Why American FIRE advice breaks in Europe

Most FIRE content assumes you’re American. The accounts it tells you to max out — 401(k), Roth IRA, HSA — simply don’t exist here. The funds it tells you to buy — VTSAX, VTI — you can’t buy as an EU retail investor.

Can Europeans buy VTSAX or VTI?

No. US ETFs publish no PRIIPs KID, and without one an EU broker is not allowed to sell the fund to retail investors.

PRIIPs and the KID, in one paragraph: since 2018, the EU’s PRIIPs regulation requires every investment product sold to EU retail investors to ship a standardised three-page Key Information Document (KID). US-domiciled ETFs don’t produce one — they have no reason to — so EU brokers must refuse the order. It’s not a ban on the fund; it’s a missing document that acts like one. The workarounds you’ll read about (professional-client status, options exercises) are edge cases, not a plan.

What do you buy instead?

UCITS ETFs — the European-domiciled equivalents (e.g. accumulating world trackers) that ship the KID and that you’re actually allowed to hold. The same market exposure, wrapped for Europe.

What replaces the 401(k) and IRA?

Your country’s wrapper. Each European country has its own tax-advantaged pension or investment account — a PPR in Portugal, a PEA in France, pillar 3a in Switzerland. They are not interchangeable, and none of them behaves like a Roth IRA.

Does anything from American FIRE survive the crossing?

The headline numbers do: save a large share of your income, invest it broadly, let it compound. And one more thing changes — one tax code becomes several. Move countries and your strategy changes, sometimes completely.

The principles travel. The paperwork doesn’t. That gap is what this blog is about.