About

FIRE Europe exists because almost everything written about financial independence assumes an American reader — American accounts, American funds, American tax law. For anyone building toward early financial independence from within Europe, most of that advice is the right idea wrapped in the wrong instructions.

This blog translates the idea into European reality: UCITS ETFs instead of US ones, the tax-advantaged wrappers that actually exist in your country, cross-border considerations when you move, and the unglamorous details — brokers, withholding tax, healthcare, residency — that decide whether a plan survives contact with real life.

What it isn't: hustle culture, side-gig grinding, or get-rich-quick. The maths of financial independence is boring and well understood. The hard part in Europe is the implementation. That's what gets written about here.