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The Retire Abroad Checklist
Most "best places to retire" lists sell you a feeling. This one is the opposite: a plain, unglamorous checklist of the things that actually decide whether retiring abroad works for you, in the order they matter. Work through it for any country on your shortlist. Where a point needs a number, get that number from the official source and write down the date you checked it, because these things change.
1. Visa and legal right to stay
A country you cannot legally stay in is a holiday, not a retirement. Settle this first, from the official immigration source, before anything else.
- Confirm a retirement or passive-income visa actually exists, by name, on the government immigration site.
- Write down the exact monthly income it requires, and whether that figure is per person or per couple.
- Check what counts as income: does a private pension qualify, or only state or annuity income?
- Find the proof they demand: bank statements, a pension letter, an apostilled document, a police check.
- Note the path from the first visa to permanent residency, and how many years it takes.
- Confirm whether you must be physically present for a minimum number of days each year to keep it.
2. Healthcare you can actually use
This is the single factor that changes most as you age, and the one glossy lists ignore. Be specific about your own health, not the average retiree.
- Check whether foreign residents can join the public health system, and after how long.
- Get a real private-insurance quote for your actual age and pre-existing conditions, not a headline rate.
- Confirm there is a hospital you would trust within a sensible distance of where you want to live.
- Ask whether your current medications are legal, available, and affordable there.
- Understand what happens in an emergency: ambulance cover, upfront payment, medical evacuation.
3. Money, tax and pensions
Two countries can both want a slice of your pension. The rules are dull and they matter enormously. Get a professional opinion for your own situation.
- Check whether your home country and the new one have a double-taxation treaty.
- Find out if the country taxes foreign pension income, and at what rate.
- Confirm your state or workplace pension can be paid into a foreign account without penalty.
- Understand currency risk: your pension is in one currency, your costs are in another.
- Check whether you can open a local bank account before you arrive, and what they require.
- Budget the one-time costs no monthly figure includes: the move, deposits, furniture, the first flights back.
4. Daily life and the honest cost
A low headline cost of living hides a lot. Test it against the life you actually want to lead, in the specific town you are considering, not the national average.
- Price a realistic monthly budget for your town, including rent, not the cheapest village figure.
- Rent for six to twelve months before you buy anything. Renting is reversible; buying rarely is.
- Visit in the worst season, not only the best one, before you decide.
- Test the language reality: can you manage a doctor, a lease and a tax office, or only a cafe?
- Check the internet, the roads and the distance to an international airport.
- Find the existing expat and local community, and be honest about whether you would fit into it.
5. The exit and the what-ifs
The best plans have a way out. Decide these before you are emotionally committed, not after.
- Know how you would leave: what selling up, ending the visa and moving home would cost and take.
- Plan for the death or serious illness of one partner, legally and practically.
- Make a will that is valid in the new country, and understand its inheritance rules.
- Keep enough liquid savings to get home and restart if it simply does not work out.
How to use it well
Do not try to find a country that scores a perfect ten on every line. It does not exist. The point of the checklist is to surface the two or three things that would genuinely break the plan for you specifically, your health, your pension, your language, so you can weigh them honestly instead of discovering them after you have moved. When you are ready to compare countries side by side on these factors, our directory scores 40 of them on healthcare, retiree visas, cost, safety, climate and expat community, and shows the source behind every number.