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Comment by ashtonkem | Hacker News Reader

I feel like we should talk about how immigrants get to re-title themselves as expats if they’re rich enough. That doesn’t sit right with me.

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They do? An expat by definition is a citizen of another country living abroad. An immigrant is someone who changes citizenship.

Ah, I was not aware of that difference.

Edit: hold on. I have several colleagues who are foreign citizens in America on visas; and I’ve never heard of them being called expats. I feel like I only ever see that word when applied to Americans or British citizens moving to cheaper areas of the world.

In my mind, it's the word Americans use for Americans living in other countries. I doubt the locals in whatever country they're in consider them "expats." Just Americans.

I’ve heard in connection with other English speaking countries, usually UK or Australians living abroad.

UK folk living abroad, often in Spain, definitely refer to themselves as ExPats.

Me? I moved from the UK to Finland, and I'm definitely an immigrant. (As are most of the people living in the part of the city I'm in. Weird.)

"I doubt the locals in whatever country they're in consider them "expats." Just Americans."

The locals definitely refer to them as 'expat' or something along those lines in local vernacular.

And it's generally a Western thing, not just American or Anglosphere.

These people are completely unlike immigrants, there's almost no comparison.

If someone married a woman from Bali, moved in, was working as a manager in her Father's factory ... the term 'immigrant' might apply.

Most ex-pats are temporarily stationed, they are not there permanently, they work for international conglomerates, governments, news agencies, universities. The 'drop shipper' thing is a little specious but roughly in that category.

Your colleagues are expats

not just to cheaper ones. North Americans and British call themselves expats in Germany as well.

Maybe it's a commonwealth thing but 'expat' was a pretty common term when I was living in the US as a Canadian.

Are Mexicans in the US 'expats' too? No? That's the point.

It's definitely an 'anglosphere' term though that gets used for people from the US/UK/etc... living in other countries.

The only other language I speak well, Italian, doesn't really have an equivalent term.

Well, they're expats. Maybe it's just an Anglican term? It's literally short for expatriate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriate

Ohh, that makes even more sense. I thought it was some weird 19th century term for ex-patriot.

A hidden comment makes a good distinction:

> Think the difference is that an expat makes his wealth from outside that country he migrated to and Immigrant makes money from the country they migrated to.

None of this stuff is an official definition, but this seems to be how most people essentially mean the term, or rather what happens to be true when they use it.

I'm basically a permanent traveler. I might spend years at one location working remotely. Calling myself an immigrant really seems to lack some important distinctions that explain my situation compared to a visa worker.

Even when I'm technically an immigrant and an expat is just an expatriate, there's more nuance to how we use the terms. And to me it comes down to power: when my fun is over, I just buy a ticket home.

That seems like a good social distinction.

I’d say that you’re a migrant, but that brings a connotation of poverty and manual labor that’s probably not correct.

> Think the difference is that an expat makes his wealth from outside that country he migrated to and Immigrant makes money from the country they migrated to.

I don't agree that this is at all universal, I moved to a (marginally) more expensive country for a local job, and am still definitely considered an expat. And while it's not an official term, there are plenty of companies targetting people like me, "expat mortgages" and so on. For them they can target their market, for us it means that we know they'll be good enough speaking professional English.

> And to me it comes down to power: when my fun is over, I just buy a ticket home.

This rings more true however. I think if you still have some feeling of "I'm likely to go back some day", rather than putting effort in to learning the language, making local friends, and possibly putting down serious roots, that's more expat-like.

The distinction is not so much about source of income as it is about the reason for their relocation, in my experience. Expats come to a country more so for adventure than opportunity. Not to say they can't thrive there and integrate closely with the culture, just that it wasn't really a relocation driven by necessity.

Well, you wouldn't call them immigrants, would you? Not unless they're not on a path toward citizenship.

Expat - an American living outside USA

Alien - an immigrant(non US citizen) living inside USA

The USCIS, DHS and all other immigration related offices use the word 'Alien' to define an immigrant in USA who has not become a citizen yet.

For me, an expat is somebody who temporarily works abroad for, say, 2 or 3 years, with company housing allowance, expat COLA allowance etc. In the US, this is often reflected by their L1 visa.

An immigrant is somebody who moves to a different country and works for a local company (which might be the same one as the one they worked for in their home country) with a local salary and benefits.

Expats often transition into immigrants.

Being a citizen is not a part of the equation. I've been an immigrant for decades, but I'm not a US citizen.

> An expat by definition is a citizen of another country living abroad.

I've never seen a definition of expat that depends on citizenship.

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