing you?

This is the part that costs people real money, and it has almost nothing to do with which visa you hold.

Singapore wins this comparison outright and it is not close — a 24% top rate on a territorial system, against Japan's roughly 55%. That Singapore has no nomad visa is precisely the problem: the most tax-friendly country on the list is the one you cannot easily move to as a remote worker.

Korea's position is better than its headline 49.5% suggests, because of a rule most nomad guides never mention. Under 소득세법 제3조, a foreign resident whose combined domicile in Korea totals five years or less within the previous ten is taxed on foreign-source income only to the extent it is paid within Korea or remitted to Korea. Past five years, worldwide income becomes taxable.

Read that carefully, because it is a remittance rule and not an exemption. Income that stays in your home-country account is outside the charge. The same income wired to your Korean bank to pay rent is inside it, from your first year. We have written this up in full in our guide to Korea's tax rules for long-term foreign residents, including the separate ₩500 million overseas-account reporting rule and who is exempt from it.

Where can you actually function in English?

The Korea-versus-Japan gap here is wide and worth weighing: 48th against 96th on the same instrument. For someone landing without the local language, that difference shows up in every bank appointment, phone contract and doctor's visit for the first year.

Two cells in that table are blanks with reasons rather than low scores, and it matters that you read them correctly. Singapore is absent because EF reclassified it as a native English-speaking country in 2025 — its English is not in question. Taiwan has simply never been tracked. Neither absence is a negative signal.

A caveat on the whole index: EF's data comes from people who choose to take its online English test, which is a self-selected sample. Treat it as directional rather than authoritative.

So which one should you actually pick?

There is no overall winner, but there are clear winners per constraint.

If your budget is the binding constraint, go to Vietnam or Thailand. Ho Chi Minh City at a 29.6 index against Seoul's 64.5 is not a marginal difference, it is a different financial life. Vietnam's lack of a nomad visa is a real friction, but 90-day multiple-entry e-visas are available to everyone.

If you want the lowest barrier to entry, Thailand's DTV. A savings test of USD 14,000 is the gentlest qualification on this list by a wide margin, and five-year validity means you are not reapplying constantly — you are just leaving every 180 days.

If you qualify on talent, Taiwan's Gold Card, without much hesitation. It is the only option here that bundles work rights and a resident card and points at permanent residency in as little as three years for specialist professionals.

If you want to actually settle somewhere for a few years, Korea. Three continuous years is the longest stay available, the five-year tax rule is genuinely generous while it lasts, and English usability is materially better than Japan's. The costs are an income test around ₩105 million, groceries that will surprise you, and a hard prohibition on taking any Korean work.

If tax is what you are optimising, Singapore is the right answer and the wrong country, because you cannot get there as a remote worker. That contradiction is the honest end of this comparison.

Japan is hardest to recommend on the nomad visa specifically. Six non-extendable months on a ¥10 million income bar, in the country with the highest top tax rate of the six, is a weak offer relative to its neighbours — though Japan remains a strong choice through other visa routes.

What should you check before committing to any of this?

Immigration rules in this region are moving quickly and the sources contradict each other constantly. While researching this piece we found Korean government portals still serving superseded pilot rules for the F-1-D months after the permanent scheme began, and English-language coverage repeating a stricter version of the income test than the Ministry of Justice itself describes.

So: confirm the current threshold with the issuing authority before you apply, not with an article. Check whether your home country has a tax treaty with your destination, because it changes the arithmetic more than the headline rate does. And work out where your income will be paid as well as earned, since in Korea that distinction is the whole ballgame for your first five years.

None of this is legal or tax advice. For anything with money attached, talk to a licensed adviser in the country concerned.

How do you find somewhere to live once you have picked?

If Korea is where you land, the practical questions come fast: you will want an ARC to open a bank account and get a proper phone plan, and you will need somewhere to live before you have either. Our guide to monthly rentals in Seoul for foreigners covers what things actually cost, and the F-1-D visa guide goes deeper on the application itself.

We run furnished share houses across Seoul on 30-day minimum stays, with a deposit of one month's rent and no key money — which is usually the part that stops remote workers renting here, since a standard Korean lease wants a lump sum in the tens of millions. If that is the shape of your problem, tell us what you need.

Sources

Checked 10 September 2026. Visa and tax rules in this region change frequently — verify before relying on any of it.

• 법무부 (Ministry of Justice, Korea), 디지털 노마드(워케이션) 비자 정식 도입, 8 July 2026 — F-1-D permanent status, three-year stay, the 1–2× GNI band
• 소득세법 제3조 — the 5-of-10-years rule and remittance basis
• Taiwan Employment Gold Card, National Development Council — the twelve qualifying fields
• RSM Japan, Japan's Digital Nomad Visa — duration, income bar, insurance condition
• Siam Legal International, DTV Visa Thailand 2026 — savings test, 180-day entries, August 2026 documentation changes
• Numbeo Asia cost of living, 2026 mid-year — the city index table
• EF English Proficiency Index 2025 — scores, ranks, and the Singapore and Taiwan exclusions
• PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, personal income tax rates — top marginal rates across all six