Find Your Perfect Retirement Destination: A Data-Driven Relocation Tool for 2026
Fig.1. Broken Beach, Sakti, Klungkung Regency, Bali, Indonesia. Photo by Chaitanya Maheshwari on Unsplash.
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TL;DR: The Retirement Relocation Tool helps you shortlist retirement countries by plotting cost of living against a multi-factor “retirement suitability” score (safety, healthcare, stability, climate, and more). This page explains exactly how the tool works, where the data comes from, and its limitations.
Not looking for methodology?
Want the timeline math—how many working years geoarbitrage can save you? → Cut 10 Years or more Off Your FIRE Timeline
Curious about a lifestyle variant that doesn’t require permanent relocation? → Seasonal Geoarbitrage
Checkout are regional retirement rankings—where are the best countries to retire to across Europe, Asia, Latin America, or the Nordics?
Retirement Relocation Tool: How It Works (Methodology + Limitations)
This article explains the methodology behind the Retirement Relocation Tool (Figure 2 below; free for email subscribers), answers common FAQs, and highlights the model’s limitations. (Note: the tool currently works on PC only.)
In our geographic arbitrage framework article, we introduced the core decision logic for choosing retirement countries (cost of living plus quality-of-life constraints like safety, healthcare, stability, pollution, and climate). This tool builds on that foundation by adding more variables and letting you customize weights and cutoffs interactively.
Our interactive Retirement Relocation Tool—free for email subscribers—helps users find their ideal retirement destination by filtering key factors like cost of living, healthcare, climate, and many others. Building on the above-mentioned article, and after receiving initial feedback from several FI communities on Reddit, we have developed a data-driven tool we hope you enjoy.
This tool serves as a starting point to shortlist countries that fit your individual constraints and preferences—so you can narrow down options before doing deeper due diligence and validation. The tool does not replace the need for serious due diligence on a whole set of other factors that are important when deciding where to relocate to (more on this later).
In today’s post, we lay out the methodology underlying the tool, answer FAQs based on feedback received, and disclose any data and methodology limitations that users should be aware of.
How the Retirement Relocation Tool Scores Countries (Method Overview)
The tool generates a visual ranking of countries, plotting a Retirement Suitability score against Cost of Living (COL) to help users compare top retirement destinations. The retirement suitability score is an average of 9 different variables that are relevant to selecting a country to retire to. These variables are Safety, Healthcare, Political Stability, Pollution, Climate, English Proficiency, Openness, Natural Scenery, and Natural Disaster Risk. These factors are further described in Table 1 below, together with their sources and data completeness.
Fig. 2. Screenshot of the Retirement Relocation Tool (PC only; free for email subscribers). The user can use the sliders on the left of the dashboard to determine how important they consider each of the 9 variables to be. The plot then updates the Retirement Suitability score to reflect that personalized preference. To illustrate, moving the Safety lever from 5 to 3 would drop the worst 40% performing countries on that metric. In the end, countries appearing on the bottom right tend to be best—combining low COL with high retirement suitability.
As observed in the screenshot on Figure 2 above, the left panel of the tool presents the 9 different variables that make up the Retirement Suitability score. Users can customize their rankings by selecting or deselecting key factors, allowing the tool to dynamically recalculate results based on their priorities.
In addition, each variable has a slider, which can be moved from 5 (includes all countries) to 1 (includes only top 20% of countries). For example, if we move a slider from 5 to 4, we are dropping from the plot the worst 20% performing countries in that variable. If we move the slider all the way to 1, we are keeping only the top 20% performers in that variable.
These sliders allow the user to define how important these factors are and how strict they want to be with them. One user may want to set Healthcare to 2, while another may consider English Proficiency to be very important and set it to 2.
Users can refine their results by selecting specific continents, helping them focus on regions that meet their preferences. You can remove continents directly above the plot, and this will drop all relevant countries of said continent. Since data availability varies, users can filter out countries with excessive missing values to ensure accurate comparisons for their retirement search. At the top, clear instructions guide users on how to get the most accurate results from the Retirement Relocation Tool.
Limitations
This tool is a shortlisting engine—not a decision engine. It does not account for visas/residency eligibility, personal tax situations, individual healthcare needs, language barriers, or community fit. Use the tool to narrow down candidates, then validate reality through due diligence (visa rules, insurance, taxes, local networks, and on-the-ground visits).
How to use the tool (3 steps)
1) Decide which quality-of-life factors are non-negotiable. Use the sliders on the left to exclude the worst-performing countries in areas you care most about (e.g., safety and healthcare or political stability and climate). Moving a slider from 5 to 3 removes the bottom 40% of countries for that factor.
2) Read the chart in two dimensions: cost of living vs suitability. The plot shows cost of living on the y-axis and a composite retirement suitability score on the x-axis. Rather than “optimizing” a single country, look for clusters that sit meaningfully below your current cost of living while still scoring well on the factors you selected.
3) Shortlist candidates—then validate in the real world. Once you’ve identified a handful of countries that meet your constraints, move beyond the tool: check visas, healthcare access, taxes, language, and community fit. The tool is designed to narrow options, not to make the final decision for you.
Data Sources and Factors Used in the Retirement Relocation Tool
Table 1: Variables considered in the Retirement Relocation Tool.
| Variable | Source | Comment | Data Completeness |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost of Living | Numbeo (2025) | Data sourced from an expat-oriented platform | 106 countries |
| Safety | Numbeo (2025) | Perceived safety reported, not actual crime statistics | 106 countries |
| Healthcare | Numbeo (2025) | Quality of healthcare system, incl. factors such as healthcare professionals, equipment, staff, doctors, and costs | 95 countries |
| Political Stability | World Bank (2023) | Aggregate score of the World Bank's World Governance Indicators (2023): Voice and accountability, political stability, effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption | 106 countries |
| Pollution | Numbeo (2025) | Estimation of overall pollution levels in countries worldwide | 101 countries |
| Climate | Numbeo (2025) | Estimation of the climate likability of a given country | 88 countries |
| English Proficiency | Education First (2024) | Ranking of countries and regions by English skills, based on test results | 93 countries |
| Openness | InterNations (2024) | Ease of Settling In Index is composed of 3 sub-indicators: Finding Friends, Culture & Welcome, and Local Friendliness | 53 countries |
| Natural Scenery | US News (2024) | Survey data of 17,000 individuals across 36 countries | 89 countries |
| Natural Disaster Risk | WorldRiskReport (2024) | Assesses disaster risk by analyzing exposure, vulnerability, and the potential impact of multiple crises, including natural hazards, conflicts, and climate change | 102 countries |
Related guides (recommended next reads)
• Want the timeline math (how many years geoarbitrage can save)? → Cut 10 Years or more Off Your FIRE Timeline
• Curious about a lifestyle variant that doesn’t require permanent relocation? → Seasonal Geoarbitrage
• Checkout are regional retirement rankings—where are the best countries to retire to across Europe, Asia, Latin America, or the Nordics?
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Disclaimer: I am not a financial adviser, and this content is for informational and educational purposes only. Please consult a qualified financial adviser for personalized advice tailored to your situation.
About the author:
Written by David, a former academic scientist with a PhD and over a decade of experience in data analysis, modeling, and market-based financial systems, including work related to carbon markets. I apply a research-driven, evidence-based approach to personal finance and FIRE, focusing on long-term investing, retirement planning, and financial decision-making under uncertainty.
This site documents my own journey toward financial independence, with related topics like work, health, and philosophy explored through a financial independence lens, as they influence saving, investing, and retirement planning decisions.
Retirement Relocation Tool: FAQs
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It’s a fair question–you may be missing a particular variable that is important to you. In general, though, we needed to find variables that were both important for retirement locations and that were also readily available to be used in the form of data. An important aspect this tool does not consider at the moment is Visas or taxes (e.g., CGT). Users must conduct due diligence to see what are the different requirements depending on their individual circumstances. An overview of CGT can be found here.
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As observed in Table 1, we don’t have complete data across all variables. If we chose to plot only countries that have complete data across all 9 variables, the graph would look rather empty. Instead, the user can check or uncheck a box above the graph to exclude or include countries with more than 2 NAs. In general, we recommend hovering over the countries in the plot and examining the data presented: you will clearly see which data is missing for each country.
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Please reach out to us and we will consider expanding the tool to account for other factors!
Lisbon, Portugal. Portugal is a popular destination for retirees and scores very highly on our Retirement Relocation Tool. Photo by Vita Marija Murenaite on Unsplash.
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