You must adapt to new culture, new surroundings, perhaps a new job and vastly different set of responsibilities and expectations. While the primary direction of most of these considerations is focused on establishing yourself in a new country, you must not forget the importance of maintaining positive relationships (both personal and financial) in your homeland in the event that you make a return.
When and if you decide to return to your native country, reestablishing both your lifestyle and your financial standing can prove very challenging if you have allowed things to lapse during your absence. Even if bills have been paid off and nothing is left outstanding, a long term absence from the country can result in a marked shortage of credit history, which reflects negatively on a credit report.
Avoiding this pitfall of becoming an expatriate is relatively easy. Perhaps the simplest way to maintain a positive credit rate in your home country is to keep a few accounts open there. The first step is to keep at least one bank account open. If you have the funds available you can keep it at a level that will allow for interest accumulation. Next, you will want to maintain some form of credit. A basic small credit card is one option. Occasionally, you might want to use the card to make a simple purchase online. Remember to pay it off at the end of the month with your stateside bank account. This will show that you are active and still responsible regarding your obligations. If you owned a home you may want to consider keeping it. You can set up automatic payments to be made from your bank account. You can also consider renting the property out.
There are many property management service companies out there that can help manage your tenants and service on the property while you are away. The rent can be deposited into the stateside account, and the payment for the mortgage can be automatically paid offering you a continued line of positive credit history. If you had store credit cards before leaving the country, you may want to consider keeping them open. Many stores are available online and will ship overseas. Having the card, based in the United States, will continue to add information to your credit report. Once again, the payment for this account can be made from your stateside bank account.
Credit history and credit scores are not translated from one country to another. When you move overseas you will effectively have no credit history at all and will be starting from scratch. After spending time as and expatriate, one would not want to once again begin the task of establishing credit on their return home. This is especially true if you had a stellar credit score before leaving the country. Maintaining a basic bank account and some form or credit, big or small, is the easiest way to provide a base line of positive credit history for your return home.
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