Qualify for Retirement Visas by Setting Up Your Own Pension Plan LLC
For many people planning to relocate abroad, the most straightforward way to obtain long-term residency is through a retirement visa.
Nearly every country has one. You show that you receive a stable monthly pension, and in return, you’re granted a residence permit without having to buy property or start a local business.
It’s a simple idea: if you’re financially independent, you’re welcome.
But here’s the problem.
Most entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals don’t have a traditional pension.
You’ve built companies, invested, or lived abroad for years, and now that you finally want to retire somewhere warm and stable, the embassy wants “proof of pension income.”
So what do you do if you never paid into a pension system
That’s where a little-known but completely legitimate structure comes in: the U.S. Pension LLC, or as I call it, the Corporate Pension Plan in a box.
The idea: pay yourself a pension from your own U.S. company
Here’s the logic in one sentence:
You set up a U.S. Limited Liability Company (LLC), usually in the state of Connecticut, and that company formally grants you a pension.
Just as a German GmbH or British Limited can promise its managing director a company pension, a U.S. LLC can do exactly the same.
The difference is that an American LLC can do it with minimal red tape, no tax exposure, and global recognition.
Once the LLC is established, it signs a Pension Policy and a Board Resolution confirming that you, as the company’s member, are entitled to a defined monthly pension.
The LLC then makes regular transfers, say, $1,500 or $2,000 per month, to your personal bank account.
Those transfers show up on your bank statements as “Pension Payment.”
And that, for most immigration authorities, is all that matters.
Why Connecticut?
There’s a reason we use Connecticut.
While Delaware is famous for corporate law, Connecticut is the historic heart of the American insurance and pension industry.
Its capital, Hartford, has been known for over a century as “The Insurance Capital of the World.”
Companies like Aetna, Cigna, The Hartford, and Travelers were all born there.
In other words: when you incorporate in Connecticut and your company issues a pension, it doesn’t look strange. It looks credible.
You’re operating in the very jurisdiction where America invented the concept of private retirement plans.
Connecticut law, specifically Title 31, Chapter 574 of the Connecticut General Statutes, explicitly recognizes private retirement arrangements.
That means the legal framework for a company like yours to promise and pay a pension already exists, and officials dealing with these documents know what they’re looking at.
The documentation
The Pension LLC is supported by four key documents, all created by one of our U.S. attorneys:
Operating Agreement – the LLC’s constitution, containing the pension clause
Pension Policy – internal document defining the pension terms
Board Resolution – the formal decision authorizing your pension
Pension Award Letter – the official confirmation that payments have begun
These documents can be presented anywhere in the world.
They look and feel official because they are: drafted by an attorney, signed by us as the corporate secretary (not by you personally), and supported by an apostilled Certificate of Good Standing stamped by the Secretary of State of Connecticut with the seal if of the state.
How it works in practice
Once everything is in place, you simply fund your LLC, usually with $10,000 – $30,000, depending on the pension amount you plan to pay.
That money can be contributed as capital or a loan.
Then the LLC starts paying you a fixed “pension” every month.
You can use those payments to apply for a retirement visa in countries like Costa Rica, Panama, the Philippines, Mexico, Mauritius, Ecuador, Uruguay, Thailand, or even Dubai.
Each of these countries has its own threshold, but most require monthly income between $1,000 and $2,500.
If your LLC pays you $2,000 per month, you can usually apply for several pension visas at once, creating multiple Plan B options for the future.
Example
Imagine you’re 52, a consultant from Germany or Austria who sold your company, and you’d like to move to Costa Rica or Thailand.
You don’t want to start a business there; you just want residency and the right to stay long-term.
You form your Connecticut LLC, deposit $20,000, and begin paying yourself $2,000 each month.
After three months, you have bank statements showing “Pension Payment.”
You then attach your LLC documents, Operating Agreement, Pension Policy, Resolution, and Pension Award Letter, to your visa application.
Immigration officers see what looks exactly like - in fact is - an American corporate pension.
Result: you get your residency permit without buying real estate or tying up capital.
Legal and tax aspects
Here’s what makes the U.S. Pension LLC so powerful:
It has no tax obligations in the United States, provided the company or beneficiary has no U.S. links.
It has no bookkeeping or filing requirements beyond a short annual information form (which can be filed by your service provider).
There are no U.S. taxes on the pension payments because you are not a U.S. tax resident.
In other words, the structure is tax-free, maintenance-free, and globally recognized.
As for taxes in your new country of residence: The “retirement visa” jurisdictions mentioned here do not tax foreign-sourced pensions, that’s why they created these programs in the first place.
Still, it’s always wise to get local advice before applying.
Privacy and professionalism
Unlike in Europe, the ownership of a Connecticut LLC is not published in the public registry.
Only the registered agent’s name and address appear.
That means your company can issue a legitimate pension without exposing your personal data online.
All the paperwork, including your Pension Award Letter, is signed by the corporate secretary, not by you.
This adds a layer of formality and removes the appearance of “self-certification.”
When an immigration officer reviews your file, they’re not seeing a homemade statement; they’re seeing a formal corporate pension from the United States.
The global mobility advantage
The beauty of this structure is that it’s not tied to one country.
Once established, your Pension LLC can support multiple visa applications.
You might use it for Costa Rica now, then later for Panama or Thailand.
The documents remain valid; you simply provide updated bank statements showing ongoing pension payments.
It’s the ideal foundation for a Plan B lifestyle, one legal identity, one income stream, multiple residency options.
What it costs
In our experience, a properly established and maintained Pension LLC, including all documents, apostilles, IRS filings, registered agent, and bank account, costs around $5,000 for the initial setup and roughly $2,000–$2,500 per year thereafter.
That’s less than most “golden visa” application fees in a single country.
And instead of buying property, you’re buying flexibility and freedom.
Can you stop it later?
Yes.
There’s no binding obligation to continue the pension forever.
If your situation changes, you can stop payments or dissolve the LLC at any time.
If you already hold a visa, you should of course check what impact that might have, but from a legal standpoint, the LLC can be closed whenever you wish.
A quiet revolution in mobility
This isn’t a loophole or a trick.
It’s simply using existing U.S. company law in a smart, lawful way.
Major corporations have done it for decades: they create separate entities to manage pension obligations.
In fact, many of America’s biggest companies, General Electric, IBM, ExxonMobil, Boeing, have dedicated pension subsidiaries.
Your LLC is a miniature version of the same idea, but privately owned and internationally portable.
It’s what I call sovereign entrepreneurship: understanding how the system works and designing your own future within it, not against it.
Who this is for
This model is ideal for:
Entrepreneurs and investors without a statutory pension
Digital nomads and perpetual travelers who want residency options
Retirees seeking a tax-free Plan B base
Anyone building a legally recognized, international income source
It’s not about escaping obligations.
It’s about creating structure where none existed, using one of the most stable legal systems in the world, the United States, to formalize what you’ve already earned.
Final thoughts
When I first discovered this structure, what impressed me most wasn’t the cleverness, it was the elegance.
It bridges two worlds: the freedom of entrepreneurship and the security of a pension.
Most people spend their lives paying into a system that may never pay them back.
You, instead, can write your own rules, literally. Your company, your pension, your freedom.
And the documents?
They come stamped from Connecticut, the same place where America built its insurance empires.
That small detail carries more weight than you might imagine.
Want to set up your own U.S. Pension LLC?
If you’d like to explore this option in more detail, how it fits your personal situation, which countries are most pension-friendly, and how to structure your payments, you can book a private consultation with me and my team.
During the session we’ll cover:
Whether a U.S. Pension LLC is the right structure for you
Which residency programs accept corporate pension income
How to fund and document your pension correctly
Local tax implications and visa strategy
If you’re already convinced and ready to move forward, you can also order the full Connecticut Pension LLC package directly through our service site.
(The site is in German, but English-speaking clients are welcome; everything can be handled in English.)
