Cost of Retiring Abroad Calculator
What it costs, and how long the money lasts
Two models. The first compares your budget against real local costs in every country in the atlas. The second projects your savings forward, and lets you push the currency against yourself to see what a bad decade would actually do.
Your budget against every country
How long will the money last?
A transparent model, not a black box. It compounds your savings at a nominal return, raises your income by a cost-of-living adjustment, raises your spending by local inflation, and lets you apply a currency shock. Everything is visible and everything is editable.
On these assumptions the money outlasts the 35-year horizon.
- Monthly gap covered from savings
- $600
- Savings at year 10
- $504,953
- Savings at year 20
- $578,479
- Money lasts
- beyond the modelled horizon
This is arithmetic, not advice. It assumes a constant return rather than a sequence of good and bad years, which real markets do not provide, and it ignores tax, healthcare shocks and long-term care. Treat the answer as a direction, stress-test it by dragging the currency slider against yourself, and take proper financial advice before acting.
Common questions
How reliable is the runway model?
It is transparent arithmetic rather than a forecast. It assumes a constant return instead of a real sequence of good and bad years, and it ignores tax, healthcare shocks and long-term care. Use it to compare scenarios against each other, not to predict a number.
Why is there a currency slider?
Because currency risk is the most underestimated threat to a dollar-denominated retirement abroad. If your income is in dollars and your costs are in another currency, a 20 percent adverse move is a 20 percent pay cut you cannot earn back. Drag the slider against yourself and see whether the plan still works.
Which countries remove that risk?
Panama, Ecuador and Belize. The first two use the U.S. dollar directly and Belize pegs to it at two to one. For a fixed dollar income that is worth more than most people credit.
Authoritative sources
Where anything here disagrees with one of these, the official source is right. Tell us and we will correct it.
- SSA: Your Payments While You Are Outside the United States
- SSA: Payments Abroad Screening Tool
- SSA: Totalization agreements
- Medicare: coverage outside the United States
- IRS: U.S. citizens and resident aliens abroad
- IRS: Foreign Earned Income Exclusion
- IRS: Foreign Tax Credit
- FinCEN: Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts
- IRS: United States income tax treaties A to Z
- Federal Voting Assistance Program
- Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP)
- U.S. embassies and consulates directory
- European Commission: Entry/Exit System
- European Commission: ETIAS official site
- HCCH: Apostille Convention status table Which countries accept an apostille, and from what date.
- U.S. Department of State: Records and Authentications Federal document authentication, including the Office of Authentications.
- U.S. Department of State: country information Entry, exit, safety and local law, country by country.
Verified Sep 7, 2026 Primary sources: travel.state.gov, www.hcch.net
- Nicaragua $600 Pensionado Residency
- Philippines $800 Special Resident Retiree Visa (SRRV) Classic
- Cyprus $872 Category F Permanent Residence (persons of independent means)
- Costa Rica $1,000 Pensionado (Retiree Residency)
- Panama $1,000 Pensionado (Retiree and Pensioner Permanent Residency)
- Peru $1,000 Rentista Visa (Permanent Residence for people with passive income)
- Portugal $1,003 D2 Entrepreneur / Independent Professional Visa
- Croatia $1,090 Temporary Residence (other purposes, including property ownership)
- Venezuela $1,200 Pensioner Residency (Rentista / Pensionado)
- Colombia $1,370 Migrant Visa M-11 (Pensionado / Retirement Visa)
- Ecuador $1,446 Temporary Resident Visa: Pensioner (Jubilado)
- Argentina $1,500 Pensionado Visa (Temporary Residence for pensioners)
- Brazil $1,500 Digital Nomad Visa
- Chile $1,500 Temporary Residence Visa for persons with their own means (rentista)
- Dominican Republic $1,500 Pensionado Residency (Law 171-07 fast track)
- Thailand $1,900 Non-Immigrant O-A Long Stay Visa (Retirement)
- Belize $2,000 Qualified Retired Persons Program (QRP)
- Uruguay $2,500 Permanent Residency for Pensioners and Rentiers
- France $2,834 Long-Stay Visitor Visa (VLS-TS visiteur)
- Italy $2,943 Digital Nomad / Remote Worker Visa
- Spain $3,107 Digital Nomad Visa (international teleworker authorisation)
- Malaysia $3,300 Sarawak-MM2H (S-MM2H)
- Mexico $4,400 Residente Temporal (Temporary Resident Visa) by economic solvency
- Greece $4,578 Financially Independent Person Visa (FIP)
A threshold is what the government asks you to prove, not what you need to live on. In several countries, notably Mexico, the visa threshold is well above a comfortable local budget. Compare this against the cost figures rather than reading it alone.
This resource is provided free by Federal Apostille as an educational tool. It is not legal, tax, immigration or financial advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created by using it. Immigration rules, income thresholds, fees and processing times change frequently and often without notice, and consulates apply them differently. Always confirm current requirements with the official government source and the specific consulate that has jurisdiction over your U.S. state of residence before you act. Every figure on this site carries the date we last verified it and a link to the primary source.
