The World’s Best Countries for Expats in 2026
The 2026 Expat Insider survey, the latest carried out by InterNations, has ranked 31 countries according to several factors, including quality of life, ease of settling in, working abroad, personal finances, housing and digital services. Friendliness and affordability were particularly important in this year’s results.
The Personal Finance Index is based on expats rating three factors on a scale from 1 (very bad) to 7 (very good):
- satisfaction with their personal financial situation
- the general cost of living in their host country
- whether their disposable household income is sufficient to live comfortably
A country needed at least 50 respondents to qualify. These are therefore expats’ assessments of their own financial circumstances, rather than an objective ranking based on salaries, taxes or economic statistics.
The top ten are:
- Panama — 90% of expats say their disposable income allows them to live comfortably, while 76% are satisfied with their financial situation. Some 69% rate the cost of living positively.
- Thailand — 2nd overall and 1st for cost of living. Some 85% rate living costs positively, 78% say their income is sufficient for comfortable living, and 64% are satisfied with their finances. An unusually high 40% of respondents are retired.
- Mexico — 73% are satisfied with their finances and 81% say their income is sufficient for a comfortable life. Mexico ranks 5th for cost of living.
- Portugal — one of four European countries to make the top ten, with cost of living helping its strong financial rating.
- Malaysia — ranked 5th overall and 3rd for cost of living, making it, with Thailand, one of the two Southeast Asian countries in the top ten.
- Brazil — it performs strongly across most financial measures, although it ranks only 14th for whether disposable income provides a comfortable life.
- Poland — another of the European countries performing particularly well on cost of living.
- Spain — like Portugal and Poland, Spain’s relatively favourable cost-of-living assessment helps put it in the top ten.
- South Africa — a substantial rise from the bottom half of the table in 2025. It ranks 7th for cost of living, although only 25th for satisfaction with personal finances.
- Belgium — unlike the other European countries in the top ten, Belgium doesn’t score especially well for cost of living; InterNations suggests that its respondents’ higher gross incomes help compensate for the higher costs.
The overall pattern is quite striking: Latin America and Southeast Asia dominate the top, largely because expats feel their money goes further there. Europe still manages four places in the top ten — Portugal, Poland, Spain and Belgium — but none reaches the top three. The UK was ranked close to the bottom, at 29th, although still ahead of Canada and Norway.
Relocation and Your UK Pension
British citizens thinking of retiring abroad are being warned to check what will happen to their UK State Pension before moving, in a recent article from the Daily Express.
The Express headline refers to a potential loss of around £3,200 due to pension freezes in some countries, such as Canada. This is not a new tax, charge or government penalty for retiring overseas. It is an illustration of how much someone can lose over time because their pension does not benefit from annual increases.
Anyone contemplating retirement abroad should check whether the UK State Pension is uprated in their intended country of residence, because the difference can become substantial over a long retirement.
Reform: Proposals to Cut Benefits for Expats
Reform UK’s benefits proposal would remove access to most UK welfare benefits from foreign nationals, including EU citizens with settled status, while also affecting British expats abroad.
The significant consequence for British expatriates is reciprocity. If EU citizens legally resident in Britain lost access to UK benefits, EU countries could respond by withdrawing equivalent welfare rights from British citizens living there.
Reform has explicitly anticipated this. It says that it has budgeted £500 million for the possibility that British expatriates might return to the UK and claim benefits after losing entitlements in EU countries.
Reform MP Danny Kruger said it would be reasonable for European countries to adopt the same principle: that a person’s country of citizenship should ultimately be responsible for their welfare.
Asked specifically about British people abroad receiving disability benefits, Kruger said they might have to return to Britain, although Reform would be open to negotiating arrangements under which the UK continued paying qualifying British citizens abroad.
So the proposal potentially has direct consequences for British residents of EU countries, rather than affecting only migrants living in Britain.
Emigration From the UK Rises
The Financial Times has recently reported a significant increase in young Brits emigrating, but says that describing it as a national “brain drain” is probably an exaggeration.
It reports that 246,000 British citizens left the UK in 2025, more than twice the number who returned, and about three-quarters of those leaving were under 35. The gap between departures and returns has been widening since 2022.
The FT identifies several reasons: poor wage growth, expensive housing, high living costs, rising effective taxation and a weak jobs market, particularly for graduates. Graduate vacancies reportedly fell by 45% year-on-year to fewer than 10,000 at the beginning of 2026. A survey cited by the paper found 63% of young people thought their standard of living was worse than their parents’ generation.
The article uses the example of Ben Russell, a young GP who moved from London to Vancouver. In Britain, he expected to earn roughly £80,500–£92,000; in Canada, he expects eventually to earn about £160,000. Housing illustrates the attraction too: in London, his lodger was paying £1,350 a month for a room, whereas Russell now pays about £1,400 for his own modern one-bedroom Vancouver flat with mountain views.
Australia is another major destination. Recruiters there are actively seeking British professionals and skilled workers. The attraction isn’t simply sunshine: interviewees cite better career prospects, salaries, lifestyle and perceived value for money.
There is an interesting qualification on tax. Britain does have a historically high overall tax burden, but British employees are not exceptionally highly taxed compared with continental Europe. The employee “tax wedge” is lower than in France, Italy and Spain, although higher than in countries such as Canada, Australia and the US. So tax is part of the story, but housing, wages and opportunity appear at least as important.
Finally, the FT pushes back against the more apocalyptic “Britain is losing all its talent” interpretation. Britain still attracts skilled migrants from elsewhere, and some young Brits who leave will eventually return with additional skills and experience. The real danger would arise if Britain simultaneously became less attractive to its own skilled young people and less appealing to talented immigrants.