Has anyone ever moved abroad and started a window cleaning business?

[FrontierEC]

Hi All

As per the thread title - has anyone moved locations (such as country) and restarted their business there? Did you find it difficult? Any extra challenges?

 

[P4dstar]

Hi All

As per the thread title - has anyone moved locations (such as country) and restarted their business there? Did you find it difficult? Any extra challenges?

Us Brits are quite different to the rest of the west when it comes to window cleaning. Lots of European places have shutters and windows that open inwards. They don't even consider window cleaning professionally. I get this from conversations with customers who live in the UK and have property abroad in Cyrpus, Sicily and France. As well as conversations people have had on here. All three have told me they wish they could find a window cleaner out there but that they only seem to exist to clean commercial buildings. The USA has a different structure again where they do have regular window cleaners but in a lot of areas they just come once every year, clean the whole house in and out, take the shutters down if they have them... Either way no one if giving you a work visa to be a windy in the US so Europe is pretty much the only real option (Unless you happen to be entitled to dual citizenship somewhere)

I spent a couple of weeks in Budapest in 2023. I saw one window cleaner. He looked out of his face, full on smack head, cleaning by hand a few of the shops. Some of the residents were surprised when I told them I was a window cleaner as it's not a career they have ever heard of anyone doing. One questioned if I also did normal cleaning.

There is a way in though. You can put yourself near an expat community somewhere, they would appreciate it and use the service. They're often business owners and could lead in to this. If I were setting up abroad outside of that I would have to be buying an existing business.

 

[FrontierEC]

Thank you for such a detailed reply!

The reason for the question is that I'm absolutely in love with Switzerland. I'd love to move my family there one day but I was interested in seeing if I could restart a window cleaning business there. Probably too difficult to get a work visa if you're trying to be self employed?

 

[mattybondi]

i know that in Lithuania theres windies doing domestic work.In the entrance of an apartment block i saw a flyer that had below it a line of thin strips of paper that had the guys number on them.Several had already been torn off by prospective clients i guess.Iactually cleaned windows in that block just 1 apartment tho,i was on holiday there.

 

[Crystalalan]

Us Brits are quite different to the rest of the west when it comes to window cleaning. Lots of European places have shutters and windows that open inwards. They don't even consider window cleaning professionally. I get this from conversations with customers who live in the UK and have property abroad in Cyrpus, Sicily and France. As well as conversations people have had on here. All three have told me they wish they could find a window cleaner out there but that they only seem to exist to clean commercial buildings. The USA has a different structure again where they do have regular window cleaners but in a lot of areas they just come once every year, clean the whole house in and out, take the shutters down if they have them... Either way no one if giving you a work visa to be a windy in the US so Europe is pretty much the only real option (Unless you happen to be entitled to dual citizenship somewhere)

I spent a couple of weeks in Budapest in 2023. I saw one window cleaner. He looked out of his face, full on smack head, cleaning by hand a few of the shops. Some of the residents were surprised when I told them I was a window cleaner as it's not a career they have ever heard of anyone doing. One questioned if I also did normal cleaning.

There is a way in though. You can put yourself near an expat community somewhere, they would appreciate it and use the service. They're often business owners and could lead in to this. If I were setting up abroad outside of that I would have to be buying an existing business.

Its like that in norway to.

 

[P4dstar]

Its like that in norway to.

Imagine using hot water in Norway. Windows would be cracking all over the place I think the Scandinavian countries would struggle in general. For a large portion of the year they have very limited daylight hours. Thats before you think of the water freezing back to the glass.

 

[P4dstar]

Thank you for such a detailed reply!

The reason for the question is that I'm absolutely in love with Switzerland. I'd love to move my family there one day but I was interested in seeing if I could restart a window cleaning business there. Probably too difficult to get a work visa if you're trying to be self employed?

It’s meant to be a beautiful country, I’ve flown over and it looked lovely from the sky. I believe, similar to the UK, they have visas you can apply for to stay for a period of time, once you make it to ten years you can apply to stay permanently. You might find they’ll throw you the initial visa of a couple of years and see how you get on. You can but try.

As long as you’re financially stable and able to sustain yourself they’re likely to let you crack on. You just keep applying for visa extensions. The problem is it’s doesn’t have the long term security most would like. You’re going to have to reach 10 years anywhere before they’ll consider you as a permanent resident though. Besides the USA pretty much anywhere else allows you to just crack on if you can sustain yourself. IMO you’d be better building a business here that could run in your absence and then doing it. That way if you get told to pack up and go home you’ve some security to come back to. You also have a passive income and can potentially be self sustaining while you’re over there.

 

[Yogi1872]

Imagine using hot water in Norway. Windows would be cracking all over the place I think the Scandinavian countries would struggle in general. For a large portion of the year they have very limited daylight hours. Thats before you think of the water freezing back to the glass.

Yous be able to charge about £100 for a normal house over there though, wages are alot more than we get here, when I was offshore, our company had work in the Norwegian sector, for the same job it was 44k a year extra pay. Instead of 3 weeks on and 3 weeks off. The Norwegian one was 2 weeks on 2 weeks off then 2 weeks on 4 weeks off. Extra time off plus an extra 44k a year. They had alot of applicants.

 

[FrontierEC]

It’s meant to be a beautiful country, I’ve flown over and it looked lovely from the sky. I believe, similar to the UK, they have visas you can apply for to stay for a period of time, once you make it to ten years you can apply to stay permanently. You might find they’ll throw you the initial visa of a couple of years and see how you get on. You can but try.

As long as you’re financially stable and able to sustain yourself they’re likely to let you crack on. You just keep applying for visa extensions. The problem is it’s doesn’t have the long term security most would like. You’re going to have to reach 10 years anywhere before they’ll consider you as a permanent resident though. Besides the USA pretty much anywhere else allows you to just crack on if you can sustain yourself. IMO you’d be better building a business here that could run in your absence and then doing it. That way if you get told to pack up and go home you’ve some security to come back to. You also have a passive income and can potentially be self sustaining while you’re over there.

The country is unreal. I did a camping tour of the whole country a couple of years ago. Visited a lot of places and just fell in love with it.

I know they require you to be there for a decade before applying for citizenship. But I didn't realise they'd give you a visa to try and work over there and set your business up.