Our Definition of “Passive”

Passive income is unearned income, but some passive income requires more effort to earn. This site focuses on truly passive income based on the following rules we’ve developed over several years. While not every investment we cover can meet all of these criteria, we favor those investments that meet most:

Automatic

  • The income stream does not require you to take further action once setup
  • You could literally “die” and money would still hit your bank account or come to your mailbox on some periodic basis (e.g. weekly, monthly, quarterly)

Recurring

  • The income is (un)earned at some regular and predictable interval
  • The risk of scheduled payments stopping or getting interrupted is very, very low

Geographic Independent

  • The income stream is not dependent on where you live
  • The income stream does not require you to be in a certain location to collect
  • You can monitor and manage your investment from anywhere in the world (e.g. through a mobile device)