Countries with access to US ETFS

[Jimbob]

Dear Mustachians,

Apologies if this has either been talked about, or is very easy to find online, but I would like to know if there is a way of finding out which countries have access to US domiciled ETFS. If I were to move away from ‘La Suisse’ to another country, how do I find out if I can continue investing in US domiciled ETFS like “VT” or “VYMI”.

Obviously moving back to Europe or the UK, we no longer have access to those, but what about the rest of the world? I cannot find the information!

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Dr.PI]

First, US ETFs are not the best always and for everyone. You should look at the specific situation. Once US withholding tax is not reclaimable, even 15% and not 30%, the result changes to prefer Irish or Luxembourg ETFs at least for non-US holdings.

Second

Certain European Investors may have tax advantages with U.S. ETFs
It is a rare situation. But there are certain European countries that have protection against US Estate taxes (please verify before investing) and allow investors to buy US ETFs, potentially offsetting withholding taxes against local dividend taxes.

For example, some investors in the UK (assuming you meet the €500k eligibility criterion) and Switzerland may fall into this category.

UCITS Vs U.S. ETFs - Pros And Cons For Non-US Investors

Third, you can also do some options magic:

Interactive Brokers: Changes in currency conversion for Cash accounts in April 2024

I bought 100 stocks VT by selling deep-in-the-money option and converting Euros to USD. As usual, the option was exercised the following night, but then IBKR did weird things converting remaining Euros in the account into Dollars. I suspect their auto-conversion kicked-in: for cache accounts they do currency conversion themselves if there is no enough settled amount of USD But what puzzles me, as settlement for stocks like VT is now 1 day and for FX operations it is 2 days, it means that for 1 …

[nabalzbhf]

And fourth, you can try meeting the pro classification criteria (though it’s a bit harder in EU than in CH), e.g. through net worth.

[Jimbob]

@Dr.PI

Once US withholding tax is not reclaimable, even 15% and not 30%, the result changes to prefer Irish or Luxembourg ETFs at least for non-US holdin

So in the hypothetical situation where you were move to a country where this is no longer reclaimable, what would be your personal preference: would you sell all of your VT shares and reinvest in an Irish or Luxembourg ETF?

[Tony1337]

I‘d for sure do that. Also a high likelihood accumulating etfs are more tax beneficial anyway.

Sell VT before moving and invest in the most tax beneficial etf for the new country.

[Jimbob]

Certainly in Spain, I know that accumulative ETFS are much more tax advantageous than distributive.

[Dr.PI]

I am already using US ETFs to only invest in US stocks. The rest of the world is mostly 3a funds and some European ETFs.