Why this report exists
Most writing about retiring abroad is either a listicle or a sales page. This report is neither. It combines three datasets nobody else holds — the Passquire Expat Survey 2026 (8,014 respondents across the US, UK, Canada, Germany and China), the case files of 2,000+ Americans our sister practice Roots Global has moved to Europe, and 11,400 anonymized screenings from the Passquire Eligibility Tool — with the best published external data, cited throughout.
The short version: the American retirement abroad is no longer an eccentric choice. It is a measurable, accelerating migration with one dominant driver — the arithmetic of cost of living — and a second, fast-growing one: healthcare.
The exodus is real, and the public data shows it
Before our own numbers, the baseline every claim in this report is calibrated against. The Social Security Administration pays roughly 712,000 beneficiaries at foreign addresses (SSA Annual Statistical Supplement, 2025). An estimated 180,000 US citizens emigrated in 2025 (Global Citizen Solutions analysis of DHS data, 2026). Growing numbers go further still: 4,820 Americans renounced citizenship in 2024, and 2025's quarterly lists sum to nearly 4,900 — the highest run since the 2020 pandemic backlog cleared (Federal Register quarterly publications, 2024–2026).
Americans renouncing US citizenship, per year
Renunciation is the extreme end of the exodus — most movers keep their passport. Sums of the four quarterly Federal Register lists per year; 2025 is preliminary.
Federal Register quarterly expatriate publications, 2020–2025
Show data as table
| Year | Renunciations |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 6,705 |
| 2021 | 2,426 |
| 2022 | 3,816 |
| 2023 | 3,260 |
| 2024 | 4,820 |
| 2025 | 4,889 |
Demand for structured routes is climbing faster than the raw emigration numbers. Henley & Partners reports that American applications for residence- and citizenship-by-investment programmes nearly doubled in 2025, with the US its largest source market since 2023 — and, tellingly, only 7% of those applications come from Americans already living abroad (Henley Private Wealth Migration Report, 2026). The rest are planning their exit from inside the country.
What 8,014 respondents told us
The Passquire Expat Survey 2026 asked movers and serious planners why they are going, what they will spend, and where. The driver question produces the clearest answer in the whole dataset: 68% put cost of living among their top three reasons, and 39% name it first — more than healthcare and lifestyle combined.
Why Americans retire abroad — the drivers, ranked
Share of respondents naming each driver among their top three reasons; 39% name cost of living first.
Passquire Expat Survey 2026, n=8,014 US respondents
Show data as table
| Driver | Top-3 mention share |
|---|---|
| Cost of living | 68% |
| Healthcare costs & access | 31% |
| Lifestyle & climate | 24% |
| Political climate | 19% |
| Family / partner ties | 11% |
The cost result is not abstract dissatisfaction — it is arithmetic. US households aged 65+ spend an average of $5,119 a month (BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2024). Our respondents budgeting a comfortable retirement abroad report a median of $2,850. That 44% gap is the single number that explains most of this report.
A comfortable month: US baseline vs reported budgets abroad
Median comfortable monthly budget reported by survey respondents per destination, against the US 65+ spending average.
Passquire Expat Survey 2026 · US baseline: BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024
Show data as table
| Location | Monthly budget |
|---|---|
| US average, 65+ (BLS) | $5,119 |
| Spain | $3,150 |
| Portugal | $2,950 |
| Costa Rica | $2,600 |
| Mexico | $2,350 |
| Panama | $2,300 |
| Thailand | $1,950 |
Destination preferences split two ways: 57% of US respondents name a European destination first — Portugal and Spain dominate — while 28% look to Latin America, led by Mexico, Panama and Costa Rica. That matches what independent surveys find on the ground: in the InterNations Expat Insider 2026 ranking, Panama ranked the best country for expats for the third consecutive year, with Mexico second and Thailand third — and 85% of expats in Thailand rate their cost of living positively.
Underneath the country picks sits a quieter pattern: proximity trades against price. Respondents choosing Mexico and Panama cite flight time to US family and the dollar (Panama is dollarized) nearly as often as cost; respondents choosing Portugal and Spain accept a longer flight in exchange for EU healthcare, walkable towns and — increasingly — a path that can end in an EU passport. Thailand is the outlier that proves the budget rule: the lowest reported comfortable budget in our set, chosen almost purely on cost and climate, with visa mechanics (the O-A's insurance requirement, the LTR's income bar) accepted as the price of entry.
Timing matters as much as place. Two-thirds of respondents who had already moved said they wished they had started the paperwork a year earlier than they did — residence clocks, apostille chains and appointment backlogs consume months before any plane is boarded. The planning window our case files suggest is 12 to 18 months from decision to residence card in the smoother destinations, longer where processing backlogs persist.
The healthcare wildcard
Healthcare is the second driver in our survey — 31% put it in their top three reasons, and among respondents over 65 that share climbs to 39%. It is also the least planned-for. Two US facts do the pushing: American health spending per person is the highest in the world, and Medicare, for almost all purposes, stops at the border. A retiree who leaves keeps paying Part B premiums or gives up the fallback — a decision most of our respondents had not priced in before speaking to an adviser.
On the destination side, the pattern in our client files is consistent: movers under 70 with no chronic conditions insure privately for a fraction of US rates, while movers past 70 hit the quiet wall almost nobody writes about — age caps on new private policies in several popular destinations. That single constraint reshapes more retirement plans in our practice than any visa rule. It is why the Healthcare Hedger persona below chooses Spain and Portugal, where residence eventually opens public systems, over destinations where private cover is the only door and it closes at 75.
The survey numbers put weight behind it: 58% of respondents who had already moved rate their healthcare abroad as better value than what they left, and 22% rate the care itself as better outright. Only 9% report it as worse — concentrated in rural relocations far from a private hospital.
What 2,000+ real relocations show
Survey intentions are one thing; case files are another. Across the 2,000+ American clients the Roots Global relocation practice has taken through European residence processes, retirement-track cases grew 2.4× between 2023 and 2025 — the fastest-growing segment of the practice. The destination mix within those files is narrower than the survey's wish list: Portugal and Spain account for the clear majority of completed retirement relocations, largely because their passive-income visas (D7, Non-Lucrative) have income floors an ordinary Social Security check can meet.
The same shift is visible in public program data: Americans are now the largest applicant nationality in Portugal's Golden Visa — up from a 5.2% share in 2019 to more than 20% — and program approvals rose 72% by mid-2025 with Americans the main recipients (IMI Daily reporting on AIMA data, 2025).
What 11,400 eligibility screenings reveal
The Passquire Eligibility Tool asks one brutally practical question: does your income clear a visa's floor? Across 11,400 anonymized screenings, the median monthly passive income entered is $2,340. Held against the income requirements of the 22 retirement visas we track, that median clears 14 of them — including Portugal's D7, Panama's Pensionado and Spain's NLV for couples pooling income — but falls short of the higher-floor options like Ireland's Stamp 0.
The practical meaning: for the median American retiree, the barrier to retiring abroad is not money. It is paperwork, sequencing, and knowing which door fits.
Methodology
Survey. The Passquire Expat Survey 2026 was fielded online in Q1–Q2 2026 among 8,014 adults aged 30+ who have either moved abroad in the past five years or rate themselves "seriously considering" a move within five years; retirement findings draw on the 5,900 respondents aged 45+. Sample: 61% United States, with UK, Canada, Germany and China panels for contrast. Results are weighted by age band and income bracket. Note our respondent pool is move-inclined by design — shares are not representative of the general population. Client data. Aggregated, anonymized case metadata from Roots Global relocations, 2021–2025; no individual client information is published. Eligibility Tool. Anonymized self-reported screening inputs, 2025–2026, deduplicated by session. External data is cited inline with publisher and year; full sources on request in the PDF edition.
Takeaways
- The driver is arithmetic, not adventure. A 44% budget gap against the US baseline does the persuading; everything else is secondary.
- Healthcare is the rising second driver — and the least-planned-for one. Medicare does not travel; insurability past 70 shapes real destination choices.
- Europe wins intentions, income floors decide outcomes. Wish lists say Portugal and Spain; case files agree only because their visas fit a Social Security check.
- The median retiree already qualifies. $2,340/month clears 14 of 22 tracked retirement visas. The constraint is knowledge, not wealth.
- Start the clock early. The fastest-growing persona in our data hasn't retired yet — they are moving in their 50s so residence years accrue before the pension starts. For the investment-led route, see our Portugal Golden Visa guide and the demand data in our Golden Visa Report 2026.