Norayr Yesayan

Why I started Expath

After relocating to two European countries, I hit the same bureaucratic wall over and over again. The Netherlands was doable. France was unbearable.

Somewhere between the third “please bring an apostilled translation we forgot to mention” and the fourth fine for missing a single document, I realised something: moving abroad should feel like an exciting new chapter, not an anxiety-filled maze of forms, deadlines, and silent deadlines you only learn about from a fine in the post.

So I decided to fix it. Expath turns the chaos of European relocation into a clear, personalised plan. We tell you what to file, when, and in what order — for Germany, Spain, France, Italy and Poland — tailored to your situation, not to a generic FAQ.

Where I’ve been

• Armenia — where I grew up, and where I had to fly to Georgia to apply for a Dutch visa.
• Netherlands — my first relocation. Mandatory municipality registration in the first 5 days. €472/month fines for skipping health insurance. Doable, but I built spreadsheets of spreadsheets to stay sane.
• France — my second. ~50 pages of paper documents for a first-time tax filing. Social-security loops. Tax benefits for newcomers that require a law degree to understand. This is the country that broke me — and the country that made me build Expath.

If any of that sounds familiar, you can read the long version of the story here.

What Expath does

We use AI to read your situation — what country you’re moving to, what visa you qualify for, whether you have a partner or kids, whether you’re a freelancer or an employee — and turn that into a checklist of every document, every deadline, every appointment, in the right order. No more guessing whether you needed to register at the Mairie before opening a bank account, or whether health insurance comes before residency or after.

The product is built around the principle that you, the person moving, are the project manager. We just give you a project plan that actually works.

Where to go next

• Move to Germany — visa, Anmeldung, residency
• Move to Spain — Digital Nomad Visa, NIE/TIE, Beckham Law
• Move to France — long-stay visa, Carte de Séjour
• Read the blog — long-form guides and founder stories