One challenge expats face when they move overseas is the disadvantage regarding local news and events that could impact them. Whether it’s a tornado warning, an anti-foreigner protest, a disease outbreak, gang wars, or even a civil war, expats are often in a bit of a “limbo” situation.

Many expats haven’t developed their language ability to the point where they can get warnings of those events. And those with good language skills may not know how to learn about such events in a given culture. And even those with good language skills and cultural knowledge who get all the local news may not receive the news that an expat needs to know. Local news could be wrong, censored, biased, or meant to serve locals (and not expats)—or all of the above!

Getting timely information as an expat is critical in any emergency situation.

One good solution to this lack-of-information problem is to get notifications from embassies in your host country, whether or not they are your passport country’s embassies. In today’s tip, I’ll explain what notifications are, why you want to get them, and how to sign up for notifications from countries around the world.

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What embassy notifications are

Many, though certainly not all, countries around the world have a way to communicate with their citizens who are expats around the world.¹ Some notifications may be civic ones—how to vote, when the embassy is holding a special event, etc.—but many include emergency or news notifications.

For example, I’ve signed up for the U.S. notification program, called STEP (Smart Traveler Enrollment Program). STEP emails have informed me about hurricanes expected to make landfall, warnings to stay away from protests or riots in particular areas, health assessments of the COVID situation in my host country, notes about political dangers US citizens may face abroad, and more.

Each country’s service will differ, but each one is generally designed to try to give citizens from that country the information they need in order to live safely abroad while still fulfilling their civic duties or enjoying their civic benefits (if any).

Why you should sign up for embassy notifications

Perhaps the brief explanation above makes immediately obvious the benefit of being on your embassy’s notification list, but allow me to make explicit a few benefits you receive from receiving notifications.

Get information from a different bias

In the twenty-first century, I hope everyone reading this is aware that everyone who writes—myself included—writes from a particular background, culture, and perspective that produces a bias in what they write.  This doesn’t make news necessarily untrue, but it does mean that it comes from a particular perspective and has a particular goal. For example, if you’re reading advice about whether to save cash in your house, then the advice of “The Carefree Expat” is probably going to be different from that of The Prepared Expat. That bias doesn’t necessarily make the advice “right” or not,² but you should be aware of the bias the writers have.

When you read local news—assuming your language skills are good enough for that—it’s the same. Local news will betray a bias in its reporting. It may be a positive bias in favor of your host country (“everything is fine!”) or it may be a negative bias against your host country (“everything is broken!”), but it does exist.

Embassy notifications are definitely biased, but that bias helps balance the bias of other sources.

Signing up for embassy notifications gives you another source of information about the same events. It may be more or less accurate, but it is a different source of information with a different bias, and this can help you stay informed. Sometimes it’s more accurate, as it can bypass censorship and make you aware of issues you can’t read about in local news. Sometimes, though, it may be less accurate because it is produced by your passport country’s government which has its own goals. Either way, though, getting information from multiple sources and biases can help inform how you act or behave.

Get information from other governments

One of the neat things I learned while researching this article is that people who are not citizens of a certain country can often sign up for embassy notifications anyway. I’m a US citizen, but I get notifications from the UK Foreign Ministry about my host country. While the UK and US are both Western democracies (and share intelligence) and so their assessments are often similar, they are different and have different biases and evaluations. It’s quite helpful to have multiple perspectives on events.

For example, the US ordered an evacuation of its Ukraine embassy staff on February 12, 2022. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th and China evacuated its citizens starting on March 1st. It’s not that the U.S. was right or China was wrong, but that their perspectives differed greatly. Having multiple sources of information, with greatly different perspectives, will help you make an informed decision to evacuate or not.

Get information from your host country’s embassy

If possible, you should also sign up for notifications from your host country’s embassy in your passport country. That may sound odd, but it helps you evaluate what’s going on and get a sense of the official relationship between your two countries. If you’re a US expat living in Britain, that probably doesn’t matter much, but if you’re an Armenian expat in Azerbaijan, an Australian expat in China, or an Indian expat in Pakistan, it’s another source of information that will help you stay abreast of events.

Sign up for embassy alerts from your host country too.

If, for example, you’re a South Korean expat in Russia, you definitely would want to know if the Russian embassy in Seoul warned Russian citizens to evacuate South Korea. You’re not there, of course–you’re in Russia–but that’s definitely something you’d want to know.

Keep up with civic functions

Living as an expat may mean you surrender some rights, while you may be entitled to other rights and benefits even as you live abroad. Signing up for the “official” channel of communications from your embassy allows you to exercise those benefits and stay informed about special happenings. In my host country, the US embassy once hosted an off-embassy event for passport renewals. Rather than traveling 3 hours by plane to renew a passport, I was able to go to a nearby city to do it. Staying informed of events like that is helpful.

Some embassies will also host business events, town halls, or other social functions for holidays and special events. Being informed of these can help your social and business life.

Get emergency assistance

One of the questions my mom (of course) asked me before I moved overseas was how she would learn if I had died. Despite the unspoken assumptions of the question,³ it is an appropriate one to ask. If there was a real crises, how would anyone from your family or country know what to do or how to get you help?

Who would your family contact if they wondered whether you were dead?

The first line of defense is your embassy—that’s who my Mom would call if she thought I was dead, and probably your family would do the same thing too. While different embassies approach these situations differently, one of their first attempts would be to provide information via whatever channels they typically use to communicate with citizens.

In the case of the US and several other countries, signing up for embassy notifications also allows you to (optionally) tell the US embassy where you live or your local contact information. That would enable them to communicate with you in a crisis situation. During the COVID crisis in Wuhan, China, the US embassy arranged emergency flights and communicated this to citizens via STEP. In Thailand, the US embassy arranged for COVID vaccines for US citizens, and communicated this via STEP. In Ukraine, the US warned citizens to evacuate before the Russian invasion, and communicated this via STEP. In Israel, the US warned citizens not to travel to Gaza, doing this, again, via STEP.

How and where to sign up for embassy notifications

A quick note: by signing up for these embassy notifications, you will be giving your passport country some information about yourself (e.g., phone number, email, address, WhatsApp number, etc.). If you don’t trust that government with your information, then obviously you shouldn’t sign up. But for most of us who trust our government (at least enough that we haven’t renounced citizenship), it’s a good idea sign to sign up for embassy notifications.

How do you do that? The exact way will depend on your exact country, but typically you’ll sign up in one of two ways.

First, you may sign up via a program run by your passport country’s Foreign Ministry or State Department. I’ve confirmed with expats that this is the case for these countries (listed alphabetically):

• Australia via Smartraveler
• Canada via Registration of Canadians Abroad
• France
• Peru
• United Kingdom Travel Advice – click on the country you like and then click “Get Email alerts”
• United States via STEP
• New Zealand via SafeTravel
• Many others — if your passport country should be on this list, please let me know so I can update it!

Second, notifications may come direct from your embassy in your host country. Thus, you wouldn’t sign up with or notify your Foreign Ministry or State Department, you’d contact your passport country’s nearest embassy in your host country. I’ve confirmed with expats that this is the case for these countries (listed alphabetically):

• Brazil
• Germany
• Ireland
• Sweden
• Many others — if your passport country should be on this list, please let me know so I can update it!

If your country isn’t on the list and you don’t know how to sign up for notifications, ask your local embassy or another expat from your passport country. Then, let me know so I can help others! I’d like to assemble as comprehensive a list as I can!

Services for global citizens

If you’re following my advice and want to sign up for more than one country’s embassy notifications, here are notifications in English that are available to anyone, regardless of citizenship. If you know of others, again, please let me know, so I can make this as comprehensive a list as I can:

• Australia’s Smartraveler
• The United Kingdom Travel Advice – click on the country you’ll travel to and then click “Get Email alerts”
• United States via STEP

Tips as you sign up

• If you have a choice, try to sign up for notifications through multiple methods (e.g., email + text) so that, in an emergency when one service may be down, you have greater odds of getting timely information.
• Don’t rely on just one channel which is controlled by someone else. For example, if you only sign up for notifications via Twitter, WhatsApp, WeChat, or Facebook, your host government could require those companies to suppress or censor information, even if it’s from another government. It’s more reliable, especially in an emergency, to receive an email directly from your embassy, since that’s harder for a government to shut down (assuming you’d still have internet access).
• While you’re signing up, you might as well sign up for notifications for other countries that you may visit or frequent. It may produce slightly more emails that aren’t as relevant to you, but if you travel frequently to a region or country, it would help you to stay informed in general.

Conclusion

In sum, staying informed as an expat is a critical aspect of ensuring your safety and making the most of your international experience. Embassy notifications are a key resource in this endeavor, offering tailored updates and insights that you might not find in local news. By leveraging this tool, you position yourself to be able to make informed decisions, no matter the circumstance you’re facing. Embassy notifications, especially from multiple sources, provide varied perspectives that can be crucial in times of crisis or uncertainty.

Speaking of getting timely information…

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Footnotes

1. In an incredibly unscientific poll I conducted among expat friends, I found that the foreign ministries/state departments from “developed countries” typically had a system to notify expat citizens. “Developing” countries, on the other hand, typically did not. That makes sense to me, though I only asked friends from 15-20 countries and so that may not reflect worldwide trends amongst all the countries of the world. ↩︎
2. What am I saying? Of course you should have a good amount of cash saved in your house. The Prepared Expat is right in this case, duh. And I’ve written an article touching on this topic: ↩︎
3. I’m probably safer from physical violence here than than in any US city. ↩︎