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  • Home
  • Countries

    Top Destinations:

    Whether you’re looking for fun and sun, a peaceful retirement, or the chance to earn some extra income, you’ve got a real world of opportunity open to you… In short, we’ve done our best to narrow down your best options, but only you can decide the right country for you.

    • Spain
    • Portugal
    • Panama
    • Belize
    • Colombia
    • Cyprus
    • Mexico
    • France
    • Montenegro
    • Browse All Countries

    Best For:

    • The Best Places To Retire
    • Health Care Abroad
    • Cost Of Living
    • Investing in Real Estate
    • Establishing Residency
    • Gun Laws In The World
    • English-Speaking Countries
    • Safest Places For Retirement
    • Best Places In Latin America
  • Budgets

    How Much Will It Cost You To Live Overseas?

    The only honest answer is, we have no idea. And neither does anyone else. The only one who can answer that question is you. Here’s the most important thing to understand about budgeting your new life overseas…

    Super Cheap

    • Chitré, Panama
    • Santa Marta, Colombia
    • Phuket, Thailand
    • Dumaguete, The Philippines

    Cheap

    • Medellin, Colombia
    • Boquete, Panama
    • Kyrenia, Cyprus
    • Hua Hin, Thailand
    • The Algarve, Portugal

    Affordable

    • Valencia, Spain
    • Cascais, Portugal
    • Las Terrenas, The DR
    • Pisa, Italy
    • La Rochelle, France
    • Mazatlán, Mexico

    Luxury

    • Ambergris Caye, Belize
    • Kotor, Montenegro
    • The Panama City Beaches
    • Paris, France
  • Resources

    Global Living

    • Living & Retiring Overseas
    • Raising A Family Abroad
    • Foreign Residency & Citizenship
    • Offshore & Diversification

    Making Money

    • International Real Estate
    • Banking
    • Employment
    • Investing

    Follow Us:

    • Meet Our Experts
  • Real Estate

    Buying Real Estate For Cashflow

    • Discover tips and strategies used by global property investing veterans

    Explore Our Latest Posts

    • Learn how to invest and purchase property abroad…

    Go To The Overseas Property Alert Site

    • How To Become Independently Wealthy And Fund The Lifestyle Of Your Dreams
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    • Explore Our Events Site

    Live and Invest In Spain Conference

    Offshore Wealth Summit

    Greece Workshop

    VALENCIA, SPAIN

    Sep. 17-19, 2025

    PANAMA CITY, PANAMA

    Oct. 15-17, 2025

    VIRTUAL

    Nov. 13, 2025

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    Toll-Free U.S. and Canada:
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    Reach us with your questions by email at: events@liveandinvestoverseas.com

  • Store

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    • Titles on living and investing around the world
    • Explore Our Store
    Your passport to a life well-lived abroad

    Services

    overseas living letter offers affordable retirement guidance
    The Simon Letter Wealth Protection Insights
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    Our Customer Service team is here to assist with any questions or concerns CustomerService@LiveandInvestOverseas.com

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Home Countries Europe

What You Need To Know Before Starting A New Life In Europe

by Kathleen Peddicord
Oct 29, 2021
in Europe, Investment, Lifestyle, Real Estate, Residency/Citizenship, Retirement/Living
0 0
Paris, France life in europe

Credit: AdobeStock/Ekaterina Belova

Europe has been a draw for me since I was in high school. I saved up my junior year to take a whirlwind tour of Europe… 9 countries in 30 days by bus.

It was on the trip that the seed of the idea of spending time in Europe was planted. Potential complications like residency, taxes, and cost of living didn’t occur to me. Those weren’t terms I was familiar with yet.

Decades later, I’ve lived in Ireland and France full-time and am now settling into an annual pattern of part of the year in Paris and part in Panama with travel to other places mixed in.

And now I understand the residency, tax, and cost of living questions relevant to living in Europe clearly.

Many people believe that these points make Europe an impossibility for a North American retiree, but that’s not the case.

Europe offers many options for residency—including some as easy and affordable as options in the Americas. The tax burden for retirees, especially, isn’t what most people think it is. And the cost of living in many places can be the same or less than it is in the United States.

The question is where do you want to be.

The easiest way to be able to live in a European country is to become an EU citizen. I did it by putting in my time in Ireland and becoming naturalized.

However, many people are eligible for citizenship in Europe through ancestry.

Ireland would be on that list, but so are Italy, Hungary, Spain, and others. The requirements vary by country, but Ireland and Italy are simple. If you have a grandparent who was a citizen, you are likely eligible for citizenship, as well.

If citizenship by ancestry isn’t in the cards for you, then look to the residency-by-income options. Most European countries allow you to apply for residency if you can prove you can support yourself without working—that is that you have enough pension, Social Security, or passive income from investments to meet their minimum income requirements. The threshold is different for every country.

Ireland doesn’t win in this category. Its minimum income requirement is 50,000 euros per person per year. That means a retired couple has to show 100,000 euros of passive income annually. At the other end of the scale is Portugal, where a single person can qualify by showing as little as 15,000 euros of income a year and a couple by proving just 18,000 euros annually.

Or you could invest in property.

Portugal, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Latvia, and some others offer Golden Visa residency options that allow you to gain legal residency by investing in real estate. Sometimes other investments count as well. The investment amounts start at 250,000 euros and go up to a couple of million depending on the program and whether it’s a fast track to citizenship.

In the case of Montenegro and Northern Cyprus, you can qualify simply by buying property—any property of any value.

Slovenia doesn’t have a Golden Visa program, but you can get residency in this country by buying a property of 50,000 euros or more.

The residency question taken care of, what about taxes? Aren’t they onerous in Europe?

Europe is definitely a high tax destination, but you have to look at what taxes you’d actually be eligible for as a retiree. Employed people in Europe are hit with high social charges known in the United States as Social Security or payroll taxes. In the States, you pay 7.65% as the employee and the employer pays the same amount. In France, the employee pays 27% and the employer 42%, for example.

However, as a retiree, you won’t be liable for these social charges in Europe.

And, no, you won’t likely be double-taxed either.

Tax treaties mean that Social Security is typically taxed on the U.S. side rather than in the country where you’re residing. Non-government pensions would be taxed by your country of residence.

Likewise your IRA distributions, meaning you may want to do some planning before moving.

Investment income would be taxed by your country of residence, as well, with tax credits on the U.S. side.

Marginal income tax bands in Europe rival those in the United States, with top bands higher than the States. However, most people don’t fall into the top band in the United States or elsewhere. In other words, the effective tax on your income probably won’t be any greater than it is wherever you’re living Stateside.

And, remember, if you move overseas full-time, you’ll no longer be burdened with U.S. state taxes.

Property taxes are generally less in Europe than you’d pay on a similar value property in the United States. In fact, in Croatia they are zero. Ireland didn’t charge property tax either when we moved there more than two decades ago, though they’ve changed that and do now.

The property transfer tax can be what gets you in Europe. Transfer taxes range from 0% to 10%, depending on the country. The rate in Portugal is tiered, starting at 0% for properties under 93,000 euros and increasing to 7.5% for properties selling for more than 1 million euros.

One other tax to compare and consider in Europe is the value added tax (VAT), their sales tax. It’s included in the marked prices on products so it’s hidden. However, it ranges from 17% to 25%, depending on the country. Some goods are taxed at a reduced rate.

Those rates are higher than any total sales tax (state, county, and municipal) in the United States.

Cost Of Living In Europe

That brings us to the cost of living in Europe, which, frankly, can be as high or as low as you make it. Europe has discount stores. You just have to find them. European shops offer sales, historically only seasonally but this is changing.

Living in Europe for decades as we’ve done, we’ve come to think through purchases more carefully. Do we really need that new pair of boots or that spare salad bowl? Will we actually use them? And do we have space for them?

It’s liberating.

As for groceries, a bottle of drinkable wine can be a few euros. That fancy French imported cheese you buy in Iowa isn’t an import in France.

What can push your grocery bill up is buying groceries from the small shop on the corner. Just as you wouldn’t do your main grocery shopping in a 7-11 in the United States, you shouldn’t go to your corner grocer for your weekly shop. Go to the nearest big grocery store or, better, shop online and have your groceries delivered. Delivery’s usually free.

The biggest thing to consider when it comes to cost of living is housing. Again and especially in the case of where you choose to live, the cost can be as big or as small as you make it.

Tourists and localson Champ de Mars Paris
Adobe Stock/Photocreo Bednarek

You can’t buy a small studio apartment in central Paris for less than 500,000 euros. However, look in the outer arrondissements and you might find something starting at 300,000 euros. Look outside the Périphérique in the suburbs and that same 300,000 euros might buy you a nice-sized place. Head to some small town in the south of France and those 300,000 euros will buy you a house.

Head to Abruzzo in Italy and you can find some absolutely cheap options… country homes in need of renovation for less than 100,000 euros.

Look to Montenegro and you can find a newly constructed small apartment for less than 100,000 euros.

A three-bedroom villa in Istria, Croatia, might run as little as 300,000 euros.

Or you could rent. Again, the cost of a rental varies dramatically depending not only on the country but also where specifically in a country you choose to locate yourself.

In the end, your cost of living is highly manageable.

Tags: 'France'Europelife in europe
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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has reported on opportunities for Americans to live, retire, and do business overseas for 40 years. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 24, established businesses in 7, renovated and built properties in 6, and educated her children in 5.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets from the east coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland, then to Paris, France, and finally to Panama City, Panama, where she has based her Live And Invest Overseas business. Peddicord and her husband, Lief Simon, now divide their time between Panama and Paris.

Peddicord was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. She opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Waterford, Ireland; Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France. Peddicord launched Live And Invest Overseas group in 2008 and has built it into a successful multimillion-dollar business. Today, she shares her firsthand experience of expat life with more than 500,000 readers of her publications, including Overseas Opportunity Letter and Overseas Living Letter.

Kathleen has been featured often in The New York Times, MSNBC, AARP, CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, and more and writes monthly about expat matters, international real estate, and offshore diversification for Forbes and U.S. News.

Kathleen has written several books including the memoirs “At Home In Ireland” and “At Home At Los Islotes” and her latest title “At Home Abroad,” all published by Lahardan Books. Her best-selling "How To Retire Overseas: Everything You Need To Know To Live Well (For Less) Abroad” was published by Penguin Random House in 2018 and her “Buying Real Estate Overseas For Cash Flow (And A Better Life)” was published by Wiley in August 2020.

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