HOW THIS WORKS
Methodology & sources
A retirement decision deserves real numbers with real sources. Every figure on this site traces to one of the feeds below and carries its vintage. Nothing is invented to fill a gap — when a source has no value, we show a dash.
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.
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.