What this is
A country reference for anyone considering a move: visas and residence timelines, IT salaries, housing and grocery costs, rules for a partner, children and parents, bringing pets, safety, climate and natural hazards.
Data completeness
- Fully collected
- 141
- Partly
- 35
- Basics only
- 1
Countries with incomplete data are marked as such. Filling them with approximate figures would be worse than leaving a gap: an error in an income threshold or a quarantine period can cost someone months.
How much is collected and how much is confirmed
Individual values, 9,471 of them at present, are stored with their source, publication date and collection date. That makes it possible to show not only what has been collected but also what is not yet confirmed.
- Values in total
- 9471
- Of those, with a source
- 7412
- Sources on record
- 18
Some values still have no traceable source, and showing that is more honest than hiding it. Early data was collected so that only the result survived: the original amount, currency and rate were not recorded. Recovering them means reading the source again, so provenance appears for a value the next time it is rechecked. The counter counts only filled values: a row created for a country that has no data is a gap, not a value missing a source, and padding the denominator with it would be flattering and wrong.
By section
- Basic needs
- 27 of 43 fields · 4,693 values
- Statistics and risks
- 25 of 26 fields · 3,315 values
- Grounds for moving
- 15 of 18 fields · 1,008 values
- Geography
- 1 of 2 fields · 264 values
- Cost of moving
- 3 of 9 fields · 191 values
The “Cost of moving” section has started: fees for a long-stay visa and for a first work-based residence permit are collected — so far for a handful of countries, because there is no single source and each country's tariff has to be read in its own act. Still ahead: tickets, sworn translation, diploma recognition, proof of funds and preparing pets.
What is measured and what is calculated
Sources publish rents for one- and three-bedroom flats and almost never for two. The middle figure is therefore usually calculated rather than measured. Of 252 cities with complete rent data, 129 have a calculated two-bedroom figure.
Checks against official data put the error within a few per cent: a Statistics Finland survey differed by up to 2%, a sample of 900 listings in Qatar by about 4%. But in Australia, where rental bond registry data is available, the real two-bedroom price sat noticeably closer to the one-bedroom, and the calculation overstated it by 5–8%.
Housing is measured asbedrooms, not rooms. What Russian listings call a “two-room” flat is one bedroom plus a living room.
How a source is chosen
When sources disagree, the priority is fixed in advance and does not depend on which answer is more convenient: the country's own authority, then an intergovernmental body, then an industry report, and only then crowdsourced aggregators.
Crowdsourced platforms are used where no official statistics exist — prices above all. Their weaknesses are known: thin samples in smaller cities, a bias towards pricier districts, and some values filled in by an algorithm. Those spots are flagged during review.
Sources
- Official immigration service and veterinary authority sites
- World Bank — life expectancy, governance quality, inequality, price levels
- UNODC — homicide statistics
- Eurostat — theft and vehicle theft statistics across the EU
- WHO — road traffic deaths
- INFORM (European Commission) — natural hazard indices
- MIPEX — migrant integration policy
- Transparency International — perceptions of corruption
- Ookla — internet speeds
- Hague Conference on Private International Law — status of the Apostille Convention
- Open-Meteo — climate normals
- Industry salary surveys and cost-of-living aggregators
How it is updated
Every indicator has its own shelf life, set separately. A climate normal does not go stale on this project's timescale, prices last about a month, annual indices a year, and visa rules no more than a quarter.
Currently updated automaticallyclimate and life expectancy. The remaining API-served indicators — crime, corruption, inequality, air quality — are still moved by hand; putting them on a schedule is in progress.
Cannot be automated at all:visas, family reunification, bringing pets, paperwork. These are not datasets but legal texts in each country's own language: they have to be read and interpreted, not parsed.
Every country shows when it was last updated.
Important warning
This site is for reference andis not legal, tax or immigration advice. We do not prepare documents and do not represent applicants.
Immigration advice is a regulated activity in many countries. For personal help, consult a licensed professional in the relevant jurisdiction.
Rules change constantly. Before deciding anything, check the primary sources linked on each country's page.
Found an error
Agencies move pages, laws are repealed, deadlines change - and the person living in the country may be the first to notice. If the data has diverged from the primary source, or a link has stopped opening, write to us: for a reference work this is the most useful feedback there is.
We do not give personal relocation advice - for the reasons set out above.