Where the numbers come from
World Bank Open Data
- GDP per capita, PPP (current int$)
- PPP conversion factor, GDP
- Official exchange rate (period average)
- Life expectancy at birth
- Population
NASA POWER (MERRA-2 climatology)
- Long-term temperature & precipitation climatology, 3 cities/country
The five factors
Each country's radar has five axes, all scored 0–100 from the sourced values above — never hand-set:
- Affordability
- Inverse of the World Bank national price-level ratio (PPP conversion factor ÷ market exchange rate) — cheaper relative to the US scores higher.
- Healthcare
- The WHO Universal Health Coverage service-coverage index (0–100), used directly.
- Climate comfort
- A comfort curve over the NASA POWER annual and monthly means — peaking near 21 °C, penalised for very hot summers or cold winters across the sample cities.
- Longevity
- World Bank life expectancy at birth, min-max scaled across all covered countries.
- Prosperity
- Log of GDP per capita (PPP, current international $), min-max scaled — a proxy for infrastructure and services.
The overall match is the simple average of whichever of the five scores are available for a country.
Retirement visas
Visa summaries are drafted by an AI model strictly from official government pages, then held for human review before they count as verified. Each carries the official source link and the date it was drafted. Requirements and thresholds change often — treat every summary as a starting point, not the final word, and always confirm on the government site.
Cost figures we withhold
Our cost-of-living figure is the World Bank price level (PPP conversion factor ÷ market exchange rate, US = 1.0). That ratio only means something when a country's exchange rate is a real market rate. Where it isn't — hyperinflation, currency pegs, capital controls, or multiple official rates — the number collapses toward zero or blows up past the US, which would produce nonsense like “100% cheaper.” So for those economies we withhold the cost figure (marked “not reliably comparable”) and leave that country out of the affordability score. Every other real figure — health, climate, longevity, prosperity, visa path — is still shown, and the country is still fully browsable.
What the front page shows
The homepage superlatives and featured cards surface places a retiree could realistically move to, not statistical extremes. To appear there a country needs a reliable cost figure, complete health and climate data, and a real long-stay or residency pathway. Every one of the 180 countries stays fully browsable from All countries and its own profile — this is a presentation filter, never a deletion.
Honest limits
- All figures are national-level. Real costs vary widely by city and lifestyle.
- Climate normals come from a small sample of representative cities, not the whole country.
- Scores are comparative tools, not guarantees — they rank, they don't predict your experience.
- This is a research aid, not financial, immigration, or tax advice.